Nowadays, it’s so easy to get caught up in the week, trying to get everything accomplished, but feeling like there’s never enough time. In the US it’s common to stay so busy, either with work, raising a family, school or other activities that we forget to stop and carve out time just for ourselves. We forget to make our peace a priority and we forget how important stress-reducing activities are for good self-care. Perhaps taking time for yourself sounds selfish, or maybe you’re not sure how exactly to gauge if you need to take time for yourself. But rest assured, setting aside time for yourself, is not selfish and will actually improve your relationships with others and can help you be more productive. Sometimes we just need to slow down our lifestyle and allow ourselves a period of stillness, where we can just be, without any pressures or expectations bearing down on us.

However, for some people, it’s not as simple as that, because some people don’t even realize they are living with Chronic Stress. If you don’t know what Chronic Stress is or if it’s affecting you, try asking yourself the following questions:

Do you spend all your time taking care of others and never have a moment alone? Do you spend the majority of your time working? Do you feel like you have to be doing something all the time as if you must be productive? Do you spend a lot of your time worrying about work, the future or others? Or do you experience anxiety and stress even when you’re not doing anything? Does it feel like you have been experiencing one distressing setback after another? Have you been sick a lot or mentally struggling for a significant amount of time? Or perhaps you are struggling with PTSD or have recently experienced a traumatic event that you can’t seem to get past?

Then chances are, you are living with Chronic Stress. Chronic stress happens when you experience stressful situations, circumstances or thought patterns that have continued for a long period of time. Sometimes people get so used to living under stress, it becomes their new normal, even when the original source of stress is gone. In fact according to basicmedicalkey.com, a great database full of up-to-date medical knowledge, “constant exposure to stressors tends to synthesize the individual to the situation… The low level of stress may become a way of life and negatively impact the health of the individual.”

Now, experiencing occasional stress is not a bad thing in itself, some people even thrive under pressure. And small amounts of stress can also “provide stimulation and intellectual challenge,” so not all stress is bad. But when stress is prolonged, it can turn into Chronic Stress which can eventually lead to paranoia, anxiety, depression, and even psychiatric disorders. Also, stress can cause emotions such as intolerance, dread, irritability, impatience, mood swings, and compulsive behavior and make you feel emotionally overwhelmed.

But stress doesn’t just affect your mental and emotional health, it can also damage your immune system, your hormones, your reproductive system, your heart, your nervous system, your metabolism, and even damage your digestion. It can also negatively affect the neural pathways in your brain and can affect your ability to learn, retain memories and damage your attention span. Chronic Stress can also cause sleeping problems, heart disease, headaches, and inflammation and negatively affect your blood pressure and blood sugar. Needless to say, Chronic Stress is not a good thing, and it wreaks havoc on your mental, emotional and physical well-being.

So what actually happens the moment you experience stress?

When you experience stress you go into fight or flight mode which affects your mood, your motivation and your level of fear. Also, cortisol is released from your adrenal glands, making you sweat, your heart race, your muscles tense, causes your breathing to go faster and can also cause trembling. Often going into fight or flight mode is your body’s way of initiating a response in an attempt to avoid imminent danger. For some people, this might look like your mind jumping into overdrive allowing you to figure out your next move. However, others might respond differently and may feel paralyzed by fear, while others will experience the urge to fight back. Either way, the end result will often leave you exhausted, worn out and emotionally drained. The good news is that our bodies are built in such a way that we are able to bounce back from the occasional stressful situation. However, when we experience frequent stress and our stress is prolonged then “it challenges the body’s ability to maintain physical and emotional homeostasis and is associated with negative bodily responses.” We already know all the negative side effects from Chronic Stress, but what exactly is Homeostasis?

Homeostasis is your body’s unique ability to maintain it internal environment. It is your body’s natural ability to return to a harmonious state by helping your reflexes return to “its previously calm state after a stressful encounter.” In fact, you can think of homeostasis as a little rubber band that stretches back and forth without breaking. This ability to stretch allows your body “to remain in a dynamic steady state, whereby it continually adjusts to maintain its internal function.” Simply put, this means that after a stressful, dangerous or scary situation, your body and mind will bounce back and you will be able to calm down and return to normal.  But if you experience chronic stress, then that means your body has lost the ability to re-balance itself. It means that your body can no longer reach homeostasis, or return to harmony because it’s stuck in the fight or flight stress-induced stage all the time.

If you are experiencing chronic stress, or even if your body has not yet lost the ability to reach homeostasis, but you feel stressed and overwhelmed so often, that you’ve forgotten what it feels like to be normal.… then start making it a priority to carve out time for yourself. Taking the time for yourself so you can recover and recharge is so important, because the longer you let stress build, the more likely you are to get stuck with Chronic Stress! This is why psychologists recommend finding activities you can engage in that reduce your stress. This means you are living in a constant state of stress, which has been proven to be very damaging to your mental, emotional and physical well-being.

So, if you think you might be stuck experiencing Chronic Stress, then it’s time to get proactive about recovering your peace. Make a commitment to be more engaged and take time to do what you like to do, so you can feel both calm and fulfilled. That might look like hiring a babysitter, turning your phone and TV off, or turning down that overtime at work so you have more free time. Or maybe it looks like having your spouse go out to have a guy’s or girl’s night out, so you can be alone and enjoy some peace and quiet.

Either way, resist the temptation to just watch TV or scroll through your phone endlessly to decompress. And instead try developing a stress-reducing hobby that invests in your mental, emotional and physical well-being.

If you need ideas for activities that have been proven to reduce stress than check out my next post: 20 WAYS TO REDUCE STRESS.

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