Stress is an overarching theme in most of our lives. Though we’re all busy, everyone finds time to talk about being stressed, unable to meet the competing demands of work and family, not to mention friends, hobbies, and self-care.

This is a difficult way to live — and whether or not our culture requires such stressful excess — maintaining a breakneck pace can sabotage your ability to enjoy your day-to-day existence. Everyone handlesstress differently, but some people are less able to adapt to it than others.

Here are 5 signs you need to handlestressdifferently.

1. You Feel Enraged on a Regular Basis

If you find yourself struggling with severeanger, including road rage, on a near-daily basis, this is a sign that you need to find healthy outlets to deal with stress.

Anger is hard on you mentally and physically, and can lead toimpulsive choices you regret, such as violence. If you find it hard to keep your rage in check, you need to reevaluate your methods for dealing with stress.

2. You Frequently Experience Somatic (Body) Pain

3. You Feel Isolated From Friends and Family

Confiding in othersis a great way to lower stress levels, but if you feel that you have no time to see friends or family, you can’t even discuss or share your issues with them. If you feel like it’s been “forever” since you have spent time with the people who are most important to you, then this loneliness is likely compounding your stress.

4. Others Tell You That You Seem Stressed

If you’re hearing from friends, family, or loved ones that you seem stressed and they imply that it is affecting their relationships with you, you might do well to listen to their issues.

Examples of this include:a partner saying they feel like they have to walk on eggshells around youwhen you have had a bad day at work, a friend saying that you disappear into a black hole and stop answering texts regularly for weeks at a time, your boss pointedly asking if “something is wrong,” or your child saying that you always seem busy, even at home. Stress that sabotages your closest relationships needs to be examined and dealt with openly and proactively.

5. You’re Barely Keeping Your Head Above Water

It is essential to mental health to see your life as a coherent narrative; to think you are the protagonist in a story that makes sense to you. If you are barely surviving, you cannot be thriving in any larger sense.

It’s Unhealthy to Live with Excess Stress, Find Help Today

If any of these signs of stress feel familiar to you, it would be a good idea toreach out to a therapist. You deserve to enjoy your life, and this requires you to find more adaptive and healthy ways to deal with stress. Changing your responses to stress can change your life outlook and help you feel calmer and happier. You’ll have the resources to devote to aligning your values and goals, and start living a life that feels more authentic and meaningful.

Our goal at Talkspace is to provide the most up-to-date, valuable, and objective information on mental health-related topics in order to help readers make informed decisions.

Articles contain trusted third-party sources that are either directly linked to in the text or listed at the bottom to take readers directly to the source.

Share0Tweet0Pin it0

Share0

Tweet0

Pin it0