The short answer is, it’s pretty expensive. And it’s probably more then you know. You’re paying for your extra stress through your relationships, your view of the world, your choices, your finances, and ultimately through bad consequences on your health which could actually cut your life short. Almost nothing is more important than cutting stress in your life. After all, not doing so could actually end your life.
Bad Judgment
Have you ever felt like you had an outer body experience because you drove to work and had not idea how you got there. And things are really stressful you may have gone through your entire day totally detached from what is really happening? Your brain is focusing on something else, like the stress in your life, rather than the tasks at hand. Maybe you even just lose large chunks of your day. Those days that time flies but your not enjoying the end result. This can cause you to make some very poor decisions and choices that can have consequences far beyond the troubles of the day.
Bad Karma
Karma is really just about cause and effect. It fits with the statement “what goes around comes around” and it also fits with the idea that if you put good out into the universe you’ll get good in return. But, when we are stressed out, we don’t always put good out in the world. We put our negativity, our problems, and our stress into the world and guess what: We get more back. Now you can see why your thoughts create the events in your life.
Bad on Your Pocketbook
When you are stressed out sometimes you’ll make poor choices with your finances. Even small choices such as buying dinner at a fast food place on your way home from work, to not reading the fine print in an investment opportunity might end up costing you dearly in terms of your finances. Spending money you really don’t have because for that moment it makes you feel better. These bad choices are frequently made because of the stress you are experiencing in your life.
Bad Relationships
Whether you’re experiencing typical stresses of life, or you have special circumstances causing extraneous stress problems, it can lead to poor relationships. It can turn good relationships bad. It could be your job, finances, parenting or true marital issues no matter what stress can cause truly serious mental and physical reactions that will challenge not just your marital relationships but all of your relationships. Relationships are delicate. Easy to break down but hard to mend.
Bad Health
When you get stressed out your heart rate goes up, causing your heart to beat harder, increasing your anxiety. Other physical symptoms of stress are dry mouth, and increased tiredness. Due to these changes in your physiology you can also experience diarrhea, constipation, nausea, indigestion, IBS, more colds, yeast infections, bladder infections, fibromyalgia, arthritis, high blood pressure, hyperventilation, asthma, headaches, migraines and the list goes on and on. There is even some correlation with certain cancers and stress.
Whatever problems you have that have caused or contributed to by stress it is clear that dealing with it can help make your life better. Are you really willing to pay the price for hanging on to your stress? What are you going to do today to help combat and reduce the stress in your life? If you have bad judgment, bad karma, bad finances, bad relationships, or bad health it’s all bound to be bad for business.
Untreated stress can result in chronic illness. As an energy practitioner, I assist clients in releasing trapped emotions that lead to reacting with stress and anxiety. This is done painlessly without needing to relive the emotion. Excellent post on the effects of stress!
Loretta you’re doing great work. I’ve taken Reiki classes and learned EFT. But I do know you get much better results when you work with a practitioner.
Totally agree, stress is no good for so many areas of life or at all really. Funny, the other post I read was about laughter. These two go well together. 😉
Mary learning to laugh at yourself can not only be a real treat it can lighten the load. Thanks for sharing your comment.
Linda – Thank you for the work you’re doing to help people realize all the costs associated with stress. We typically think about our health & wellness, but as you’ve shown, the effects go well beyond those aspects of our lives. Self awareness has gone a long way in helping me to know when I’m getting “spun up” and what to do in those moments. I’ve also grown more forgiving of myself, which has gone a long way to alleviating stress & potentially stressful situations.
Kelly it wasn’t until I got sick that I understood how stress effected my body. Stress is at the core of most of the illnesses that effect us today.
Hi Linda,
Lots of great points here. Even when trying to BUILD a business, we have to remember to take some time for ourselves; otherwise, our bodies will just break down and make SURE we do it in one way or another… the latter being the worst way.
Yes Shelly it’s so easy to be busy taking care of “business” We forget to take care of the “business of our health” And without heath there would be no business.
Really great article, actually all the articles are great. My philosophy is that ‘stress is a state of mind.’ There are always going to be stressful situations at some time in life I think it’s how you choose to deal with it and your ideas are great. Thank you.
Helen you’re correct in that it’s a state of mind and I never expect to get rid of all stress. What we can do is get rid of toxic stress. That stress that will cause physical and mental damage. Thanks
Linda