Is stress tipping you over the edge?

What do you do when you are stressed? How do you cope? Scream at people? Burst into tears? Snap at your loved ones? Forget things? Drink more? Eat more? Escape more?

If you are increasingly taking your emotions out on family, colleagues or the servers in shops, it may be time to look at your coping mechanisms and reactions to stress. For most of us, we look at forms of escapism rather than facing our stress head-on and learning how to dissipate it.

We all get stressed, and, in fact, stress is essential for survival, helping us to push ourselves into self-improvement and challenge. What is not ideal, is when stress becomes overwhelming and forces us to change our behaviours or habits.

Recognising if you are stressed

Most of us can feel stress increasing in our physiology; sweaty palms, racing heart, faster breathing. In a stressful moment, these are normal reactions when our bodies go into the trauma response of fight, flight, fawn or freeze. Usually these are physical responses.

If we do not give ourselves a chance to recover after a stressful episode, our brain starts to believe it will stay in this state and tries to compensate. All non-essential bodily functions stop while the body is stressed, and we remain in our responsive state of flight/ flight for a prolonged time. This creates an increase in psychological responses such as insomnia, lack of focus, forgetfulness, anxiety, migraines, mood changes and irritability (stage 2). When we continue in this stage for a few months, our bodies then begin to feel the burden further which causes increased physical illness and serious health conditions such as heart failure due to increased blood pressure, some Cancers, strokes and depression (stage 3). Allowing this to continue long-term will eventually lead to a physical or emotional breakdown, where our minds and bodies cannot cope anymore (stage 4).

Before we reach burnout, we must take note of how stressed we are feeling and recognise the signs within ourselves, in order to prevent a breakdown.

This could be a loved one telling you that your personality has changed. It could be an inability to sleep when you used to sleep like a baby. It could be more illness than usual, skin conditions, engaging in destructive habits to escape (such as overeating, self-harm or substance use), gut issues or social withdrawal. It will be different for everyone.

Recovering from chronic stress

There is no ‘cure’ for stress since it affects us all differently, but the key is to treat the stress rather than the symptom. For example, if you are gaining weight from overeating, there is no point going on a diet without delving into the reasons why you are overeating. Similarly, if you are not sleeping well, there is no point taking sleeping pills or going to a sleep clinic, when you know stress is the cause.

We need to find ways to reduce stress, as this will have a positive knock-on effect for all the symptoms. As we are all different. Here are the steps to take towards stress reduction:

Is it work? Is it your health? Is it your home life or relationship? Are you feeling overwhelmed with responsibilities? Is it finances? Is it planning a wedding?

How can you find ways to make changes in these areas? Could you seek help from a friend or family member? Could you hire a cleaner or child-minder to give you some more time? Could you speak to your boss about how unhappy you are at work? Could you create a morning routine that will start your day blissfully?

Stress is often exacerbated by poor lifestyle choices such as lack of sleep, no exercise, poor diet and over-consumption of alcohol, food, tobacco or drugs). Could you reduce your caffeine or sugar intake to avoid the ‘dips’ in the middle of the day? Could you sleep 30 minutes earlier? Could you cancel plans until you get yourself into a position of coping and feeling better?

These do not have to be grand gestures (as this can be very hard when your mind and body are exhausted), but you have to feel like you are taking back control and making positive steps towards recovery. Drink a little more water each day, carve out alone time to journal, speak to the people you are in conflict with, do a budget and face up to your financial problems. The key is to break it down. Small steps create a path to recovery and putting in effort every day to feel better is essential for your wellbeing.

Recovery takes time

If you have been chronically stressed for 6- 12 months, or acutely stressed for 3-6 months, it is more than likely it will take 6-12 months to recover and get your body and mind back to a relaxed and productive state. There is no magic cure, or pill to take to make stress disappear; the only answer is to look at the cause of stress, recognise the damage it is doing and make small, regular changes to your life and lifestyle to get back to your old self.

So, try to see it as a healing journey and be aware of the positive changes you see and experience along the way. Perhaps for you, it will be being able to stay awake until dinner time without needing a nap. Or perhaps it will be taking a demotion at work to reduce your workload and spend more time with your family. It could be reigniting your love of exercise again after shelving it for a while. Or maybe simply, being able to feel present with your loved ones without worrying about your finances or the list of things you have to do.

We all cope with stress differently and present stress differently, so we all heal differently. Do what is right for your body and mind, prioritise your health and happiness, and find your way back to feeling good again.