Apr 6, 2021
Mental & emotional stress + 5 Things You Can Do About It – Dr. Jason Jones Elizabeth City, NC, Chiropractor
In today’s fast paced world, we are often overwhelmed with mental & emotional stress. You often get to think of how to manage your finances, watch over your kids, get busy at work, and cope with challenging relationships.
Stress is everywhere, and you’re not alone. It is actually okay if it is not too much, but when stress becomes chronic, it can wear you down and affect you both mentally and emotionally. You tend to experience the following symptoms:
- Agitation, frustration, and moodiness
- Difficulty relaxing and quieting your mind
- Feeling bad about yourself, worthless, lonely, and depressed
- Feeling like you’re losing control or need to take control
- Avoiding others
- Forgetfulness and disorganization
- Poor judgment
- Inability to focus
- Constant worrying
- Being pessimistic
When you get stressed always like many of us in today’s busy world, your body tend to get into a heightened state of stress all the time, and that can trigger serious health problems.
Apart from the mental and emotional consequence, stress can disrupt nearly every system in your body. It can upset your digestive and reproductive system, suppress your immune system, and increase your risk of heart attack and stroke. Besides, it speeds up your aging process.
Stress and Depression
When too much stress hormones are released in your body system, the byproducts can act as a sedative and contribute to a sustained feeling of low energy and depression.
Nurturing negative thoughts like you’re incapable of managing stress can increase your chance of becoming stressed.
While it is normal to face a range of moods in everyday life, it becomes a problem when depressing feelings linger for too long. It begins to interfere with your daily activities and ability to enjoy successful interpersonal relationships.
When depression persist for too long, it become major and you can begin to notice symptoms like self-hate, inability to concentrate, guilt, restlessness, and hopelessness.
You can also face depression as a result of suicidal thinking and actions, and this can make you vulnerable to developing mental disorders.
Stress and Anxiety
Being stressed may also lead to some outward signs of anxiety, such as tapping your feet, fidgeting, biting your finger nails, etc. When the stress hormones are activated for too long, it can contribute to severe feelings such as nausea, racing heartbeat, sweaty palms, etc.
Anxiety that persists for too long can also cause you to worry too much about upcoming events or situations, and that can lead to avoidance.
Stress and worry
When your mind is constantly dwelling on negative thoughts and uncertain issues, you tend to become stressed out.
For example, worries about being unable to pay your rent or performing poorly on an exam tends to stimulate your brain to think of a solution, but when you get stuck thinking about the problem, you become deeply stressed and worry stops being functional.
How to handle stressful conditions
For you to improve your ability to handle stress to protect your mental and emotional health, you need to:
- Get moving by improving on your activity level.
- Connect to others
- Eat a healthy diet
- Learn to relax
- Get your rest
Always remember that stress is a part of life and what matters is how you handle it. Know your stress symptoms and talk to your doctor about it.
You can consult Dr. Jason Jones at our chiropractic office in Elizabeth City, NC to learn more about mental and emotional stress, how to evaluate your symptoms and the best way to better handle your stress.