This Is How Stress Affects Your Body

A lot of non-Australians assume that Aussies live a stress-free life, spending their days walking around in thongs, relaxing at the beach, having a beer or two in the sun and occasionally surfing.

The stereotype couldn’t be more wrong.

A 2015 study by the Australian Psychological Society found that Australians are becoming increasingly stressed and anxious. Approximately 35% of the population reported a significant level of distress in their lives, 26% reported above normal levels of anxiety, and an equal 26% reported moderate to extremely severe levels of depression. The numbers are concerning.

The most common cause of stress? Personal finances. It’s no surprise then that the workplace is commonly seen as the most prolific environment for anxiety and health issues.

Stress is no joke. We might like to pretend that we’re fine and that we can deal with whatever is thrown at us, but sometimes, that’s just not the case, particularly for those who have previously been exposed to high levels of stress and were unable to resolve the problem.

In simple terms, the basis of stress is negativity. The more negative your constant thoughts and beliefs are, the more easily you will be affected by stress and suffer the consequences. It sounds like an exaggeration, but that’s the harsh truth.

For instance, say your boss tells you he/she wants to have a word with you next week and doesn’t tell you what it is about. If you’re someone inclined to have negative thoughts, you will think that your boss might not be happy with your work and that they’re going to fire you; you are constantly having negative thoughts about yourself, believing you’re not good enough and that you don’t deserve anything remotely close to a promotion. So you will spend the rest of the week stressing about that meeting, wondering what exactly your boss wants to tell you and what you’re going to do when you lose your job.

It’s an endless train of negative thoughts. And it doesn’t end there.

Not only is your mind blinded by this constant dark state of mind, your biology changes to adjust to your current mental status quo.

Your immune system is weakened, your hormone levels become unbalanced and inflammation spreads all over your insides, leaving you unprotected against any disease. That’s why we tend to get sick in times of high stress and end up catching a cold, a virus or having digestive problems.

It’s believed that 95% of all diseases are stress related. This means that we have control over 95% of our own health.

Think about it. Negativity is not something you are born with, so it’s not part of your nature. This means that if you resolve the underlying causes of such negative thinking and behavioural patterns, and retrain your physiology to respond to stress in a more efficient way, you will be able to maintain an all-round healthy lifestyle and get what you really want in life. If you don’t, you will fall victim of the same physiologically responsive pattern every time you’re exposed to stress.

It’s all about knowing how to retrieve your underlying emotional problems, resolve them and go from stress to success in little time.

Take control of your life and don’t let stress stop you from living a happy and fulfilling life.

Celine Healy, known as “the Stress Resolution Expert” by her clients, is a respected stress resolution strategist with an extensive background in counselling, coaching and healing people from all kinds of distress in their lives. Her stress resolution method, scientifically researched and tested, has an holistic approach that focuses on resolving stress, while seeing it from a total body/mind perspective. In her latest book “Boost Success in All Areas of Your Life,” she shares her techniques to resolve stress permanently and gain life time skills to being the best version of you every day of your life.