Bloomingdale Counseling for Stress

Stress is the way your body responds to the events in your daily life. Stress can actually be either good or bad. While everyone responds to stress differently, good stress can be a positive response that your body feels that allows you to stay motivated to achieve personal goals. Negative stress is the type that individuals tend to identify more readily because it now gets in the way of their identified goals.

When stress becomes continuous or excessive, it becomes harder to adapt and cope. Often, because negative stress is experienced so frequently, individuals start to perceive it as the norm and are unaware of just how stressed they are. This can lead to symptoms of anxiety and depression.

What are the symptoms of stress?

Stress can manifest in various ways, and its symptoms often differ between men and women. Below is an overview of common signs of stress:

• Physical Symptoms: You may suffer from headaches, fatigue, difficulty sleeping, body aches, skin issues, or an upset stomach. Stress can also contribute to unhealthy habits like drug or alcohol misuse, and a decreased interest in sex or activities you once enjoyed. 
• Emotional Symptoms: Individuals may experience anxiety, depression, anger, irritability, frustration, mood swings, or a sense of losing control. 
• Mental Symptoms: Stress can impair focus and decision-making, provoke worry or negative thinking, cause forgetfulness, and lead to feelings of boredom or disengagement. 
• Work-Related Symptoms: In the workplace, stress can appear as work overload, long hours, strained relationships, difficulty concentrating, missed deadlines, or declining productivity. 
• Social Symptoms: Stress can impact personal relationships, leading to feelings of isolation, reduced intimacy, loneliness, or increased family tensions.
• Spiritual Symptoms: On a deeper level, stress can lead to feelings of emptiness, a loss of purpose or meaning, doubt, guilt, or even despair.

If left unchecked, stress can lead to major physical and emotional turmoil. Addressing your stress head-on so that it doesn’t snowball into a bigger issue is the best way to approach it. Sort out your stress and get your life back on track with the help of one of our trained counselors. They are skilled to help you navigate the stress so that you can live a better life.