Have you been feeling stressed lately? People are quick to assume that stress is just a fact of life. In reality, this isn’t the case at all. Too much stress can have a massive impact on your overall health and wellbeing. That’s why it’s important to be aware of the signs that you are overstressed along with the steps that you can and perhaps should take to correct the situation. In doing so, you can effectively preserve your wellbeing and avoid a situation where you constantly feel exhausted or overwhelmed. This is all too common in a day and age where life seems to be moving far too quickly. So, with that in mind, let’s explore some of the major signs that you are overstressed.
Signs You Are Overstressed
There are lots of signs that you might be overstressed so let’s tackle each one head on. First, you may find that you have a low level of energy overall. This can stop you from feeling as though you can get out of bed or wake up in the morning. It’s a problem because it might mean that you are late for work or unable to fulfill personal commitments. This can quickly become a nightmare and have ripple effects on every aspect of your life.
You might also struggle to get enough sleep each night. Trouble sleeping is another reason why you could have low levels of energy if you are overly stressed and feeling overwhelmed in general. You might go to bed at a reasonable hour and then spend a solid portion of the night staring up at the ceiling, with the worries running rampant through your head.
Stress can also have a physical impact on your body. It can change the appearance of your hair, your skin, and your weight. It’s true what they say. If you are overly stressed, then you are more likely to notice grey hairs or even turn white. You could also find that your hair feels thinner and you might find it’s falling out in clumps when you have a shower or bath. This is a clear warning sign that you need to get your levels of stress under greater control.
Changes to your skin could include skin inflammation. A key part of skin inflammation prevention does involve ensuring that you are not feeling overless stressed or massively overwhelmed in general. Once you get your levels of stress and anxiety under control, you should notice a significant difference to the appearance of your skin.
If you are struggling with stress, you could even find that you have issues with chronic pain. The mind doesn’t always know how to deal with or understand stress. So, instead of working through it, it changes it into a form that it does understand and can manage. Pain can be psychological and stress might be the reason why you wake up with pain in different parts of your body each morning.
Common Causes Of Stress
Next, you should think about some of the more common causes of stress. By identifying the causes, you can prevent it from gaining a firm grip on your life.
Some of the common causes can include aspects of your life such as diet. Believe it or not, the wrong diet can have an impact on your levels of tension and anxiety. The reason for this is that your body isn’t getting the fuel that it needs to function correctly.
You could also find that you are struggling with stress because of issues with your lifestyle. For instance, you might be working in a job that is causing you a high level of stress. There are lots of jobs and careers that cause people far more tension compared to others.
It could even be the people around you who are causing you to feel anxious. Whether they realize it or not, there are certain people that can play havoc with your stress levels and may even be considered toxic. You’ll need to consider whether it is worth keeping these individuals around in your life.
Steps You Can Take To Reduce Stress
Once you understand the signs and causes of stress, you can then focus on taking the right measures to correct the issues. Here are some of the best options we recommend you explore.
Exercise
Exercise is a great way of tackling issues with stress. By exercising regularly, you can make sure that you can work off the tension in your life. This doesn’t even need to be a high impact form of exercise. Low impact exercises can work wonders too and ensure that you don’t feel as though the stress is building with no escape. You could even try options like cold water swimming. This is known to provide benefits for the body as well as the mind.
Mental Health Options
Another option would be to take steps to improve your mental health. Mindfulness and meditation can do wonders here. Once you learn how to meditate you will be able to tackle the problems in life that are causing you stress head on. That’s critical as it means that they won’t be making you feel totally overwhelmed. You could also consider speaking to a cognitive therapist. It’s important to be aware that issues with stress can be deep rooted and be caused by problems that have been impacting your life for years or even decades. By speaking to a therapist, you’ll be able to unlock these barriers and ensure that they are no longer impacting your life.
Remove Triggers
You might also want to think about approaching stress by addressing the triggers that cause you to feel overwhelmed or mean that you have less energy than usual. There are lots of triggers that could be relevant here and this is always going to be specific to the individual. As mentioned, it could be people in your life that are causing you stress. Or, it might be certain situations related to work. You could even find that you are struggling with high levels of stress because of issues with your diet, as we mentioned above. Once you understand your triggers you’ll find it easier to avoid them or at the very least, put the right coping strategies in place.
Make Life Changes
Finally, you may want to consider making the right changes to your life to ensure that stress isn’t getting the better of you. Little life changes are important because here but big steps can be significant too. For instance, if you do think that your levels of stress are tied to your work, then it could be worth thinking about making a career change. Changing careers can be a daunting and frightening prospect. However, it may also be worth it. Particularly, if your current job or role is having a particularly negative impact on your mental health and general wellbeing.
We hope this helps you understand some of the key signs that you are overstressed and the steps that you can take. Making the right changes here will ensure that you are improving your wellbeing in the long term and not just making short term differences. If you are concerned that you are struggling with stress or feeling a heavy burden, it’s always important to make sure that you are reaching out to those who can help. You should never just sit in silence waiting for things to get better because they probably won’t. Indeed, if you don’t take the right steps, you may find that they just keep getting worse.