We may all know what it is to feel stressed, but what are the common causes of these feelings? In short, stress is a state of imbalance, that is often heightened when we are faced with a situation we feel unable or unprepared to handle.
Stress can impact the way we perceive a given circumstance or problem, impairing our ability to properly reason through or understand the situation.
While it can perform differently for each individual, when left untreated stress can lead to mental health problems, such as anxiety and depression, as well as influence and dictate the emotions and behaviours of those suffering from it.
When we consider stress there are a number of obvious or stereotypical symptoms that we may think to look for, such as rapid breath, inability to relax or sit still or panicked and rambling speech. But in truth the symptoms of stress can reveal themselves in a number of different ways, and are both physical and mental.
While it can be difficult to clearly define if an individual is in need of stress relief, a common marker is whether or not a person feels an acute amount of discomfort or anxiety in a given situation, particularly one that does not impact others around them in the same way.