Stress signals

May is Mental Health Awareness month so I thought it would be a good idea to review some stress signals.  If you experience any of these, it’s important to recognize them early.

What is stress?

Stress is a part of life, and we all experience it from time to time.  Stress is that thing that makes our stomach upset or makes us sweat and we don’t feel like we’ll be OK.  There may be a feeling of impending danger.  It could be something as ‘simple’ as a deadline or something as ‘major’ as a death in the family.

It depends on how you feel about it – both are traumatic to us, as we’re going through it.  If you’ve ever dealt with a traumatic event, especially one that gave you a strong emotional reaction and it was affecting your ability to do anything effectively, most likely you were stressed.  It’s normal!  The problem occurs when you can’t get passed it.

Stress signals

There are common signs of a stress reaction that you should be aware of.  These are:

1. Physical
2. Cognitive
3. Emotional
4. Behavioral

I’ll go into these in a little more depth in the next few days but here I want you to be aware that not everyone’s stress is the same – we don’t react in the same way or in the same time frame.  In order to feel happy or get back to feeling happy, we need to understand our feelings.  So over the next few days, I will go into these stress signals so that you know what to look for.  Mental health is so important – let’s make it a priority!