Effects of Stress

The primary thing that you must understand about the effects of stress is that all stress is not bad. Healthy or good stress keeps you interested in life and motivates you to optimize your performance. Good stress is known as eustress. Eustress is better understood as the opposite of distress. It is important to note that your body cannot distinguish one from the other, both increase by successive addition but eustress has positive implications. It is healthy stress that pushes you to come first in a race or perform well under pressure at your job.

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Stress is unavoidable in modern society. Modern lifestyles have made us all vulnerable. There is no way that you can avoid stress. Even if you live in solitude, stress will follow you there. However, it is perfectionists, pessimists and highly competitive individuals that experience increased levels of stress in any given event. Such people are also prone to invite stress.

Stress brings about changes in your body and health. These changes occur due to the release of brain chemicals and hormones and are meant to prepare the body to meet real or perceived emergencies. Some of the changes that you can experience are a faster heart beat, quick breathing, sweating and sweaty palms. Over time, unrelieved stress affects the immune system, heart, brain, muscles, stomach, reproductive organs, skin and lungs.

Stress also affects your thoughts, emotions and feelings. When you are under severe stress you may find that you cannot think properly. You may also find it difficult to think of solutions to small problems, something that leads to frustration, anger and a restless feeling all the time.

What you learn during your childhood from your family also dictates the manner in which stress affects you. Basically, the effects of stress depend upon your personality type as well. While some people may tackle problems in an easy going manner without any care, there are others that break down at the hint of stress. If you have a positive frame of mind and treat stressful events as challenges, stress is less likely to have a negative effect on you.

The type of stress also makes a great difference how stress affects you. Acute or short term stress is the body's immediate response to a stressor. The stress level is also determined by the severity and the speed with which you are able to come to terms with a changed situation. Normally, the body recovers quickly from acute stress but recurrent episodes of small amounts of stress can affect your immune system and increase risk of other serious illnesses.

Chronic stress occurs mostly due to events or situations that have long term repercussions. A difficult job, for example, may be a source of constant stress. Chronic stress is normally termed as a "silent killer" and if you are already suffering from an illness, chronic stress can worsen it.

Additional Information on Effects of Stress

  • Effects of Stress on Body and Health

    Stress is part of our daily life. However, when stress gets excessive or is not handled properly, it can cause some serious effects on the body and our health.

  • Effects of Stress on Heart

    Stress does affect our heart. But the manner in which is affects is not simple. Medical science has yet to establish whether stress alone can cause a heart disorder or whether other problems associated with stress increase the risk of a heart disease.

  • Effects of Stress on the Immune System

    Stress affects the immune system in more than one ways and not all of them are negative. Short term stressors actually push the immune system to prepare the body for protecting itself from minor threats like insect bites, skin abrasions and punctures. Chronic stress, on the other hand, suppresses the immune system.

  • Effects of Stress on Brain

    High cortisol levels in the blood can weaken the immune system and kill brain cells. Researchers have found that prolonged stress can actually shrink certain areas of the brain.

  • Psychological Effects of Stress

    As far as psychological effects of stress are concerned; untreated stress can change the entire personality of an individual.

  • Effect of Stress at Work

    Workplace stress can result in physical, psychological, behavioral and emotional changes that can ultimately result in a poor performance, job loss, monetary issues and other health related issues as well.

  • Effects of Stress on Teens

    Effects of stress on teens is as much as it is on adults. Stress in teenagers is also more dangerous than it is in adults. This is mainly because of the fact that teenage is a stage where there is very little or no understanding of how to manage stress.

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