The Connection Between Stress and Mental Health: Understanding the Impact on Your Wellbeing

Are you feeling anxious and irritated all the time? If yes, you might be experiencing chronic stress. Stress is a state of worry or mental tension that is caused by a state of emergency or fight-or-flight situation. Stress happens normally in our everyday life, but experiencing chronic or persistent stress is dangerous as it affects your body in several ways. If you fail to manage your stress on time you may develop some serious conditions. So, you need to know how stress affects your body and how you can prevent stress. Visit the best Mental Health Clinic in Brooklyn at Doral Health & Wellness or log on to www.doralhw.org.

Keep reading this article to learn the 7 most common ways that stress affects your body.

7 ways on how stress can damage your mind and body

Everybody feels stressed sometimes, but if you suffer from persistent stress then it can be harmful to your health. Here are the 7 ways that how stress can damage your mind and body:

  1. Stress can cause uncontrollable emotions:

While it is not hard to tell that stressed people develop anxiety, irritability, or depression which makes it difficult to control their emotions. Even new research found that even a little bit of stress makes you lose control over your emotions.

This is shown in the 2013 study by neuroscientists that even a mild level of stress can impair your ability to manage your emotions.

  • It can elevate your blood pressure:

While it is normal that your blood pressure can go up sometimes, it is temporary and usually happens in fight-or-flight situations. However, if your stress is chronic, you may experience a long-term spike in your blood pressure, which can be risky, as it leads to heart disease.

  • Stress can promote disease:

As some people are more prone to certain diseases, chronic stress can increase your chances of getting those diseases. Stress has not only been linked with mental health conditions such as anxiety and depressive disorder, but also with conditions like cancer, lung disease, fatal accidents, suicide, and cirrhosis of the liver.

What’s more is that even if your condition or disease is not linked to stress, stress still can promote that disease by weakening your immune system. Stress can spike the levels of cortisol which has a significant impact on your immune system and makes it weak.

  • Stress can cause weight gain:

You might not know that stress is one of the most common factors that lead to weight gain. How?

Well, whenever we are stressed, we find that our cravings for foods are increased, especially foods that contain saturated fats, sugar, or salt. This happens because to manage our stress body release cortisol hormone which increases all our senses to respond to the fight-or-flight situations we face. As required high instant energy, cortisol increases our carving towards the food that provides an instant burst of energy.

But over time, it can become a habit to reach out for those foods during stressful situations to comfort yourself. And this habit can lead to weight gain.

  • Stress can affect your sex life:

While having sex is the best way to relieve stress, this is the last thing that will be on our minds when we experience chronic stress. Why?

Because sex is a pleasurable activity that requires a good or happy mood, but stress can take away your mood quicker than you ever think. Studies show that stress can affect a man’s sexual desire, testosterone levels, and body weight. That means whenever you feel stressed you avoid making sexual contact.

Even elevated levels of stress in pregnant women may trigger some changes in the mental health of children, particularly in behavioral and developmental issues.

  • Stress can affect your sleep:

You may notice whenever you are stressed, you are not able to sleep properly, instead you start doing something until you feel extremely tired or even fall asleep. Sound familiar?

It is a reason for that, our body releases two hormones (adrenaline and cortisol) in response to stress which increases all your senses to lower your stress. Chronic stress can increase the production of these two hormones which conflict with your sleep and keep you awake. And due to less sleep, you also feel more stressed out.

  • Stress can damage your heart severely:

Chronic stress not only damages your mental health but also your heart health too.

Whenever you are stressed, your body releases stress hormones to manage your stress which increases your heart rate and blocks your blood vessels. This not only makes your heart work harder but also increases your blood pressure. And long-term high blood pressure can lead to heart disease. The American Institute of Stress found that heart attack incidence and sudden death are higher in people who experience major stressor events like earthquakes, tsunamis, or hurricanes.

Ways to relieve stress

While you can reduce your stress by overeating, drinking alcohol, or using tobacco, these things only provide short-term relief and can lead to other health problems overall.

So, you should choose healthy ways to manage your stress which include:

  • Eating a well-balanced diet that consists of proteins, vitamins, trans fats, etc.
  • Exercise regularly.
  • Learn some stress relief techniques such as deep breathing, meditation, or yoga.
  • Get enough sleep of at least 7 to 8 hours a day.
  • Quit smoking and drink alcohol in moderation.
  • Take treatment of underlying conditions that cause stress.
  • Take counseling, therapy, or medications to relieve stress.

Exercising regularly is particularly the best way to reduce or eliminate stress from your life, boost your energy levels, and improve your mood and overall health. You can even start your workout even with a small daily walk.

These are the 7 common ways that stress affects your body. But the good thing is, you can easily prevent stress by eating healthy, exercising regularly, and using stress relieving techniques to reduce your stress and live a healthy life.

Want to know if stress is the reason for your condition? Call us on 1-347-384-5690 to get a consultation. If you need help learning coping methods, register your information and make direct contact with our doctors and psychiatrists to learn those methods, log on to www.doralhw.org. Doral Health and Wellness has the best Doctors and Psychiatrists that specialize in Behavioral health, make accurate diagnoses, and craft tailored treatment programs. Visit us at 1797 Pitkin Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11212.