Do you know about 75% of Americans experience moderate to a high level of stress every month and stress is the primary health concern of high school going students? These figures came after a recent study by the Global Organization for Stress.

For example, You’re stuck in traffic and getting late for an important meeting in your office. And in between your hypothalamus– a tiny control tower in your brain– decides to send out the signal: Some Stress Hormones! These hormones are triggered by your body’s “fight or flight” response. And, in this duration your breath quickens, your heart races, and your body muscles get ready for action.

All these responses happened to protect your body in emergency situations. If it happens sometimes, then it is okay. But the problem arises when your stress response keeps firing, day after day. This could put your health at risk.

How Does Stress Affect Health?

The human body is designed to interact with and experience stress. Stress can also be positive- for example, getting a job promotion or giving bigger responsibilities for your work as it keeps us alert and ready to avoid any imminent danger.

Stress can also become negative ( also called distress) when a person faces challenges on a regular basis without relaxation or rest between respective challenges. Due to the result of this, the person becomes exhausted and the stress-related stress rises.

The distress can also lead to a plethora of physical symptoms including stomach upset, headache, chest pain, high blood pressure, and sleep problems. Furthermore, there are some researches that indicate that distress can also exacerbate specific diseases or symptoms of diseases.

Stress can also become harmful when any people start consuming tobacco, alcohol, or drugs in an attempt to relieve his or her stress. Lamentably, instead of returning the body to a relaxed state and alleviating pressure, these substances lead to keep the human body in a stressful condition and cause many other problems. Just consider the following:

• About 43% of all adults have harmful effects on health due to stress.
• Approximately 75 per cent to 90 per cent of all doctor visits to diseases or complaints related to stress.
• Stress can also play a role in various other problems like high blood pressure, headaches, diabetes, heart problems, asthma, arthritis, skin conditions, depression and anxiety.

What Are the Effects of Stress on Your Body?

Stress can affect your body in multiple ways. It affects all aspects of life, including your behaviours, emotions, physical health and thinking ability. No part of your body is immune to stress. As different people handle stress in a different manner, its symptoms can vary. Let’s have a quick look at the impact of stress over different parts of the body:

• Musculoskeletal system

When a person is stressed, his or her muscles tense up. This muscle tension is a reflex reaction to the stress. It is the way of guarding the body against pain and injury. With the sudden onset stress, your muscles tense up all at once and after that tension is released when the stress passes.

There are millions of individuals who suffer from chronic conditions of pain secondary to musculoskeletal disorders. Muscle tightening, and ultimately muscular dystrophy owing to misuse of the body, all this reinforces the chronic skeletal muscle conditions linked with tension.

There are many relaxation techniques and stress-relieving activities that have proven to effectively reduce the occurrence of some stress-related disorders, and reduce muscle tension such as headaches, and increase the feeling of well-being.

• Sexuality & Reproductive System

The stress hormones can cause various fertility issues in both male and female. Chronic stress, over an extended time period, can affect the testosterone production level of male that results in a drastic drop in libido or sex drive. It can even cause impotence or erectile dysfunction in male. Besides, chronic stress can negatively impact the production and maturation of sperm which cause difficulties in couples trying to conceive a baby.

Chronic stress may also affect menstruation cycle among girls in a plethora of ways. High levels of stress are amalgamated with irregular or absent menstrual cycles. It can also cause more painful periods or changes in the length of menstrual cycles. On the other hand, stress can also negatively impact a woman’s ability to conceive a baby, as well as her postpartum adjustment and the health of her pregnancy.

• Respiratory system

Our respiratory system supplies oxygen to the cells. It also removes carbon dioxide from the body. Oxygen enters through the nose and passes through the throat, down through the trachea and into the lungs through the bronchi.

Stress can also appear with various respiratory symptoms, such as rapid breathing and shortness of breath, as the airway between the lungs and nose shrinks. For people who don’t have any respiratory disease, it is not a problem as their body can comfortably manage overtime to breathe. But psychological stressors can intensify various respiratory problems for people with pre-existing respiratory conditions such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and asthma.

• Cardiovascular

Our cardiovascular system is made up of 2 total components that work together in order to provide oxygen and nutrition to our body parts. The overall activity of these 2 components is coordinated in the body’s response to distress.

The acute strain, which is generally short-lived or temporary such as falling in traffic, sticking to deadlines, or sudden slipping on the brakes so as to avoid an accident, causes stronger contractions and heightened heart rate in the heart muscle, together with stress hormones like norepinephrine, adrenaline, and cortisol.

Besides, the blood vessels that direct your blood to the larger muscles and heart swell, thereby improving the volume of blood being drawn to these parts of the body and raising your blood pressure. This process is also known as a response to combat or flight.

The chronic stress is continuous stress endured over an extended period of time. It can contribute to various long-term problems for blood vessels of the heart. The regular and ongoing rise in heart rate, and the towering levels of your stress hormones, can take a toll on your body. This ongoing stress for long-term can increase the risk of heart attack, hypertension, or stroke.

Wrapping Up;

Stress can impact your body in many ways therefore it is better to get it cured as early as possible. If you do not believe you’re managing the stressors successfully in your day-to-day life, you should get help from your mental health professional or a healthcare provider.  There are a plethora of practical strategies that can help you get your stress level under control.