Physical Symptoms Of Stress

Do any of these questions sound familiar as you think about your physical symptoms of stress?
  • Is something wrong with me?
  • Why do my body hurt so much lately?
  • Why am always so tired?
  • Why am I always sick?

For most, it is when the symptoms of stress start impacting your body that you begin to wonder how to reduce the stress in your life.

stress and ambulance


I can’t think of one client that I have ever worked with that hadn’t really struggled with these two realities that chronic stress can create:
  • daily pain in the body
  • the loss of independence that often follows that pain

For years, physicians have been saying that 80-90% of patient appointments are stress related. So, it is important to become aware of when your physical symptoms of stress are telling you that you are in trouble.

Stress basics

It is not acute stress that is problematic. Acute stress is a daily occurrence for everyone, and the body is designed to adapt to that.


It is chronic stress that, overtime, begins to wear out the body and begins to cause pain to your body.

Here is an overview of how the stress response works:
  • The autonomic nervous system has two parts - the sympathic nervous system (stress response), and the parasympathetic nervous system (relaxation response).


  • The body moves between these two systems throughout each day in response to typical life stressors.


  • The normal cycle between these two systems is to react to a real or perceived stressor…adapt to that real or perceived stressor…relax and rejuvenate the body.


  • The body has a natural innate sense of balance that it needs in order to function optimally.

Why does chronic stress hurt the body?

When the body is not given an opportunity to come into balance and relax for a significant amount of time each day then acute stress becomes chronic stress.

When you are chronically stressed, the body does not have enough time to rest and rejuvenate. This reality, over time, is what wears out the body and is when you begin to hurt, or have things start going wrong.

The human body was just not designed to function in the stressed and out-of-balance state.

Aside from all the problems that chronic stress causes, the real problem is that most people were never taught how important balance is to health.

stress and balance


What are the warning signs of chronic stress?

If you are concerned about whether your stress is becoming chronic, it will be helpful to you to take the free stress management survey
. This will help you to better assess your physical symptoms of stress.

But, if you are now managing one or more of the following physical symptoms then we may have more things to talk about with one another:

Chronic headaches
Neck and back pains
Muscle tension
High blood
Elevated heart rate
Sleep deprivation
Fatigue
Can’t get pregnant
Losing or gaining weight
Dizziness
Nausea

If left unmanaged, you may find that these symptoms can escalate into:

Heart attacks
Strokes
Cancer
Diabetes
Autoimmune diseases


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Is it too late?

While none of us has the qualifications to see into the future, what I have experienced time and time again with my clients, is how resilient the body is. Once you learn how to give your body more opportunities to be in balance throughout the day, amazing healing can occur.

Typically, when your body hurts, or you are working to manage your high blood pressure, etc. you just want to know how to turn it around.

You can.

It’s important to learn how the BEST of you is constantly working with you to manage stress. The problem is that most people were not taught how to understand that.

There are three critical pieces of stress management that are important in you getting your body back into balance:
  • the basic information on the physiology of stress


  • how your thoughts, body, emotions all work to communicate with you how you are doing with stress


  • some effective relaxation techniques that you can do while at work, or in stressful situations
Once you have a clear understanding of that information, then you are in the position to regain control over your stress and your life.

Most importantly, you will have more of what you need to better manage the physical symptoms of stress.







Share Your Tips, and Ask Questions Too

There are lots of ways of reducing stress. If you have discovered a way that works for you, please share it here. Or, if you have a question about ways to reduce stress, I am glad to answer them here.

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What Other Visitors Have Said

Click below to see contributions from other visitors to this page...

Effects of stress on chronic pain?  Not rated yet
I have lived with chronic pain for many years. It seems to get worse when I'm stressed. Can you help me understand the effects of stress on chronic ...

Stress management survey  Not rated yet
Do you have some sort of stress management survey on your site that I could take?


Dan, I do, indeed. You can click on stress management survey ...





For more information, please see:

Stress Management Survey -- Take the FREE stress management survey to assess how you are doing with your stress.

Control My Stress -- Let's work together to control your stress before it begins to take a toll on your physical body.

Return From Physical Symptoms Of Stress To Pain And Stress Reduction

Return From Physical Symptoms Of Stress To Coping With Stress Home


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Please help a friend or loved one by sharing this information with them. Email this link to them or submit this page to your Tweet account, or Facebook or your favorite social bookmarking or networking site. Use the links below to pay it forward.




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Stress Tip Of The Day!

Throughout each day, the primary cause of stress is because of threats of uncertainty.

It is thoughts of fear and worry that are triggering the stress response.

Staying focused on maintaining a positive attitude is an important stress technique.



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stress management tools!


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Testimonials

“Ms. Churchill is the unique health care worker everyone hopes to encounter, but rarely does. She has an extraordinary gift that allows her to do much more than diagnose and treat.”
Abbie K. – Minneapolis




K., age 45, is a long term chronically PTSD disabled patient. She has had daily headaches for 20 years. Two weeks ago she reported that she had had 4 days of pain free time, and was having the exceedingly odd sensation of "smiling all the time". She and Cathi have made extraordinary fast progress together.
Dr. Cole




I referred C.L., age mid-forties, to see Cathi after a life of suffering the post traumatic stress disorder of parental sexual abuse over many years of her childhood, with major dysfunctions of alcohol and drug abuse, and with the disabling symptoms of migraine that have for more than twenty years become chronic.

She has lived with daily headaches that have not responded to any of the several drugs which have benefited many such suffering patients. She has needed chronic opiate treatment of her chronic pain syndrome.

In the few weeks that Cathi has worked with her, C.L. has begun to experience days without pain, periods of happiness, and a reduction in her opiate dosage requirements that represent a breakthrough in her stalled-out life as a single mom raising a teen-age daughter with only social security income resources.
Dr. Racer








“I first met Cathi Churchill eight years ago when she effectively helped my work unit through the stress of a hospital-wide layoff. I was impressed with her clear-minded approach and willingness to listen.”
Andy R.




N., age 60, is a hard driving attorney twenty year patient of mine who hit the wall with chronic fatigue four years ago, and began to realize she had to learn to rest. She recovered enough to return to her workaholic lifestyle when she was stopped by a herniated cervical disc and resumption of her chronic colitis.

Working with Cathi, she is discovering "the way she does life" and learning to make choices about it. She came in last week, having "danced until dawn". She is learning to dialogue with her body in effective ways.
Dr. Cole




“I stumbled upon Cathi after my recent heart attack that was brought on by stress. I was scared of having another one, and didn’t know what to do. I had lost hope. Working with her has changed my life. I’m so grateful."
Debbie – Canada




M.S., a woman in her late forties with progressively more and more disabling rheumatoid arthritis since childhood, whose most recent problems have arisen over the last two to three years as complications of immunosuppressive therapy for her disease. The complications have been associated with the severely disabling chronic pain of recurrent herpes neuralgia for more than three years, and for the past 15 months, recurrent osteomyelitis in her right lower mandible.

The second, more alarming (even life-threatening) problem has caused months of diagnostic and therapy confusion among her many consultants, three successive resections of the bone over the last six to eight months, and the still ongoing threat of more relapses of the smoldering bone infection and chronic pain only made bearable by chronic, massive doses of opiates.

In the few months since M. began to work with Cathi with several modalities: stress management, therapeutic touch, guided imaging, and others, her life has become more livable, as she has become able to bear the pain and the discouragement of unresolved disease.

She has relied on many of the methods for maintaining hope and getting through overwhelming discouragement by using the inner resources she has learned with Cathi.

My hope as her primary physician, is that Cathi and M. will be able to continue to work together to maintain that inner strength and hope as she faces yet more months of pain, and further repeated surgery.

Thank you for the healing guidance you've been able to give her thus far.
Dr. Racer




“I sought out the help of Cathi during my divorce, and found her to be an insightful and compassionate coach. Her ability to see deep into the heart of an emotionally stressful problem is, I believe, unique and I would highly recommend her service to anyone.”
P.R. – Brooklyn Center




S., age 48, is a Laotian patient of mine with 15 years of chronic abdominal pain. She has had an extensive medical worked up, and nothing ever worked. Cathi saw her over several months.

S. has improved! Cathi established a trusting relationship with her, and helped her to effectively break through her wall of silence and grief about her son's mental illness, and taught her how to "change her thinking".

S. now comes in smiling, notes some unusual continued symptoms, but no longer has chronic abdominal disabling pain.
Dr. Cole




“Control My Stress is so amazing. I want to thank you, again, for such a valuable resource.”
Tony.


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