How you feel can affect your ability to carry out everyday activities, your relationships and your overall mental health. How you react to experiences and stress can change over time. Emotional wellness is the ability to successfully handle life’s stresses and adapt to change and difficult times.
Stress can affect your health, so it’s important to pay attention to how you feel and how you deal. Here are four things to know about stress.
1. Stress affects everyone.
Everyone feels stressed from time to time. Some people may cope more effectively or recover from stressful events more quickly than others. There are different types of stress, all of which can affect one’s health. A stressor can be something that happens once, over a short period of time, or something that keeps happening for a long time. Examples of stress include routine stress like pressure related to work, school, family and daily life; or stress from a sudden negative change, such as losing a job, divorce or illness. These are just a few examples.
2. Not all stress is bad.
Sometimes stress can be motivating, like when you need to take a test or interview for a new job. Stress can even be life saving, like in response to danger — think fight or flight. In these situations your pulse quickens, you breath faster, your muscles tense, your brain increases activity — all functions aimed at survival.
3. Long-term stress can harm your health.
Health problems can occur if your body’s response to stress goes on for too long, like when the source of stress is constant. If those life-saving responses continue, your body can suppress immune, digestive, sleep and reproductive systems, which might make them stop working normally. Especially with constant routine stress, the body gets no clear signal to return to normal. Over time, the continued strain may contribute to serious health problems, such as heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, other illnesses and depression.
4. There are ways to manage stress.
Taking steps to manage your stress can reduce or prevent these health concerns. Here are some tips that may help people manage stress:
- Recognize how you respond to stress. Are you having trouble sleeping? Drinking alcohol more or using other substances? Are you irritable? Feeling depressed or just worn out?
- Get regular exercise. Even 30 minutes a day of walking at any pace can help boost your mood and reduce stress.
- Set goals and priorities. Determine what must be done and what can wait; learn to say no; note what you’ve accomplished at the end of the day, not what you weren’t able to do.
- Stay connected with people who provide emotional and other support. Ask for help when you need it.
- Talk to your doctor about existing or new health concerns.
Click here for a printable checklist of ways to manage stress and improve emotional wellness.