Symptoms of Stress

Do you know if you are experiencing the symptoms of stress? If you are not sure, take this Stress Test.



Stress is not necessarily a bad thing--it can be a stimulus for positive change and growth. But excess stress can be detrimental. Research shows that as stress builds, you may become more susceptible to physical illness, mental and emotional problems, and accidental injuries.

Various sources estimate that 70-90% of visits to general physicians are for stress-related problems. So, knowing the symptoms of stress and practicing stress management is important to maintaining good health.

"Stress can wreck havoc with your metabolism, raise your blood pressure, burst you white blood cells, make you flatulent, ruin your sex life, and if that’s not enough, possibly damage your brain."

Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers
by Robert M. Sapolsky

How Stress Affects Your Body

Stress affects your body through the nervous system, which is the control center of your body. Every thought, action, and emotion reflects the activity of the nervous system. The nervous system is also responsible for the stress-related fight or flight response.

Here’s how the fight or flight response works. Let’s say that during a backcountry hike an angry cougar confronts you. You have two choices: run or fight.

Your body prepares for action: your muscles tense, your heart rate, breathing rate, and blood pressure all increase, your liver dumps sugar into the blood stream for energy, and your adrenal glands pump adrenaline into your system. Your body also shuts down digestion, the kidneys, and the reproductive system, which are not needed for immediate survival.

Then after your successful fight or flight, your body pretty much returns to normal as a result of the intense physical exertion.

Most of the stresses we face in today’s world are subtler than a cougar. But when someone yells at you or cuts you off in traffic, your body has much the same response that it has to that cougar.

Because it’s not acceptable to either fight or run, your body does not as easily return to a normal state. The effects of such stresses build up, and over time your body spends more time in the hyped-up fight or flight state.

Without a physical outlet to reverse the daily effects of stress, stress has serious health consequences. Look again at the description of the fight or flight reaction, and you can see that continually being in this state could lead to chronically tense muscles and to heart, blood pressure, blood sugar, digestive, kidney, or reproductive problems.

Relieving Symptoms of Stress with Massage

To prevent health problems, it’s important to reverse the symptoms of stress. Massage therapy is one of the best stress management methods available.

Massage obviously relieves tense muscles. Massage therapy also evokes the opposite of the fight or flight response: the relaxation response, which lowers heart rate, breathing rate, and blood pressure and increases the blood supply to all the body’s systems, helping them function at an optimal level.

For more recommendations to relieve the symptoms of stress, see health and lifestyle tips to relieve the symptoms of stress and ten ways to relax.