Stress is a universal phenomenon. 

Yes, we all experience psychological stress in some or the other way. This is something we all have to deal with, sooner or later. 

Psychological stress is an event or situation that causes an emotional response usually intense or severe enough to be considered distressing or uncomfortable. This brings you in a state of instability or sad mood. You feel insufficient to handle the situation or may even see the situation as a challenge.

Experiencing stress can be completely devastating to someone emotionally and put anyone over the edge.

In modern days, a serious stress sneaking upon is a story of everyone’s life. From taking on new responsibilities to meeting deadlines at a workplace, anything can make you stressful. 

Sources of psychological stress

Stress comes from a pressure you feel in various areas of life, especially relationships, workplace, finance or health. 

In this competitive world, everyone wants to prove himself/herself personally, professionally and socially. The resultant academic, professional, and relationship related stress is proving detrimental to mental health of an individual. 

No matter as an individual how skilful, honest and caring you are, there are always some challenges in professional, personal and social life. When you get fade up with challenges, thoughts of struggle, failure, criticism or judgement take significant emotional toll.

Added to that social media is making situation more worse. It’s natural to feel incompetent and jealous when people from your known circle post photos of their exotic vacation, professional achievement and good relationship. 

At least in India, a place of joint family has been replaced with nuclear family. A joint family where people used to live together, eat together, and share their feelings together is totally replaced with nuclear family where people don’t have too much time to mingle with each other. Though you are digitally connected with others, no digital platform can take place of face to face interaction. Ultimately, people are experiencing feelings of social isolation and loneliness.

Lastly, modern lifestyle hardly allows people to get connect with nature. Human beings are part of nature and therefore, in order to exist well you must be connected with natural elements like sun, air, and trees. Inability to connect with nature could hamper the formation of important hormones in the brain that you needed to boost your mood.

So , taken together stress of modern life, inability to share feelings in known environment and getting disconnected from nature are making you sad and stressful.

Impact of psychological stress

Stress has its own way of creeping on your mind and takes control of your body. A little stress is always good as it helps to get things done. However, in long-term stress could be annoying and detrimental to one’s overall health.

If you are not mindful about stress, it can take a significant toll on your physical and mental health. 

Long-term stress can get reflected in your feelings and behavior and affect quality of life. Therefore, recognizing spiralling stress level at the right time could help to avoid a great deal of harm.

Stress is nothing but the perceived imbalance between the demands of living and person’s capability to respond it. It is an invisible pull that drains your precious physical and emotional energy. Most stress symptoms are temporary and will resolve on their own. However, for some people these may last for weeks or even months.

Before it gets that bad, learn to recognize possible stressors and it’s impact on your body. Pay attention to what you are feeling and try to implement effective coping strategies.

Disclaimer : The purpose of this blog is to create mental health awareness. This information is not a replacement for medical treatment or counseling therapy.