Signs your body is stressed that's what I'm talking about today I'm dr. Tracey
Marks. If you're new to this channel I talk about mental health education and
self-improvement. I publish new videos every Wednesday so if you don't want to
miss one click subscribe and hit the notification button. Even if you think
you're handling your stress well your body could tell you otherwise and in
this video I'm gonna give you seven not so typical signs that your body is
stressed. So how does your body respond to stress? Well
cortisol and adrenaline are two chemicals that are secreted in the body
under stress. Adrenaline is the fight or flight hormone and cortisol metabolizes
sugar in the body to make it accessible to the brain.
Cortisol also suppresses the body's immune response so typical signs of
stress include things like high blood pressure, poor sleep, racing hearts and
heart rate. And these are the things that are related to adrenaline. Some of the
atypical symptoms are things like teeth grinding or also called bruxism. And this
involves clenching your jaw or grinding your teeth back and forth. And this can
happen at any time. And you may notice that you say wake up
with pain or you could even wake up with a headache if you're doing this at night.
And sometimes too much teeth grinding can cause cracked teeth. Unfortunately
tooth grinding can be worsened if you have acid reflux. Wearing a bite guard at
night can help and you can get one specially fitted by a dentist or you
could buy a generic one at a drugstore. I've had both. The generic ones could be
big and it could be hard to fit in your mouth and you got to even work hard to
like close your mouth down. But, and the custom ones though they're pricey, but
they are much better because they just they fit your mouth. Number two: poor
digestion. When your body's stressed you can get decreased motility and slowed
digestion. So this can feel like you get a stomachache or
some type of stomach pain or gas or bloating every time you eat. Slow
digestion can also lead to constipation. Why? Because as your food moves through
the gastrointestinal tract and through your intestine, it absorbs
water. So if you've got slowed movement your intestines are still drawing out
water from the food or the fecal matter. So if it moves too slowly and you absorb
too much water then you can get hard stools. So even if you don't have hard
stools, what this could end up looking like is that you don't go you don't have
a bowel movement very often. So instead of having one every 1 to 2 days if you
eat every day you eat every day it should move through.
So if you don't have one every one to two days, maybe you have a bowel movement
every 3 or 4 days. So infrequent bowel movements and/or hard stool and/or
stomachaches after you've eaten things could be a sign that you're stressed.
Another sign is sore muscles. Stress causes the muscles to tense up and you
can get aches and pains in places like your neck and your back even with my
without much activity. So you can get to the end of the day and just feel
exhausted and even achy and sore when all you did was sit all day. You can help
this by taking stretch breaks and also Yoga is a powerful way to reduce stress.
Next your hair. Chronic stress increases cortisol levels which promotes
inflammation and free radical damage and this can result in increased or
accelerated graying of your hair. But hair loss is different. Alopecia areata
is an autoimmune disorder that results in in hair loss and this can just kind
of go and come and fluctuate over time and is not really related to stress.
However you can get excessive hair shedding because of stress and sleep
loss can also disrupt the hair's life cycle leading to shedding.
But the shedding makes your hair thinner versus what you see with alopecia where
you get clean spots usually circular spots of hair loss. Next weight gain.
Chronic sleep loss also causes increased cortisol levels that affects your weight. And this may not look like you packed on 50 pounds because of it, but it may be
more subtle weight gain like weight that just kind of creeps up on you and you
just can't seem to lose despite exercising regularly and having a
healthy diet. Number six frequent colds. High cortisol
levels suppress your immune system so that could make you more acceptable to
getting sick often. Are you someone who always seems to get sick every time it's
flu season? Having a suppressed immune system also can activate or trigger
dormant viruses like shingles which is the Herpes virus or cold sores. So having
an eruption of shingles or having frequent cold sores could be a sign that
you're under a lot of stress. Last one: no sex drive. Increased cortisol suppresses
sexual arousal. One solution or one thing that can help is exercise. Engaging in 30
minutes of aerobic exercise 5 days a week
noticeably reduces stress and lowers cortisol levels. So these are some
telltale signs of stress that show you that your body is trying to get your
attention that you're under a lot of stress. And this is its reaction to
it If you have one or more of these signs, you need to work on managing your
stress. You certainly don't always have control over your stress or the things
that's causing the stress, but what you can have more control over is how you
manage it. I've mentioned two ways to do this the exercise and yoga. Another good
way is using mindfulness meditation I did a previous video on this and I'll
link to it in the corner for you to watch. Try incorporating that in
your day as just one more tool in your toolkit to help you manage and reduce
stress. Thanks for watching. Leave me a comment and if you like this video click
the like button.