What Stress Does to Your Body

Akaash, a 32 year old contractor, first moved to Mumbai 2 years ago. Soon after, he started experiencing headaches, stomach ache, difficulty sleeping and irritability. As Akaash described, he belonged to a small village in Rajasthan and came to the city to make money for his family. But the past two years had not been kind to him and he had lost more money than he had made. He was constantly worried about trying to get a project and worked 14 hours a day. In such a situation, it had become extremely difficult for him to even interact with anyone outside his workplace. He also reported difficulties sleeping and loss of appetite. He complained about extreme fatigue and tiredness almost throughout the day

We all live busy lives and have no time to stop and stare. Instead, we are hardwired to meet deadlines and work ourselves to the point of exhaustion. When it comes to stress, Akaash’s story is no different to most of ours. Most of us would not remember the last time we took a break from our daily schedule. We often forget that our mechanical life brings with it the undesired product of stress. Many health psychologists agree that stress is a required part of one’s existence and is needed to get work done. So when is stress a problem? Stress is a problem when it keeps increasing in intensity and frequency. Stress has the ability to decrease the body’s proper functioning. In order to completely understand its impact, it is first important to recognise how stress causes changes in the body

Your Muscles

When the body is under stress, it reacts by tensing up all the muscles at once and then releasing this tension as the stress reduces. When we experience chronic stress, our muscles stay tense for long periods resulting in problems like headaches, neck pain or even migraine.

Your Heart

As our heart rate increases, our body reacts by producing stress hormones like cortisol, adrenaline and noradrenaline. These help the body prepare its response to threats. Once the stressful situation has passed, the body returns to its normal functioning. However, when stress becomes long-lasting, the body is unable to resume its normal level of functioning. With constant supply of stress hormones in the body as well as rapid heart rate, chances of inflammation in the coronary arteries become higher and can lead to a heart attack.

Your Breathing

When stressed, our breathing often becomes irregular and rapid. This is not always a problem in the short term, however chronic stress has been linked to respiratory problems like asthma. Alongside this, as the rate of breathing increases, a panic attack may get triggered which may result in further episodes of panic.

Your Appetite

As the brain becomes more aware and guarded in a stressful situation, it also becomes more focussed on the sensations in the stomach. This can often trigger not just a stomach ache but nausea as well.

Your Immunity

Chronic stress in the short term reduces your body’s ability to defend itself against infections. Hence, coming down with the flu, fatigue, fever or the common cold are common amongst people who are stressed. However, in the long term the repercussions can include heart attacks, respiratory problems as well as stroke.

Stress, hence, is not just an “inconvenience” but has long term permanent impact on our overall health and it is very important to make changes in one’s lifestyle, thinking and habits to reduce overall stress levels.