How Stress Can Affect an Individual

Uncertainty, having to manage multiple things, reduced social support, struggling with lack of routine; it’s no secret that the pandemic has stressed us out and affects us as individuals. Our health, encompassing the mental, emotional and physical aspects, can cause a wide variety of issues. Many of us don’t know that stress is the culprit behind various concerns from headaches to insomnia. It’s easy to think there’s some illness associated with the frequent sleeplessness or that irritating headache but stress may actually be the reason behind it. We all tend to experience stress in different ways and also figure out our own methods to tackle it. I know that by no means can I completely rid myself of stress, but I know there are ways to make it manageable. Probably, understanding it in a little more depth about how stress affects us individually will ensure that we take caution in not allowing it to consume us. Looking after ourselves is the best gift we can give our self and our loved ones.

The Emotional Effects of Stress

When you think of an adverse emotional reaction, the first thing you think about is depression. Depression is not just sadness. It’s characterized by being in an overall low mood. The emotions felt during a bout of depression can range from moodiness to irritability. Depression is not the only emotional effect of stress. Stress can also cause a range of negative emotions, from anxiety to frustration. Being in a state of constant worry or living through extreme mood swings are not healthy. These feelings can sometimes feed on each other and produce physical symptoms, making one feel even worse. I know when I’m stressed, the psychological symptoms can often go hand-in-hand with the physical symptoms. For example, an anxiety attack can cause physiological symptoms like rapid heartbeat and headaches. Some of the other emotional effects of stress include insomnia, fatigue, or changes in appetite. Helplessness, passivity, generalized fear, are signs that signal that you need to take care of yourself first before anything else. Look into figuring out the root cause through which you can then avoid feeling the external impact. The easiest way is to journal your thoughts to find your patterns and the causes.

Cognitive Effects of Stress

Have you been struggling with controlling those anxious thoughts or the restlessness in your head? Apart from emotional issues, stress also causes cognitive problems such as having a hard time focusing, racing thoughts, or making impulsive decisions. Stress can affect the brain’s ability to solve problems or make complex decisions. Chronic stress leads to chemical changes in our mind that can influence uninhibited behavior. You must have noticed how at times of stress, it becomes hard to differentiate what a right decision is. However, that’s not actually surprising considering that our brains are conditioned to make random choices on the fly when experiencing stress. We would have felt disorganized and forgetful under a lot of stress and that’s quite common. But in the long term, stress may actually change our brain in ways that affect our memory. Dr. Kerry Ressler, a professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School says that our brain isn’t a single unit, instead is a group of different parts performing their individual roles. When one part of our brain is highly engaged for example, when we are in an emotionally taxing situation, the other parts of the brain won’t have much energy to accomplish their tasks. At stressful times, with the amygdala being more active, the rest of the parts of the brain that help with higher order tasks or memory storage wouldn’t get the energy to do their tasks properly. The brain shunts its resources to go into a survival mode than memory mode. That is why we see that our overall productivity drops low or it takes more time for us to complete even simple jobs.

Physical Effects of Stress

In moments of stress, I feel my muscles tense up, but that’s also because of our body’s fight-or-flight response. If I were born thousands of years ago, I would need stress to help my muscles tense up and protect them against injury. Imagine fighting in a war with swords and shields. You would need your muscles to react to protect your body when stressed. However, we don’t live in those early times anymore. Yes, we have military and first responders who need those physical reactions to perform their jobs. Still, the average person doesn’t need these musculoskeletal reactions. Imagine having physical reactions from a racing heart to spikes in blood pressure, only sitting at a desk. Frequent aches or pains in different body parts, increased headaches, frequent infections or bouts of fever or cold, acne, change in sex drive, consistently low on energy are all physical manifestations of the stress you are subjecting yourself to.

All of these effects of stress go hand-in-hand. One can affect the other. Anxiety causes physical reactions and physical reactions can cause cognitive issues. It’s a brutal cycle if not taken care of. I go through these challenges myself and then consciously remind myself and get working on them. I seek external help when I need it because I know that not all times will I be able to manage everything by myself. We are social creatures after all. Struggling with your sufferings is not noble. Asking for professional assistance during your tough times is not weakness.

Managing stress isn’t an activity we tick off in a day or a week but it is that aspect we need to look into and work on by becoming more self-aware.