Stress is something that is a part of each of our lives and if you are reading this article then it is the primary sign that you are stressed. In this article, we will discuss the unrecognized signs of stress that appear in front of you but you either associate it with other phenomena or ignore them completely. These may help you identify stress at an early stage before it turns into burnout.
Starting from a school-going child with the stress of homework and tests to a retired personnel holding stress about health, family, or financial stability(not an exhaustive list), we all are stressed to some degree. For short periods, however, stress can be beneficial. It’s the primitive fight or flight response that gets activated. It helps us perform our tasks easier, faster, and more efficiently.
But when stress is prolonged or shakes us every now and then, it becomes a problem. It not only alters your brain but also damages other organs of your body.
To Read How To Reduce Stress Click Here.
To identify the physiological emotional and cognitive signs of stress continue reading.
Unrecognized signs of stress to look out for :
Physiological signs of stress :
- You feel drained out. You do not have enough energy to do anything and suddenly even the tasks that you loved to do feel like a burden. You start preferring to stay in bed and relax. Even fun activities feel like a hassle
- You crave junk food more than healthy alternatives. You eat more of pizzas and burgers and fried food and in larger quantities . These are known as comfort foods and you will see their impact on your waist line very quickly.
- You find your heart beating faster than usual more often. Thinking about stressful situations makes you release more of the stress hormones like adrenaline and cortisol occupying your body to deal with them.
- You have a low sex drive.
- You have trouble sleeping. It may not be insomnia to begin with but just disturbed sleep that appears as a sign of stress and alerts you.
Emotional Signs of stress :
- You have a feeling that people don’t get you . You have a feeling that you are being misunderstood more often. You have the desire to explain everything or you give up on them and not say a word.
- You are more self-critical. You have less confidence in yourself.
- You are more irritable and even the slightest deviations from what you wanted can piss you off.
- You do not want to interact much with people and avoid being social.
Cognitive Signs of Stress:
- You are more forgetful. Stress and the stress hormones impact your memory and make you more forgetful about the little things in life like missing an appointment or where you kept your car keys.
- The basic cognitive tasks like arithmetic , logic, or even decision making create extensive fatigue for you even before you have started doing it.
- You put off even those tasks that take less than 5 minutes to complete. You procrastinate everything that you believe would take up any energy.
Identify these signs at an early stage to reduce the harmful effect of stress on your body.