Stress is the silent killer. Life is go, go, go and there’s really no time to reflect. I’ve had my own struggles dealing with stress and as a Naturopathic Doctor, I use what I learned in my own health journey to provide better care to my patients. I’m at a point where I’m able to recognize when my body is going through some changes due to stress and I have cultivated enough tools to help reduce it. How we deal with stress or how we don’t deal with stress is what becomes the problem. Here are the five most common signs that our body gives when it’s under a lot of stress.
INDICATIONS YOUR BODY IS UNDER WAY TOO MUCH STRESS
Are you always sick?
One of the first indications that your body could be under too much stress is that you are chronically ill. Infection is an indicator that your body and your immune system functionality is decreased.
What body aches could possibly mean.
It took me a good two to three quarters in medical school to realize that the second physical symptom that the body gives us as a sign of chronic stress is backache, neck tension, and occipital headache. When my patients show me the movement of their headache pain, it’s most likely that stress is the underlying cause of it.
Your hair.
The third physical sign is your hair not growing, your hair falling out or your hair thinning out. Now if you have these symptoms with your hair, it could be a lot of underlying health issues going on. When I have a patient who has any of these symptoms, I do my due diligence and I run labs and rule out a lot of other health issues that could lead to the symptoms when our body chronically faces stress. There are other more important organs in your body that it is reserving its resources for, so hair and nails are the last thing it wants to replenish.
Your sex life.
Number four is decreased libido, your sex life suffers. Now there’s a lot of hormones that come in to play when it comes to libido and enjoying a satisfying sex life. When you are always under constant stress, your hormones are imbalanced. This can also lead to infertility.
Mental health.
The fifth sign is mental and emotional issues, such as insomnia, difficulty concentrating, chronic anger, anxiety, decreased interest in hobbies. Stress really does put a huge burden on our body and one of the best things that I can do for each of my patients is to help them understand this concept and give them the tools on how they can identify and manage it. Learning how to deal with stress and our lives every single day is the key!
SOLUTIONS FOR YOUR STRESSFUL LIFE
Identify why you are stressed.
What is the first thing that you can do? One, is to identify the source of stress. Some ways that you can do this is to journal. Spend some quality time alone and just check in with yourself throughout the day and see how you’re feeling.
Your purpose in life.
Number two, figure out what matters most in life. Recognize if you’re living in alignment with your life’s purpose. If not, figure out ways that you can get yourself to live in alignment with the core principles that matter to you, so that when you look in the mirror, you feel fulfilled.
Just say NO.
Number three, you’ve got to learn to say no. Many of us struggle with saying no. But in actuality, that’s the number one thing that we can do for ourselves when we are trying to help our stress levels. We say yes to a lot of things that aren’t nourishing to ourselves. At the end of the day, we spend a lot of energy helping build other people’s dreams and we don’t put anything back into ourselves.
Me time.
Number four is self care. Make time every single day, every single week, to do something that you enjoy doing. I also encourage you to incorporate some kind of mind/body stress relieving technique into your daily routine. It can be prayer, meditation, deep breathing. Figure out something to help keep your stress level down. It’s very important that we take care of our mental health.
I encourage you to get out and enjoy the sun today! Enjoy what God has put on this earth for us.
