Understanding the Impact of Stress on Your Mind and Body
Health experts have been fascinated by the connection between our physical and emotional wellbeing for years.
As a medical exercise specialist, I have seen this connection firsthand. Many of my clients who have physical problems, like muscle pain, type 2 diabetes, heart arrhythmia, and fibromyalgia, also suffer from anxiety, depression, or stress.
My curiosity for the mind-body connection hasn’t changed for me now as a life coach for business owners. This issue is important because as leaders, you can’t lead anyone while struggling to take care of your body.
In this article, we will discuss how chronic stress affects both our minds and bodies.
Our bodies have a way of communicating our emotional distress through physical discomfort. Muscle pain, strains, and stomach aches are common ways that our body tells us that something is not right.
Oh yes! Your mind is talking to your body.
I’ve heard the comment ‘Migraines run in my family’ for many years. While there is a significant genetic connection (in some cases up to 60%), I always wonder if the familial connection is also linked to how family members learn to self-regulate themselves in response to stress-inducing activities.
The connection between physical and emotional health is a subject extensively studied by authors such as Gabor Maté in “When the Body Says No” and Robert Sapolsky in “Why Zebras Don’t Have Ulcers,” among others. Their work highlights that merely treating physical pain with medication may not provide the ultimate solution. Often, healing the mind is equally, if not more, crucial.
You may be thinking, “Well, Denise, everyone has aches and pains from time to time.” And that is true – to some extent.
Our bodies are exposed to constant environmental stressors that impact our overall wellbeing. However, what I am talking about are the signs of long-term chronic stress. In the next section, we will discuss this in more detail.
Healthy vs Unhealthy Stress
I have discovered in my healing practice everyone wants to avoid pain and discomfort at all costs. They want to avoid any type of stress. However, this mindset will not help you grow emotionally, spiritually or intellectually.
So before we continue this topic, let’s distinguish healthy stress from chronic stress.
Healthy Stress
Stress is a natural and necessary part of life. It can help us improve our thinking skills by strengthening nerve connections in our brains. We need stress, but it’s usually only for a short time.
There are some important things to know about healthy stress.
Traits of Healthy Stress
- Short Term: It should only last a little while and is usually caused by something specific.
- A Part of Daily Life: From car problems to a diaper blow out. Healthy stress is a regular part of life and we can handle it well.
- Designed to Help, Not Hurt Us. Sometimes, stress can even help us do better by giving us more energy and making us more focused.
- Our body reacts to stress by releasing hormones (ex adrenaline) that can make us more alert and perform better.
Unhealthy Stress
If you grew up in a household marked by pain, discerning healthy stress from its unhealthy counterpart can be challenging. The reason lies in the similarity of sensations, as your body is inundated with stress hormones such as adrenaline, cortisol, and norepinephrine.
It’s crucial to recognize that what qualifies as healthy or manageable stress can vary significantly from person to person. The ability to cope with stress is contingent upon various factors, encompassing personal resilience, support systems, and overall health.
With that understanding, let’s delve into the characteristics or indicators of unhealthy stress.
Traits of Unhealthy Chronic Stress
Long-lasting Stress: Chronic stress sticks around for a long time, like for months or even years.
Keeps Adding Up: It happens because of ongoing stuff that doesn’t have a clear stop.
Causes Big Problems: Chronic stress can make your body and mind really sick, making you more likely to have heart problems, anxiety, depression, and other health issues.
You Can’t Work or Live Right: If you’re stressed for a long time without taking a break, it can mess up how your immune system works, give you tummy issues, and mess with your sleep.
On anxiety
When something has unhealed emotional, they may feel extremely sensitive to people and situations. Left untreated it can turn into Generalized Anxiety disorder. This type of anxiety makes you always alert and ready to protect yourself from any danger, whether it’s real or just in your head.
Anxiety shows up in our bodies in many ways:
- Aches and pains
- Insomnia
- Social withdrawal
- Low energy
- Clouded and unfocused thinking
- Changes in appetite, emotions, and behaviors
- Significant drops (20 points) in IQ score (Perry and Winfrey – “What Happened to You?”)
But I had a good childhood, and a good life now. Why do I suffer from anxiety?
Many people believe that only those who have been abused or neglected will have anxiety, but this is not always true.
People who had good childhoods with loving parents can still feel anxious. This may be because of pressures to be perfect or meet cultural expectations. These pressures can be exhausting and require recovery time. However, the brain can recover and heal, allowing us to regain focus and function better.
In the next section, we will discuss exercises that can help restore our minds.
Five Steps to Help You Find Relief from Unhealthy, Chronic Stress
It’s important to take care of your mental and physical health by managing stress. Here are some ways to manage your stress at work and in our personal life:
1. Listen to Your Gut, Literally:
95% of the hormone that helps stabilizes our mood, called serotonin, is made in our gut instead of our stomach. This means that the health of our gut is important for our emotional well-being.
Our enteric system, which is like a second brain, stores memories and communicates with our actual brain. Eating nutritious food that helps our gut stay healthy can reduce how easily we feel stressed.
2. Take Rest Breaks:
Many of us try to do too much and don’t take breaks. We treat our body like a machine instead of something valuable that helps us. This is not good. If this is you, stop it! Take a break.
Exercise regularly, do things you enjoy, and take breaks every day. This will help you avoid getting too much stress.
3. Prioritize Sleep Hygiene:
In my podcast, I talk to experts about health. One of them was Dr. Barry Krakow, who knows a lot about sleep. In this episode, he reminded us that sleep is very important for both our body and mind.
You can make sure you get good sleep by creating a routine and making your sleep area calm. In addition, this article talks about other things you can do to sleep better.
It's important to take care of your mental health by doing things that make you feel good. Stress can wear you down, so you need to do things to recharge your batteries. This is like putting money in a bank. The more you put in, the more you have to use later. So, remember to take care of yourself and make your mental health a priority.
4. Improve Your Communication Skills:
“Can’t people see that I am stressed?” I can’t tell you how many times I have said that to people over the years. I have realized that part of the reason why I didn’t receive the comfort that I desperately needed was because I failed to communicate my wants and desires in a way that others could understand me. I was being secretive.
Now we can be authentic while being honest and vulnerable.
Here is a question for you – are you being secretive, evasive, or abrupt in your communication? These are signs of bad communication.
Good communication skills help “lubricate” the conversation so that we can meet our needs quickly and with minimal stress.
5. Eliminate Stressors:
Too many of us are literally burning in a cauldron of chaos and confusion. And while it may feel typical and normal, it doesn’t mean it’s helping your nervous system.
Take the time to evaluate your life and ask yourself – which areas of my life are unneeded and unnecessary? Now is the time to leave and cleave from things that add no value to your life.
No more late-night stress inducing activities
Also, now is the time to revamp and renew your evening wind-down time. Are you looking at political news or any stress-inducing news late into the night?
Love, the madness has to stop!
No wonder you may be tossing and turning at night as your mind is desperately trying to process all the other stressful events of the day, plus all the new stressful things you have absorbed. I recommend you stop reading all that stuff at least two hours before bedtime.
The image below summaries my recommendations. Next, I will share my final thoughts.
Final Thoughts
Taking care of both your physical and emotional health is very important for your overall well-being. Being aware of how stress affects both your body and mind can help you take action to live a healthier and more balanced life.
Your body is meant to help you survive, but that doesn’t mean it needs to be punished under constant stress. If you need help beyond this article, I invite you to connect with me. Let’s embark on this journey together towards a harmonious and healthier lifestyle.
Also, listen to this episode from my podcast on the mind-body connection.
