Everyone experiences stress in various aspects of life. The majority of this is healthy, manageable and necessary. Stress is part of everyday life. In fact, it is essential – it helps to keep us on our toes and out of danger, for example, we need to be alert when crossing a road. It is when we are exposed to unrelenting excessive stress that it becomes unhealthy and potentially damaging.
Stress is what we experience when we face pressure or demands. At one level it is a normal and healthy reaction to everyday challenges. It helps to activate and motivate us and can enhance performance.
We all have our own individual reactions and coping mechanisms; whilst some people thrive in a constantly challenging environment, others may struggle.
When the pressure is perceived to be too great, we may begin to feel that we cannot cope. Stress becomes distress. If this happens, our stress response becomes negative and damaging. It can lead to us to feeling tense and irritable; we may even get headaches, digestive problems or experience a change in sleeping patterns.
Long term exposure to negative stress can lead to physical or psychological illness. Our body can become oversensitive to stress and trigger the stress response even though the challenge isn’t really that big. Even simple things make us ‘blow a fuse’. Frequent surges of stress hormones prime our bodies to run from things we can never escape (like being stuck in a traffic jam, extra responsibility at work, queues at the checkout, big bills to pay, threat of redundancy etc. etc).
These pent-up feelings can send blood pressure soaring, resulting in a strain on the whole body including the heart. As a result of long term stress we may develop health problems like migraines, anxiety, allergic reactions, ulcers, irritable bowel syndrome, eczema, psoriasis, muscular pains etc.
Stress can also be implicated in heart disease, cancer and diabetes.