3 Major Consequences of Chronic Stress To Your Life

Stress doesn’t just happen overnight, It can be a buildup of worries and problems that then ultimately affect your mind and your body.

Stress tells you that you are overdoing it.

When your brain detects a threat, it releases two neurotransmitters (also called hormones) - cortisol and adrenaline. These affect your heart rate, blood flow, alertness, and more.

Although these might not sound that bad, the biological responses that will occur in your body are designed to fight off stress. However, your body will eventually get tired of this and stress then becomes chronic.

There are many consequences of chronic stress, here are some of them.

1 - Poorer sleep quality

Even if you sleep for 7 hours a day, which is within the recommended duration to sleep, stress can still affect the quality. You may experience midnight sweat, nightmares, and disturbances. In addition, lack of sleep has detrimental effects on both your mental and physical health. It can even lead to obesity, diabetes, and heart problems. A 2015 study tracked mid-aged women over 9 years and showed that participants experienced a low quality of sleep during their highest levels of stress. Some even suffered from insomnia.

Chronic stress has shown to increase your chances of insomnia.

2 - Increased strain on your family

Some people accept the lifestyle of being overworked to ensure that they are financially stable and as gallant as this goal is, stress can take its toll. Stress can result in mood swings, which may affect those around you. In addition, a lack of time spent at home has been reported to be one of the causes why marriages fail.

3 - It can trigger depression and other mental health problems

Many studies show that chronic stress can lead to anxiety and depression. It has been researched that stress can suppress the growth of new neurons in your hippocampus. This is the part of that brain that has been shown to shrink on scans when you have depression. Stress triggers chronic inflammation, which appears to play a role in the onset of numerous mental health problems.

Most people feel a little stress every now and then and it’s generally not something you need to be very concerned about as it is part of our lives. However, when stress becomes chronic and leads to health problems, it’s time to address it.

We hope this highlights the importance of taking a break and slowing things down.