Stress: Spotting the Signs and Symptoms and Ways to Treat It

When you say, ‘I’m stressed out’, what exactly do you mean? Stress , generally speaking, is the feeling of overwhelming mental or emotional pressure. It’s pressure with a side order of prang – a voice inside your head that says ‘this is too much, you can’t cope’. People have different ways of reacting to excessive pressure – one man’s motivator may be the upper limit of another man’s stress threshold – but regardless of the root cause, 74 per cent of UK adults have felt so stressed at some point over the last year they felt overwhelmed or unable to cope, according to the Mental Health Foundation. It seems that for many of us, the motivating kind of stress is in short supply. Related Story 6 Signs That Show You’re Seriously Stressed Out There are three distinct types of stress , according to the American Psychological Association (APA), and they affect your mental and physical health in slightly different ways. Acute stress The most common variety, acute stress, stems from “demands and pressures of the recent past and anticipated demands and pressures of the near future”. It’s thrilling in small doses – the APA uses a fast run down a challenging ski slope as a prime example – but ultimately draining. It’s a tight deadline or a traffic jam or an argument with your girlfriend. Episodic acute stress When acute stress occurs on a fairly regular basis, it becomes episodic acute stress. We all have that one mate who’s always late, always in a hurry, and always has “too much on”. If something can go wrong, it usually does. They may also be perpetual worriers , forecasting catastrophe around every corner and blaming any setbacks on external events or other people. Chronic stress If acute stress is a stubbed […]

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