Stress is a natural human response to pressure when faced with challenging and sometimes dangerous situations. That pressure is not only about what’s happening around us, but often also about demands we place on ourselves. Experiencing stress is part of being alive and some stress helps increase our alertness and energy to meet challenging situations.
If stress lasts a long time or overwhelms our ability to cope, it can have a negative effect on our health, wellbeing, relationships, work, and general enjoyment of life.
Stress doesn’t have to control our lives.
We can improve our knowledge about stress and increase our resources to become more resilient.
When does stress become unhelpful?
The answer to this question is not a piece of cake; yet, here are some cases that show advanced stages of stress:
- You feel alert even when you want to take a rest.
- You can’t cope or deal with even with small things, a fact which makes you feel down all the time.
- You tend to withdraw from relationships, work, or even fun activities.
- You like to be on your own most of the time.
- You have serious difficulty concentrating.
- You start having aches and pains that are not related to any health problems.
- You experience difficulties eating or sleeping properly. You might at this stage lose weight and appetite or feel a permanent fatigue.