This Is How Stress Affects Your Body

Your health takes the hit, but you can prevent it

A lot of non-Australians assume that Aussies live a stress-free life, spending their days walking around in thongs, relaxing at the beach, having a beer or two in the sun and occasionally surfing. The stereotype couldn’t be more wrong.

Recent studies have shown that Australians are becoming increasingly stressed, with 35 per cent of the population reporting a significant level of distress in their lives, and about 13 per cent of them reporting depression symptoms in the severe to extremely severe range. And. This is the low end of the spectrum whereas the APS 2015 five-year study indicated that the combined figure for depression and anxiety ranging from mild through to severe totaled 87% of the Australian workforce.

The most common cause of stress? Personal finances. It’s no surprise then that the workplace is commonly seen as the most prolific environment for anxiety and health issues.

Stress is no joke. We might like to pretend that we’re fine and that we can deal with whatever is thrown at us, but sometimes, that’s just not the case, particularly for those who have previously been exposed to high levels of stress and were unable to resolve the problem.

In simple terms, the basis of stress is negativity. The more negative your constant thoughts and beliefs are, the more easily you will be affected by stress and suffer the consequences. It sounds like an exaggeration, but that’s the harsh truth.

For instance, say your boss tells you they want to have a word with you next week and doesn’t tell you what it is about. If you’re someone inclined to have negative thoughts, you will think that your boss might not be happy with your work and that they’re going to fire you; but that does not make sense, because you are already thinking negative thoughts about yourself e.g. not being good enough and you don’t deserve anything remotely close to a promotion. So, you will spend the rest of the week stressing about that meeting, wondering what exactly your boss wants to tell you and what you’re going to do when you lose your job.

It’s an endless train of negative thoughts. And it doesn’t end there.

Not only is your mind blinded by this constant dark state of mind, your biology changes to adjust to your current mental status quo.

Your immune system is weakened, your hormone levels become unbalanced and inflammation spreads all over your insides, leaving you unprotected against any disease. That’s why we tend to get sick in times of high stress and end up catching a cold, a virus or having digestive problems.

It’s believed that 95% of all diseases are stress related. This means that we have control over 95% of our own health.

Think about it. Negativity is not something you are born with, so it’s not part of your nature. This means that if you resolve the underlying causes of such negative thinking and behavioural patterns, and retrain your physiology to respond to stress in a more efficient way, you will be able to maintain an all-round healthy lifestyle and get what you really want in life. If you don’t, you will fall victim of the same physiologically responsive pattern every time you’re exposed to stress.

It’s all about knowing how to retrieve your underlying emotional problems, resolve them and go from stress to success in little time.

Take control of your life and don’t let stress stop you from living a happy and fulfilling life.