Stress and Health – The Emotional Effects
Last week I spoke about the many links between stress and health in a physical sense. Now I want to talk about the emotional ways that stress can become a part of your life, just in case you needed convincing of the many ways you should learn how to think positive!
The Behaviour You Might Adopt
People act differently to how they normally would if they are under stress. For example, you might choose to do things that you know are bad for you just because you think they will make you feel better.
- Smoking,
- Drinking more alcohol or caffeine,
- Shopping more,
- Eat fatty junk food.
These things can all make us feel happier, but the feeling is normally short-lived. This is especially true when it’s closely followed by guilt at what we’ve just done, and this guilt in turn can make us feel more stressed – it really does become a vicious circle.
Difficulty Sleeping or Relaxing
The mental effects that stress has on our health means that we usually have a number of thoughts running through our mind. This can make it hard to relax at any time of the day, and even more so when it comes to when we are supposed to be sleeping.
Feeling stressed can mean that we will wake up during the night, or even find it impossible to sleep in the first place. And again this can become a vicious cycle, where a lack of sleep can leave us feeling moody and worse off than we were before.
Reduced Productivity
Linked to the point above, having thoughts constantly going round our mind can leave us unable to get things done that we need to do – especially if we haven’t been sleeping well!
Conclusion
These are just a few of the many emotional factors that link stress and health. One of the best ways to deal with them is simply to change the way you deal with stressful situations. Learning to break free from negative thinking can reduce the physical and emotional impacts of stress, and leave you happier even in tough times. If you want to learn how to go about this then subscribe to my blog for free updates!
