8 Weird Things That Happen To You When You’ve Been Under Stress For Too Long

In this fast-paced world we live in, stress has become a normal and usual thing. We all experience stress at some point in our lives but if your stressful days begin to turn into weeks, this can have a damaging effect on both your physical and mental health.

It seems that we can’t escape stress. You wake up and start worrying that you won’t be able to finish all your daily responsibilities on time. Then, you turn on the TV or go online and find out all sorts of terrible news. All this stresses you out.

Worrying too much about the daily tasks you have to complete and avoiding to face your problems and difficult challenges can make you feel stressed for a longer period, which is really bad. What’s even worse is that your body can be sending you signals that you’re overwhelmed by stress and you’re unaware of or simply ignore them. Understanding these signals is of utmost importance for your emotional and physical well-being.

In what follows, there’s a list of 8 weird things that happen to you when you’ve been stressed for too long.

1. You easily get irritated by little and unimportant things.

When you’re stressed, especially for a longer period of time, you can’t control your reactions and even the smallest details can get on your nerves. If someone changes the channel while you’re watching TV, you can snap at them in a second. You can even grow out of things or situations you once liked a lot. If you see that they’re constantly playing the same songs on the radio, you can feel a sudden wish to break it into pieces.

2. You start eating a lot or you can’t eat at all.

During longer periods of stress, you experience changes in your eating habits. When you’re under too much stress, you feel weak and the level of your blood sugar can either drop or increase sharply. So, don’t be surprised when you catch yourself unable to stop craving and eating cookies and cakes or other food rich in fat. The opposite thing can happen too. You might struggle to force yourself to put food in your stomach.

3. You have terrible tension headaches.

Having dull or throbbing headaches or feeling like your head is sore is a common thing that can happen to you if you’ve been stressed for a longer period. Oftentimes, these headaches can be mild, but when they aren’t, you wish you could get out of your skin. Try controlling your stress as I’m sure you don’t want to end up having chronic headaches.

4. You feel very tired.

Being stressed out for a long period of time can really suck the whole energy out of you and leave you extremely tired. You feel weak, exhausted, and unable to perform your daily responsibilities. You try to stay active and pay attention to the things and people surrounding you, but you can’t find the necessary strength to do that. Your once great willingness to accept daily challenges and tasks starts to reduce.

5. You snap easily.

In normal situations (when you aren’t under stress), you don’t have difficulties controlling your anger when you have to deal with things you find irritable and negative. Yet, longer periods of stress can provoke your anger instantly. Someone’s silly, ironic, and hostile comments can make you yell at them and throw all your anger into their face.

6. You try to keep yourself busy all the time.

This is a defensive strategy that many people use so as to prevent themselves from thinking about the things that stress them out. You run around like crazy. You increase the number of tasks you have to fulfill every day, and you even invent new ones in order to devote your energy, thoughts, and time to them. Yet, be careful, this kind of behavior can wear you out even more

7. You have difficulties sleeping.

Instead of falling asleep after a hard and stressful day, you’ll find yourself struggling to sleep when you’re under stress for too long. What happens is that your mind focuses only on your problems and worries. It keeps you up all night. A lack of sleep can damage your cognitive functions and make you unable to concentrate and think straight and fast.

8. You have stress rashes.

Your skin can reveal too if you’ve been struggling with stress for too long. So, don’t be surprised if you notice pimples, zits or hives appearing on your body. These skin rashes can be quite uncomfortable and shake your self-confidence.

Now that you know what happens to you when you experience stress for too long, make sure you don’t allow stress to overwhelm you and take a total control over your life!