As a human being, no one is immune to stress. Whether from work, family life, or your relationship, stress is unavoidable and inevitable…

But just because stress is something we can’t avoid, that doesn’t mean it has to defeat us. Because stress is something almost everyone deals with on a daily basis, the key to success with effectively managing stress is to first be able to identify your triggers and secondly, recognize how you respond to stress.

With effective stress management, it can go a very long way in helping you understand your sources of stress and the role it plays in your life. Take a look at some of the effects of stress to see if they have impacted your life in any way.

Helpful Things to Know About the Effects of Stress

Your Way of Thinking Can Make You Physically Ill

At times, we all have negative thought patterns and encounter emotional stress, but in dealing with this type of stress, it can lead to psychosomatic illness, in which stress does play a pivotal role. This illness can cause physical symptoms including:

  • Headaches
  • Stomach pains
  • Difficulty breathing
  • Fatigue and exhaustion

Certain Types of Stress is Beneficial to Your Overall Health

Eustress is a stress that’s beneficial and actually necessary for having a balanced, exciting, and fulfilling life. This “good stress” is what you feel when falling in love or riding a fun rollercoaster… it’s exhilaration and excitement. It gives you the feeling of feeling alive.

Stress Can Cause You to Age Prematurely

Everyone wants to know the secret to aging slow and drink from the fountain of youth… Well, there are indeed some ways to make yourself look younger with minor cosmetic procedures and creams and serums, but what good will any of those methods do if you’re constantly stressing about things?

This may come as a surprise to you but the stress you experience and how you handle it can be more of a giveaway of your age, than the number of candles placed on your birthday cake. From gray hairs to wrinkles, stress can actually speed up the physical wear and tear on many parts of your body.

Unfortunately, it’s a vicious cycle in how stress causes premature aging. When you’re stressed, it causes your skin to suffer, which, in turn, causes you to stress out even more.

So what do you do when you’re feeling stressed? Relax. Yes, this is easier said than done but it’s important to stop and take a break when you feel yourself become stressed, for your physical and mental health. Things like getting off of social media, working out, taking deep breaths, and writing down your thoughts are great and healthy ways to relax and de-stress.

Everyone Experiences Stress Differently

The things that stress you out may not stress out someone else. Through certain personality traits and learned thought patterns, two people experiencing the same stressor can experience it very differently from one another.

Let’s say you just moved to Texas and got your first utility bill; it’s astronomically higher than your bills used to be back in Tennessee. You are outraged at the cost of the bill and start to stress and feel overwhelmed. Another person in that exact same situation could get that same bill and have a totally different experience.

They might be upset about the bill but react differently. That person may simply go ahead and pay the bill but then leave that electric supplier and search for the cheapest electricity rates in Texas… for them, problem solved.

How you experience and respond to stress is going to play a critical role in just how much you can reduce your stress levels.

Certain “Stress Relievers” Cause You to Stress Even More

Everyone, of course, handles stress differently, but it’s pretty safe to say that some of us have some not-so-healthy ways of coping. Things like smoking, excessively drinking, and engaging in retail therapy can feel good in the moment but ultimately, cause you much more stress in the long run.

Dealing with stress in these unhealthy ways can also lead to other health issues like high blood pressure and weight gain.

Stress is something that no one is immune to, but knowing your triggers and responding to your stressors in a healthy way will go a long way in how you manage your day-to-day routine.