There are a thousand and one reason to be stressed in the daily life: too tight schedules, a project that is close to your heart, a meeting … In fact, stress has become a word used in all sauces. But precisely, how do you know if this stress you feel is normal and passenger or installed and chronic? How to recognize chronic stress? Johanna Rozenblum, clinical psychologist, gives us the keys to take stock.
Stress, a state that happens to us all
Stress is linked to an environmental disturbance in which we are. The organization, feeling threatened, reacts to compensate and adapt to this imbalance.
During a stressful situation, several areas of our brain are stimulated in order to make us react: cortisol, stress hormone, provides us with energy, other hormones increase our level of vigilance. Originally, stress is therefore a good thing to allow us to survive, and it is normal. But he also has the gift of being unpleasant and exhausting us.
How to recognize when stress becomes chronic?
What is not normal, however, is being in a state of permanent stress. “In health we often talk about the diagnosis of a generalized anxiety disorder” Pose Johanna Rozenblum. This is distinguished from an isolated stress rise, when you notice these three characteristics:
“”We are talking about a stress that has been “chronicized”, a generalized anxiety disorder potential when:
- Stress is present for several weeks, from morning to evening;
- He has no precise trigger;
- He invades the different spheres of life, that is to say the private sphere, the social sphere and the professional sphere. “
At the same time, this chronic stress is manifested by several physiological symptoms:
- Persistent fatigue;
- Sleep disorders (insomnia, night awakenings, unclean sleep, etc.);
- Headaches;
- Muscle pain;
- Gastrointestinal problems;
- A loss of appetite or on the contrary a stimulation of it;
- High blood pressure;
- Cardiovascular diseases;
- A disruption of the immune system;
- A development of metabolic syndrome.
And emotional consequences:
- Irritability;
- Mood swings;
- Concentration difficulties;
- A loss of efficiency in terms of memory.
What if you recognize yourself?
Do these symptoms speak to you? In this case, do not remain helpless. “”If it starts to become a handicap, you have to go and do an assessment, either with a psychologist, or to a psychiatrist, for example, to assess the level of stress, to try to see the consequences that it has in the different spheres of life “, advises the psychologist.
Working on the one hand with a psychologist can help the patient find the causes, triggers and give meaning to these anxious manifestations. “”For those whose anxiety is really too manifest, too disabling and too overwhelming, drug treatment can be offered ” assures the psychologist.