Positive & Negative Effects Of Stress On Your Mind & Body

Stress is a natural biological response to life experiences and everyday responsibilities; work and family, or the death of a loved one.

When you perceive a threat or a major challenge, chemicals and hormones, such as adrenaline and cortisol, surge throughout your body.

Stress triggers your fight or flight response in order to fight the stressor or run away from it. Your heart beats faster and sends blood to muscles and important organs, you feel energised and a heightened sense of awareness so you can focus on the stressor. 

Once the response occurs, your body should relax, but if the stress response stays activated, day after day, it could put your wellness and health at serious risk.

Learning the common symptoms, types and, how stress can impact your wellness and health overall can help you understand your body to create a balance between your mind & body.

Stress can be positive and negative

Stress isn’t necessarily positive or negative. It’s what helped our hunter-gatherer ancestors survive, and it’s just as important in today’s world. Stress can help you avoid an accident, meet a deadline, aid in public speaking or on your wedding day.

If your stress response advances from short-term stress, the ability to deal with everyday stressors, to long-term stress, it is highly likely to transition into chronic stress which can have a dramatic negative impact on your wellness and health.

Acute stress, episodic acute stress and chronic stress all have unique effects which can have a positive or negative impact on your wellness and health.

Common effects of stress on your mind and body

Common effects of stress may be affecting your wellness and health without you being aware. You may blame illness for an on-going headache, your frequent insomnia, your decreased productivity or your lack of focus and energy, but stress may be the culprit.

Common effects of stress on your body:

• Headaches
• Muscle tension or pain
• Chest pain
• Weight loss/gain
• High blood pressure
• Fatigue
• Change in sex drive
• Stomach discomfort/digestive problems
• Poor quality sleep or insomnia

Common effects of stress on your mind:

• Anxiety
• Depression
• Irritability or anger
• Restlessness
• Feeling of overwhelm
• Difficulty making decisions
• Lack of focus and motivation

Common effects of stress on your behaviour:

• Overeating or undereating
• Angry outbursts or overreacting
• Drug or alcohol misuse
• Social withdrawal
• Avoiding physical activity

STRESS HORMONES

As mentioned earlier, when you perceive a threat or a major challenge, your hypothalamus at the base of your brain reacts sending nerve and hormone signals to your adrenal glands, chemicals and hormones are released throughout your body.

This is natures way of triggering your fight or flight response in order for you to fight the stressor or run away from it, increasing your chances of survival.

Adrenaline – Fight or flight hormone

Adrenaline, or the fight or flight hormone, works to:

• increase your heartbeat
• increase your breathing rate
• make it easier for your muscles to utilise glucose
• contract blood vessels so blood is directed to the muscles
• stimulate perspiration
• inhibit insulin production

This is great in an acute stressful moment, but if frequent adrenaline is produced, it can lead to damaged blood vessels, high blood pressure, hypertension, risk of heart attack, a stroke, on-going headaches, insomnia and weight gain.

Cortisol – Primary stress hormone

Cortisol is the primary stress hormone and plays an essential role when in a stressful situation.

Cortisol is in charge of the following functions:

• Increasing the amount of glucose in your bloodstream
• Assisting the brain use glucose more effectively
• Altering the immune system response
• Restraining nonessential functions in a life-threatening situation
• Reducing the reproductive system and growth process
• Affecting parts of the brain that control fear, motivation, and mood (thoughts, emotions and behaviour)
• Increasing the accessibility of substances that help with tissue repair

These functions are critical when dealing with a stressful situation, but if your cortisol levels stay fully functioning long term, it may contribute to weight gain, sleep problems, lack of energy, type 2 diabetes, brain fog, and weaken your immune system.

Types of stress

There are 3 different types of stress: acute stress, episodic acute stress, and chronic stress. The 3 types of stress each have their characteristics, symptoms, duration, and treatment techniques.

Acute stress

Acute stress is what happens to everyone daily. It’s your body’s immediate reaction to a threat (high bill) or a major challenge (laid off work).

You may also feel a “thrill” in an acute stressful situation. This could be when you’re riding a roller coaster or diving in the middle of the ocean.

Acute stressful situations don’t usually cause harm; they can actually be good for you – stressful situations aid your body and brain to practice developing the best response to future stressful situations.

Once the response occurs, your body should relax and return to normal.

Episodic acute stress

Episodic acute stress is when you have frequent episodes of acute stress.

Episodic acute stress can occur when you often feel anxious and worried about things you suspect may happen. You might feel that your life is chaotic, going from one crisis to the next.

Professions, such as law enforcement or firefighters, may also lead to frequent high-stress situations.

Chronic stress

Chronic stress develops over time when you suffer from high-stress levels long term. This type of stress can cause irreversible damage and affect both mental and physical health if left undiagnosed or untreated.

Effects of stress on your body

Central nervous and endocrine systems

Your central nervous system (CNS) is primarily in charge of your fight or flight response. Your hypothalamus starts the process by initiating your adrenal glands to release the stress hormones, adrenaline and cortisol when a perceived stressor is identified.

These hormones increase your heartbeat and send blood rushing to areas that need it most during an emergency; your muscles, heart, and other important organs.

When the perceived stressor is gone, the hypothalamus then signals all systems to go back to normal.

If the CNS doesn’t return to normal, or if the stressor doesn’t go away, the response will continue.

Chronic stress is also a factor in behaviours such as overeating or not eating enough, alcohol or drug abuse, and social withdrawal.

Respiratory and cardiovascular systems

Your respiratory and cardiovascular systems are affected during the fight or flight response. In an effort to quickly distribute oxygen-rich blood throughout your body, you breathe faster, so if you suffer from breathing problems, asthma or emphysema, stress can negatively affect your ability to breathe.

While your body is under the influence of stress, your heart pumps faster, an effect of your stress hormones. The impact of this process causes your blood vessels to constrict and divert more oxygen to your muscles so you’ll have more strength to take action.

However, this also raises your blood pressure, and as a result, frequent or chronic stress will make your heart work too hard for too long. When your blood pressure rises, so do your risk of having a stroke or heart attack.

Digestive system

When your body is under stress, your liver produces extra blood sugar, known as glucose, to give you an energy boost, helping you focus and provide the energy you require to take action towards the stressor.

If your body is under chronic stress, it may not be able to keep up with the extra glucose surge, which can increase your risk of developing type 2 diabetes.

Your digestive system is negatively affected by the outcomes of the rush of hormones; rapid breathing and increased heart rate.

An upset digestive system can result in heartburn and acid reflux thanks to the increase of stomach acid. If you suffer from ulcers, stress can increase the risk of them developing and cause existing ulcers to flare up.

Stress can also negatively affect the way food is digested, causing diarrhea or constipation; even nausea, vomiting or a stomachache.

Muscular system

When your body is in a state of stress, your muscles will tense to protect themselves from injury and release after you have relaxed. If your body stays in a stressed state long-term, your muscles don’t get a chance to relax and over time can develop into tight muscles causing headaches, back and should pain, and body aches.

The result of this can set off an unhealthy cycle as you stop exercising and turn to pain medication for relief.

Sexuality and reproductive system

Stress is exhausting on both the mind and body and can contribute to loss of desire when under constant stress.

Short-term stress can increase the production of testosterone, but this effect doesn’t last. If long-term stress occurs, testosterone levels may begin to decline in production and cause erectile dysfunction or impotence, and if left undiagnosed and untreated, can progress into chronic stress. Chronic stress can increase the risk of infection to the male reproduction organs.

Stress can affect a woman’s menstrual cycle leading to irregular, heavier or more painful periods. Long-term or chronic stress may increase the physical symptoms of menopause.

Immune system

During stress, the immune system is stimulated, which can be positive for immediate situations by fighting off infections and aid in healing wounds.

As mentioned with the above stress symptoms, long-term stress can weaken your immune system and reduce your body’s response to foreign invaders.

Chronic stress leaves your immune system susceptible to viral illnesses such as the flu or the common cold and increases recovery time from an illness or injury.

Effects of stress on your mind

We’ve all been there, highly stressed and snapped at a loved one or a colleague through no fault of their own. It’s common knowledge that stress can impair your ability to control your emotions. This is because it takes effort to rethink a particular situation differently and learning to regulate emotions relies on the prefrontal cortex.

It has been found that the prefrontal cortex is sensitive to stress; therefore, our usual cognitive-regulation strategies may go out the window during the stressful situation.

“Even quite mild acute uncontrollable stress can cause a rapid and dramatic loss of prefrontal cognitive abilities, and more prolonged stress exposure causes architectural changes in prefrontal dendrites.” Stress signalling pathways that impair prefrontal cortex structure and function

Depression and anxiety

“Depression is a mood disorder that causes a persistent feeling of sadness and loss of interest. Also called major depressive disorder or clinical depression, it affects how you feel, think and behave and can lead to a variety of emotional and physical problems. You may have trouble doing normal day-to-day activities, and sometimes you may feel as if life isn’t worth living.” Mayo Clinic

A link between stress and depression has been found between high levels and on-going stress.

Anxiety is a reaction of stress and can be defined as “an emotion characterised by feelings of tension, worried thoughts and physical changes“, and like depression, studies have found a link between high levels and on-going stress.

In this study, researchers investigated the effects of stress levels at home and work on anxiety and depression levels. The study concluded that people who experienced high levels of work stress were more likely to have more symptoms of anxiety and depression.

Irritability, anger and mood swings

Irritability, anger and mood swings are probably the most obvious and common traits shown by someone who is under stress.

“Researchers from the Brain Mind Institute (BMI) at EPFL have just highlighted a fundamental synaptic mechanism that explains the relationship between chronic stress and the loss of social skills and cognitive impairment. When triggered by stress, an enzyme attacks a synaptic regulatory molecule in the brain.” Science Daily

As a result of the enzyme attack, we become irritable and angry and avoid social interactions.

Memory and concentration problems

Another common trait of stress is experiencing memory and concertation problems. A link between the stress-response pathways in the brain and their effect on long-term memory were researched and resulted in discovering certain hormones following a stressful or traumatic event can have the ability to impair memory.

Cortisol also a key factor in our ability to remember and concentrate. It not only cuts off the activity in the hippocampus; it increases the amygdala, which is responsible for regulating our emotions and motivation. Under stress, the amygdala shuts down its ability to learn new things or retain information.

High activation of the fight-or-flight response can increase your concentration, but if left in this state long-term, can impair the minds ability to concentrate. This can lead to learning problems and fatigue.

Compulsive behaviour

According to this article, chronic stress has the ability to facilitate the transition to addiction and may be mediated by an increased engagement of the neurocircuitries that underlie habitual behaviour and addiction.

Basically, chronic stress can change the physical nature of the brain to promote habit-and addiction-forming behaviours.

Overeating and weight gain

One of the main functions of cortisol is the secretion is the provision of energy for the body. Cortisol stimulates fat and carbohydrate metabolism for fast energy, in addition to stimulating insulin release and maintenance of blood sugar levels.

This process can result in an increase in appetite and therefore, if left undiagnosed or untreated, can lead to weight gain.

Our ancestors were forced to eat as much as they could when food was avaliable during harsh-conditions, and that compulsion still lives in us today.

---

Do you struggle from chronic stress? Have you overcome any of the above symptoms of stress? Have you learnt anything new?

Please leave a comment below on your best takeaways, share them on Facebook and tag me and follow me on Facebook.

If you enjoyed this post please share it x