Our stress hormones don’t spike up quickly and suddenly, it has signs before spiking up!
And yes, it’s already your stress hormones above the normal level – but you aren’t aware of it.
You don’t realize it happening at all and that is okay because you are not alone, there are many of you…
But that’s why exactly I have this blog, to educate and help you all figure it out.
When your perceived demands from the outside are in contrast with what your inner power can handle, your body and mind react and that reaction is the stress you’re feeling. But this shows up in many different ways that can be sometimes hard to even recognize.
To help with that, I’ve compiled the 5 Big Stress Signs to Look Out For.
1. DRINKING MORE
All of a sudden, drinking has become your habit.
You almost never used a drink in a workweek before, but now it has become your cup of tea to wrap up your day to relax in the evening.
Why and how is this a sign? Alcohol is a super and natural tranquilizer, so if you feel heavy or have had a heavy day, it’s natural for you to look for this to ease your feelings.
Now that most are working from home and drinking becomes easier, some even started drinking while working.
If you start looking forward to alcohol just to end your day, it’s a sign that you have a high amount of stress in your days. Do not ever become alcohol dependent and if you do, get help. It’s all normal.
2. ANGER
You get irritated and angry on simple things, and when you start to think why you’re reacting that way, you can’t even pinpoint a reason, because the reason is already stressful.
When you are stressed out, you have a hard time structuring your thoughts and the lack of control feeds anger. You retire back into your ancient brain using all the automation it has for your behavior.
You are very lucky if someone close to you notices this and calls you out for it in a nice way because this will be hard to reflect on and notice by yourself.
If you get called out, do not get mad but instead reflect and if you see someone acting the same way, do them the same favor because they won’t automatically see it themselves.
3. Headaches.
You never used to have frequent headaches but now it happens so often. You take pain relievers that work for a few hours and then the headache is back but you’re not at all sick.
This kind of headache is called tension pain because the muscles on the scalp are constantly in tension when you are stressed out.
Before you start googling and panicking about what you see, try first the best treatment for tension headache – RELAXATION.
Relax, take a breather, do something you love and if relaxing doesn’t help, go get tested for other possible causes but still – no panicking as it adds to your current stress and thus gives you more headache.
4. You start to be forgetful.
You forget where you put things. You forget your keys, telephone, purse, notes, and more. And you forget names, words, people, places.
When we are stressed out, our brain gets overloaded and the electric impulses lose their way. The whole system shuts down if not given a break. It simply says – “I am out of order, I need to rest!” And that is why we forget.
Surprisingly, many people first fear they are getting dementia, even the fairly young ones. If you are 65+ that is a valid thought. But if you are a busy business leader, stress is the first thing to consider.
The good thing is that there are so many ways to help this situation.
ALL your brain wants is some space, peace and calm, rest, and a chance to rearrange the nerve threads by taking a break.
It’s literally screaming “let me off the hook for a moment!”
To do that, you can take deep breaths, exercise, sing, dance, jump, meditate, affirm, or whatever it is that can make you happy.
5. Failing to do routine tasks.
When you have to re-do your tasks over and over again but those tasks are not new to you.
Stress releases stress hormones and these hormones make 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 do things more sloppy.
Instead, we need to slow down and be careful and in the end, we will be faster since it got right the first time.
These are 5 very common situations when stress is playing tricks on you.
If you learn to watch out for these 5 signs in your own behavior you will help yourself from stress and overwhelm.
But know that each person is different and signs vary, so these are just the most common ones.
STRESS PATTERNS
Find your own stress pattern.
Other seen signs include anxiety, shaking, concentration problems, tummy ache, getting infections, hair loss, sleep problems, over/under-eating.
Since these patterns and symptoms creep up on you slowly, it is hard to make the connection to it being the stress that causes the signs. You don’t actually want to see these signs in your own life. It is so much easier to not see – deny and go on as usual.
But if you as a business leader see these signs in your workgroup, you can do wonders with building a great, successful, and healthy team. You can do that just by acknowledging them and telling them what you see in a nice way – and helping them on the next step.
STRESS AS A WARNING SYSTEM
WE HAVE TO LEARN TO USE our stress warnings RIGHT.
Find your blind spot.
Find your blind spot when you are stressed out – how do you know when you are stressed out?
To give you an example of what blind spots could be, mine is I get everything in slow motion, everything in my head becomes slow motion when I am stressed out.
With this, I take breaks, step backward, and all is okay because this saves me from burnout.
What about you, what do you think is your blind spot?
Reflect and act, and when you’re ready, here’s a complete step-by-step guide for managing your stress.
To recognizing stress signs early,
