Everyone experiences stress. The pressure of work, social, or personal obligations can increase a person’s anxiety or tension throughout the day. While your body can handle a certain amount of stress, chronic stress can harm your mental and physical health.
What Does Stress Do to Me?
Consider how you feel when you’re stressed. Do your muscles become tight? For example, when you’re trying to cope with pressure, do you feel your shoulders become tense? If you answered yes, the next time you feel your muscles tense up, take a deep breath and breathe the air out. Conscious connected breathwork is one way to help your body let go of stress.
You want to let go of any stress or tension your body is holding because when your body experiences chronic stress, your muscles won’t relax. They’re in a fixed state of guardedness. Because your muscles are taut, the risk of harmful body and mind reactions increases. Some examples are:
- Headaches: Both tension and migraine headaches result from continuous muscle tension in your head, neck, and shoulders. Stress, especially tension caused by work, can also cause lower back pain.
- Respiratory issues: When you feel stressed, you can have shortness of breath or rapid breathing. Under normal stress circumstances, your respiratory system can handle stress-related breathing issues. But if you have a breathing condition (asthma, chronic bronchitis, or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease), your symptoms can increase. In addition, emotions like grief can cause hyperventilation or panic attacks.
- Cardiovascular problems: Continuous stress takes a toll on your blood vessels and heart. When you are experiencing stress, your heart rate and blood pressure increase, causing your heart muscles to work more. Additionally, stress hormones are released. Chronic stress prolongs these effects on your heart and blood vessels, increasing your hypertension, stroke, or heart attack risk.
- Gastrointestinal problems: Prolonged stress affects the gut-brain communication system. Furthermore, this disruption in communication can cause bloating, pain, and mood changes.
How Can I Decrease My Stress?
There are many ways to reduce the amount of stress in your body. For example, therapy can guide you in understanding the causes of your stress. For instance, while you’re receiving treatment for your stress and anxiety, you can engage in talk or somatic therapy. These forms of treatment combined with holistic therapies provide insight into how you respond to stressful situations.
Holistic treatments like yoga, meditation, art, or music therapy provide healthy coping habits. Yoga, for instance, guides you to focus on your mind-body connection. As you flow from one position to another, your mind releases stressors—the act of being in the moment frees you from outside worries or pressures.
Stress is unavoidable. Everyone will feel pressure to complete a project or live up to expectations. However, chronic stress jeopardizes your mental and physical well-being and the risk of physical or mental health issues increases. The Guest House provides the guidance needed to help you discover healthy ways to cope with stress. We encourage you to try yoga, meditation, art, or cinema therapy. Feel free to explore our 52-acre estate near Ocala, Florida, as you release harmful thoughts and feelings. You can find the privacy and comfort you need during your time here. To learn more, call (855) 483-7800.