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Stress Behavior
Behavioral Symptoms of Stress
What is a stress behavior? We’ve all dealt with stress, but when we undergo chronic stress that becomes more than we can bear, we may end up developing specific types of unhealthy behaviors from it.Over time, these different behaviors can negatively affect our health and well being. We need balance in our attitudes and actions in order to keep our relationships, job obligations, and personal/family responsibilities flowing smoothly.
The Behaviors
Some common stress behaviors - Over eating, under eating, over cleaning, shopping and overspending, isolating oneself, over consumption of alcohol, chain smoking, or out of character cigarette smoking, use of street drugs, over use of prescription drugs, neglecting responsibilities, overreacting, and over exercising. It’s important to communicate with your doctor if you feel that you might be developing some of these behaviors, due to the negative physical and mental impact they can have on you. When your body feels threatened by stress, the fight or flight response is activated. The
Fight or Flight Response
will then release stress hormones in your body called corticosteriods. These hormones need to remain in balance in order to serve helpful functions in the body. When an imbalance is created, continuous exposure to these hormones is damaging to the brain. Mood swings – These can lead to the development of harmful stress behaviors, such as the ones listed above. Many women report that when they feel stressed they go to their favorite store and overspend. Most of the population in America (both male and female) reports chronic over eating when they are stressed, which doesn’t end until the stressor has passed. This behavior leads to weight gain, and overspending can lead to debt. Each of our actions has its own consequence, and the more we give in to a stress behavior, the more likely it is to develop into an automatic response, without us even knowing it. Think about it, when you feel stressed do you reach for the chocolate, the bag of chips, or the ice cream? Many of us do and don't even give a second thought to the effects it has on our bodies. As mentioned earlier, these consequences can lead to many negative health effects. Some of these effects include; obesity, alcoholism, with cigarettes it can develop into cancer, anorexia, and much more.
Two of the most common stress behavior reactions are: 1. Taking something (a pill) to calm down. 2. Taking something to stimulate the senses to create productive behavior. An example of this is the type of person who will thoroughly clean their house when they are stressed. If we let behavioral symptoms continue without taking the steps to alter these symptoms, it can cause us to develop long term behaviors that weaken us and actually hold us back from our progress in life. If you’re feeling like any of these behaviors are holding you back, don’t be afraid to take action! Instead of allowing a bad situation to get the best of you and adopting an unhealthy habit, try to focus on the positive aspects of the situation, and replace old habits with healthy new ones. Here are some pages that might help:
Stress Prevention
– Learn how to prevent stress before it starts!
Stress Management
– Find healthy ways to manage your stress. By keeping healthy and positive we can combat, and even prevent what could have otherwise become a pattern of negativity and bad habits from ever starting.
Return To Stress Affects Health Homepage from Stress Behavior
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