How have you felt this year? If you’ve felt under the weather consistently, battled ongoing sleep disturbances, and frequently had a stomach ache, you may be experiencing chronic stress. While we all know the scary consequences of stress, we often think there’s something else contributing to our headaches, skin concerns, or agitation. But the mind and body are one entity, and it’s important to know the ways stress impacts your physical health to help you cope and heal.
8 Ways Stress Impacts Your Physical Health and How to Cope
1. Cardiovascular problems
When our body perceives stress, the sympathetic nervous system releases stress hormones like adrenaline and cortisol to initiate action, our fight-flight-freeze-or-fawn response. These stress hormones make our heart pump faster and our blood pressure increase. However, through frequent or chronic stress, these factors elevate the risk of more severe cardiovascular conditions, including coronary artery disease, strokes, and heart attacks.
How to cope: Pay attention to how your body reacts under stress. Perhaps you feel a tightening in your chest, your hands feel clammy, and your breathing constricts. Use these signals as a sign to ground yourself by practicing belly breathing;
- Place one hand on your stomach and the other on your chest.
- Visualize a balloon in your stomach, and inhale gently through your nose for a count of two, allowing your stomach to rise.
- Then, exhale slowly for a count of three, focusing on deflating the imaginary balloon in your stomach.
- Continue repeating the steps until you feel calm.
Controlling your breath will activate your parasympathetic nervous system, lower your heart rate and blood pressure, and alleviate the strain on your entire cardiovascular system.Â
2. Sleep disturbances
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