Chronic stress wears you down day after day and year after year, with no visible escape. Under sustained or severe stress, even the most well-adjusted person loses the ability to adapt. When stress overwhelms our coping resources, our bodies and minds suffer.
Health Effects
Recent research suggests that anywhere from 60 to 90 percent of illness is stress-related. The physical wear and tear of stress includes damage to the cardiovascular system and immune system suppression. Stress compromises your ability to fight off disease and infection, throws your digestive system off balance, makes it difficult to conceive a baby, and can even stunt growth in children.
Stress and Your Health
Many medical conditions are caused or exacerbated by stress, including:
- Chronic pain
- Migraines
- Ulcers
- Heartburn
- High blood pressure
- Heart disease
- Diabetes
- Asthma
- PMS
- Obesity
- Infertility
- Autoimmune diseases
- Irritable bowel syndrome
- Skin problems
- Emotional effects
- anxiety
- depression
- eating disorders, and
- substance abuse.
Severe stress reactions can result from sudden, catastrophic events or traumatic experiences such as a natural disaster, sexual assault, life-threatening accident, or participation in combat. After the initial shock and emotional fallout, many trauma victims gradually begin to recover from its effects. But for some people, the stress symptoms don't go away, the body doesn’t regain its equilibrium, and life doesn’t return to normal. This severe and persisting reaction to trauma is known as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
Common symptoms of PTSD include:
- Flashbacks, intrusive thoughts, or nightmares about the trauma
- Avoidance of places and things associated with the trauma
- Hypervigilance for signs of danger
- Chronic irritability and tension
- Depression.
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