Other signs of Stress

During Mental Awareness month, I’ve been talking about the signs of stress.  There are physical, emotional, & behavioral, but there are other signs of stress – cognitive – that you should learn to recognize.

Other signs of stress

Stress signals come in many forms.  The physical signs of shortness of breath, chest pain, and sweating are just a few.  There’s also the emotional part of it where we feel panic, anxiety and depression.  But do you know the cognitive signs – which are the other signs of stress?  Do you know what to look for and what to do when you have any of these symptoms?  Below is a list of some of the cognitive stress signals to watch out for.

Cognitive signs

Have you ever felt confused or had poor concentration?  What about feeling suspicious?  Maybe you have a hard time solving problems when you normally are a great problem solver.  All of these are some of the telltale signs that you have something else going on.  Others are:

• Having nightmares
• Feelings of uncertainty
• Being hypervigilant
• Always being aware of surroundings to the point it’s obsessive – or even the other way around – unaware of your surroundings when you should have the awareness.
• Lack of alertness or too much
• Constantly blaming people
• Inability to keep your attention on anything
• Lack of ability to make decisions
• Very difficult time concentrating and unable to remember things

If you recognize any of these symptoms in yourself, it’s likely that you have been stressed.  These are just some of the other signs of stress and can really make you feel gloomy.

What to do

When we are feeling overwhelmed and life isn’t going our way, it’s hard to know what to do.  This is especially true if we don’t have anyone to turn to.  If you do, great and that’s your obvious first step.  But, when we feel alone, what can we do to help ourselves feel better?  Generally, the first things I do is take a step back – I stop.  It’s hard for me to initially come to that but when I finally figure it out, that’s my first step.

I need to look at the situation and determine how I feel about things – to take a good look at what I want and what is in my best interest.  This has always been difficult for me because I don’t want to be selfish, but this is the exact time I know I need to think about myself.

If I’m not feeling good about something, it’s because I’m going against who I am.  Once I realize that, I can move on to figuring out what to do.  I generally do that by meditating and getting my mind off of what was stressing me out.  After a few days of ‘letting go’ of what I was trying to control to keep things together, things just seem to fall into place.

Life is Hard

Listen, life is hard but we make it harder on ourselves.  Things will happen that we can’t control.  It really is true that we can only control our reactions to those things.  It’s OK to be angry, sad, disappointed or any other feeling we feel.  Once we feel it, it’s time to move past it.

For those people who have difficulty, I get it.  I can tell you from experience that dwelling on something that isn’t serving you is only holding you back.  I live by the mantra that we make the right decision or we make the decision right.  What this means is that you have to make a decision – stop dwelling and living in the past.  Create new habits so you can move on.

Do something and if you discover the next day, the next month or even the next year that it was the wrong decision, then you make that decision right.  It’s OK.  So, either way, you win.  Don’t worry about what other people think.  Do your own thing and you’ll be happy and much more free of stress!

There are other signs of stress so pay attention to your body and listen to it!