Tumultuous thoughts, difficulty concentrating, a racing heartbeat—everybody has experienced the unpleasant symptoms of stress at some point in their lives. When you’re feeling stressed, it’s impossible to achieve maximum performance optimization, both physically or mentally. Not only that, regular stress can take a toll on your overall health in a variety of ways.

5 Physical Consequences of Stress

1. Pain

Multiple studies have linked chronic stress to physical pain. This is thought to be due to stress increasing inflammation in the body, which can cause muscles to cramp and nerves to fire up.

2. Premature Aging

The inflammation brought on by stress can also cause premature aging of the skin. This is because stress shortens telomeres—the ends of chromosomes that preserve your genetic code when cells divide. Natural aging occurs as cells divide and telomeres get shorter. Eventually, cells can no longer divide and die completely. When telomeres are shortened sooner due to stress, cell death is accelerated, resulting in premature aging.

3. High Blood Pressure

When humans get stressed, their body responds by secreting hormones, primarily cortisol. While this natural reaction is a normal adaptive response designed to enhance performance optimization and help humans cope with fear, sustained elevated levels of such hormones have been shown to cause high blood pressure. Hypertension is linked to an array of serious ailments, from heart disease to stroke.

4. Sleep Interference

If you have trouble falling asleep, stress may be to blame. With its boost of cortisol and other hormones, stress pumps up your body’s energy production to increases alertness. This attempt at physical performance optimization is part of your “flight or fight” response. Unfortunately, it can leave you feeling overly alert and unable to sleep at night. 

5. Headaches

Stress is one of the most common causes of tension-type headaches. These may be episodic or chronic, and they are characterized by dull aching pain and a sensation of tightness across the forehead and sides of the head.

Managing stress will allow you to live a happier and healthier life. IMUA Orthopedics, Sports & Health in Honolulu, HI, will help. These health care professionals support overall well-being and maximum performance optimization with their nutritional medicine, osteopathic manipulation, and sports medicine services. They also provide orthopedic surgery. They believe in treating the whole patient with a holistic approach, not just addressing a single symptom. Get to know their team online. To meet them in person, make an appointment by calling (808) 521-8170.