Chronic or persistent stress can occur when the stressors of life are unrelenting, as they are during a major reorganization or downsizing at work or while undergoing a messy divorce or coping with a chronic or life-threatening illness. Chronic stress also occurs when little stressors accumulate and you are unable to recuperate from any one of them. As long as the mind perceives a threat, the body remains aroused. If the stress response remains turned on, you can be increasing your chances of a stress-related disease.
People suffering from stress-related disorders tend to show hyperactivity in a particular “preferred system,” such as skeletal-muscular, cardiovascular, or gastrointestinal system. For example, the evidence shows that chronic stress can result in muscle tension and fatigue for some people. For others, it can contribute to stress hypertension, migraine, headaches, ulcers, or chronic diarrhoea.
Almost every system in your body can be damaged by stress. Cessation of menstruation and failure to ovulate in women, impotency in men, and loss of libido in both. Stress increases the symptoms of asthma, bronchitis. Loss of insulin during the stress response may be a factor in the onset of adult diabetes. Inhibition of immune system makes you more susceptible to colds and flu and can exacerbate some diseases such as cancer and AIDS.
There is also evidence that chronic stress can contribute to depression.
At Renewal, we use the Schedule of Recent Experience Scale, which allows you to quantify how many changes you have experienced in the past year and consider how these stressful events may increase your vulnerability to illness. The purpose of this scale is to increase your awareness of stressful events and their potential impact on your health so that you can take steps to reduce the stress level in your life.
Once you have identified your stress-related symptoms, it is time to choose the one or two that bother you the most and to select the stress reduction techniques that, we will recommend, you will use to relieve them.