Over the years, we have seen more and more people talking about how daily life can cause stress and how it affects your life. It’s not uncommon to read that stress is one of the major ills of contemporary society—which is true.

What is Stress?

But what is stress, after all? Stress as a medical or biological condition is basically your body’s response to the demands of the environment in which you live. These demands can end up increasing tension in various aspects and affecting your emotional, mental, and physical state.

Adrenaline and cortisol are the two main hormones that help motivate us to face different situations in daily life. However, an excess of these hormones in our body can eventually be harmful. What happens is that, when we constantly find ourselves under pressure, the body understands that it needs to produce more of these hormones to handle all that demand, which ends up overloading us, causing stress.

Consequences of Stress

The consequences of excessive stress can be many. Several areas of the mind and body can be affected, and you may not even notice. The muscular, digestive, and respiratory systems are examples of areas that can be affected.

It’s interesting to note that excessive stress does not manifest in the same way in everyone. In some women, for example, it can affect libido and even hinder women who are trying to get pregnant. That’s why, more than just knowing how to deal with stress problems, we need to know how to avoid them.

Ways Stress Affects Your Body

Stress can affect your body in many ways, some of the most common include:

  • Hair loss
  • Skin diseases
  • Heart problems
  • Headaches

Especially in women, stress may manifest more intensely during menopause or pregnancy. In addition, many social factors contribute, such as many women needing to care for children, the house, and still have work-related concerns. But how can you avoid all this? Is there really a “cure” for stress?

Hair loss

It’s not uncommon to hear that someone is experiencing significant hair loss because of stress. The most common reason is precisely a disorder in the production of certain hormones that causes you to lose hair. Baldness, usually associated with men, also exists in women, and high levels of stress can especially affect those with genetic predispositions.

In extreme cases, some people end up developing a disease called Alopecia Areata, an inflammatory disease that causes hair loss in specific areas of the head or even total loss. In this case, people need to undergo treatment so that the body resumes normal hair growth.

Is there a solution for this?

In cases of diseases like Alopecia Areata, the treatment involves specific medications and a diagnosis from a professional is needed so you can address the problem correctly. But the most recommended is to try to avoid your stress level getting so high.

Playing sports and having a good relationship with friends and family are factors that help the body relieve all this tension, but having healthy eating habits, drinking plenty of water, and not smoking or drinking alcohol is certainly also very helpful.

Skin diseases

Certain types of skin diseases are also related to excessive stress. One of the most common ways that stress affects your body is through this sensitive area, which has direct contact with the outside world.

Acne, for example, can be the result of stressful situations. There are many cases of people who develop acne before exams or during periods of high pressure. Other diseases, like vitiligo, can also be caused by stress.

NOTE: It’s important to stress that, although it is a factor that can cause these skin problems, stress is not the only cause and in some cases has nothing to do with the diseases.

Heart problems

Especially for people who are part of the so-called “at risk group” for heart problems, stress can be the trigger for certain diseases to manifest. The problem once again occurs because of hormones released too often.

When our body is stressed, adrenaline and cortisol are released in large amounts so the body can fight the “threat to life”, speeding up the heartbeat, increasing breathing, and widening various blood vessels in the body. The problem when this happens too often is that you end up wearing out these resources in your body, hence the heart problems.

NOTE: You will never be able to state that a particular disease is caused by stress unless you see a medical specialist. That’s why, whenever a disease appears, seek professional help to know the best way to treat it.

How to treat excessive stress problems?

Avoiding situations that make you irritated or very nervous is the first step so heart problems don’t arise because of stress. But of course, we can’t always avoid them and, even so, many other factors contribute to these problems appearing.

Of all the ways stress can affect your body, heart problems are the most dangerous because they can lead people to have heart attacks, for example. Help from a psychologist can relieve you and reduce the symptoms of issues such as heart-related conditions so you can live a calmer life.

Headaches

Although they occur in both sexes, head problems such as migraines are more common in women. This is due to several hormonal issues, such as menopause, which can bring moments of intense stress into a woman’s life, or even pregnancy.

But some social obligations imposed on women, such as housework and looking after children, can emotionally overload a woman, which can lead to problems like intense headaches.

How to avoid them?

Sharing household chores and not overloading one person with all the housework can greatly help to reduce stress, especially for women going through transitional stages, such as menopause. This way, problems can be avoided without any medical intervention, but of course, all the other preventive measures mentioned here also apply in this case.

Everyone has their own limit for stress. It may be greater or lesser depending on the various factors surrounding each person, but at some point, you may end up having problems when your limit is reached.

To prevent this from happening, it’s good always to pay attention to your health and try to break bad habits that could harm you in the future. If stress is now considered one of the major ills of society, it’s because it affects the health of millions of people every year, causing various serious problems. Thinking about how to prevent stress from dominating your life is thinking about your health and well-being.

See Also: Child with Hair Loss – Understand and Learn What to Do

Photo: Christiane Birr