Are you getting stressed out and not realizing that is what´s happening?

Seeing signs that you don’t realize is your stress?

It creeps up on you, slow and nasty before it then hits you when it is too late.

Stress is not all the things on your to-do list. Stress is the reaction in your body and mind when your perceived demands from the outside is contrasting with what your inner power can handle.

This shows in many different signs and symptoms that we often have a hard time to understand. And all this is spiced with feelings that are even harder to control.  

Here are the 5 biggest signs to look out for that are telling you, you’re stressed out:

1. Someone close to you says: “Are you having a drink today again? You´ve had one every day for a long time now.” Alcohol is a super-duper tranquilizer – for the moment. That is why so many people use it as self-medication of stress. But most people don’t realize that is what they are doing until much later, and often too late.  Alcohol seduces you to believe it does you good and that is why so many keep on with their daily drinking for so long, and often the amount increases over time.
2. You hear someone ask you: “What is the matter? Why are you so angry?” And you say in a grumpy tone: “Nothing is the matter and I am not angry” even though  somewhere deep down have a feeling that something is the matter, you just can’t pinpoint it. Your immediate response to this is that people are bugging you, that they want to push you down and your way to handle that is to be even angrier and frustrated. Because when you are stressed out you have a hard time structuring your thoughts and the lack of control feeds anger.
3. You are having a headache every other day. You never used to have headaches. And now it is so often. At first you think a cold will be coming up, but it doesn’t. You take pain relievers that work for a few hours and then the headache is back again. This kind of headache is called tension pain because the muscles on the scalp are constantly in tension when you are stressed out. But you get more worried for each day and you even scare yourself by asking Mr Google what could be wrong with you and you get the answer: “This must be a brain tumor” or something equally horrifying. So then you’re even more worried and stressed  and you have a hard time focusing on your leadership and work until the time comes when you have visited a doctor and gotten things straight.
4. When you hear yourself saying: “I forgot!” or “Can’t remember.” more than one time each day. You forget where you put things. You forget your keys, you telephone, your purse, your notes, the list can be long. When we are stressed out our brain gets overloaded and it shuts down if you don’t give it a break. And that is why we forget. Surprisingly many people first fear they are getting dementia, even fairly young ones. If you are age 65+ that is a valid thought but if you are a busy business leader stress is the first thing to consider.
5. When you have to re-do your tasks over and over again. You keep trying to do things faster and faster. The more you try the more faults you do. And you do it over again and over again. You tell yourself you´re no good at this and your self-confidence decreases and in the end you give up. Stress releases stress hormones and these hormones makes us act as if there is a danger around the corner. It makes us hurry up and at the same time we lose our concentration and we do things more sloppy. Instead we need to slow down and be careful and in the end we will become faster and more efficient since we got it right the first time.

These are 5 very common situations when stress is playing tricks on you. Since it creeps up on you slowly it is hard to make the connection to it being your stress that causes the signs. You don’t actually want to see these signs in your own life. It is so much easier to see these things in other people.

If you learn to watch out for these 5 signs in your own behavior you will help yourself from stress and overwhelm and if you as a business leader see these signs in you workgroup you can do wonders with building a great, successful and healthy team.

If you want help to conquer your stress I would love to help you. Here you can schedule a short free call with Dr Annika to help you figure out your needs and what to do about it. 

And if you have colleagues who would benefit from this information feel free to share this link

To your success!