By David Joel Miller, MS, Licensed Therapist & Licensed Counselor.
Overwhelmed.
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com
Is this normal, or are you overwhelmed and stressed out?
Stress is a normal part of life. During the night, when you sleep, the body produces stress hormones which is one reason that with adequate sleep, you can jump out of bed in the morning. Throughout the day, those stress hormones should be used up and by the end of the day, you should feel tired and ready to rest again. When you become overwhelmed and stressed out through the day, this can lead to damaged physical and mental health, mental illness and job burnout. Here are some of the symptoms that should become overwhelmed and stressed out.
If you chronically feel anxious, you’re getting stressed out.
Anxiety should be restricted to those times when you are in a dangerous or difficult situation. If you feel anxious all the time and the smallest thing startles you, your anxiety is getting excessive and you may be developing a mental illness called generalized anxiety disorder.
If your nerves are shot, you’re being overwhelmed.
Your body should reset to a normal non-anxious state when the anxiety-producing situation ends. If you’re starting to feel like things are getting on your last nerve, that’s not normal. Once you start feeling like your nerves are shot, you’re headed for difficulty and should seek professional assistance before you completely burnout.
If you constantly feel burdened and heavy, the stress is getting to you.
One of the early signs of burnout, excessive stress, is when you feel physically and emotionally exhausted, and you are no longer able to rest during your time off. Occasionally going through a stressful period and being exhausted is normal. But if you’re not able to recover during your downtimes, you’re seriously overwhelmed.
When it is hard to breathe, the cause may be stress.
With any physical symptoms, you should always check with a doctor first. But if you discover that you’re finding it hard to breathe when you’re anxious, possibly even having panic attacks, your body may be telling you you’ve reached the limit of your ability to manage stress.
If you are always stressed and tense, you may be emotionally overwhelmed.
Your body reacts to emotional stress in the same way it reacts to physical stress. If you are developing aches and pains and there doesn’t seem to be a physical cause your body may be telling you, you’re under too much emotional stress.
When you are constantly irritable, it may be a sign of too much stress.
When a small child is sick, they become irritable and push people away. Adults who are under a lot of stress and become overwhelmed become irritable. Irritability and even anger is a way of pushing people away and creating the space you need to rest up from excessive stress.
If there is no fun in your life, the cause may be stress.
The inability to feel pleasure is one of the symptoms of depression. There’s a lot of overlap between major depressive disorder a diagnosable mental illness, and excessive levels of anxiety. Too much stress in your life can leave you overwhelmed, burned out, and can lead to depression and anxiety.
Changes in your sleep and appetite can be the result of stress.
Having difficulty sleeping, or sleeping longer than usual and still not feeling rested our both signs of depression. Milder brief episodes of these sleep changes may be simply the result of too much stress. But if you change in sleeping habits goes on for very long, you should see a mental health professional before it turns into debilitating major depressive disorder.
Changes in appetite can also be a sign of difficulty adjusting to stress or the beginning of mental illness. When depressed, some people find it difficult to eat, while other people cope with their stress by emotional eating. If you develop sudden cravings for sweets and carbohydrates, it may be the result of depression or another mental illness.
Staying connected with David Joel Miller
Six David Joel Miller Books are available now!
Bumps on the Road of Life. Whether you struggle with anxiety, depression, low motivation, or addiction, you can recover. Bumps on the Road of Life is the story of how people get off track and how to get your life out of the ditch.
Dark Family Secrets: Some family secrets can be deadly.
What if your family secrets put you in danger?
Letters from the Dead The third in the Arthur Mitchell mystery series.
What would you do if you found a letter to a detective describing a crime and you knew the writer and detective were dead?
Casino Robbery is a novel about a man with PTSD who must cope with his symptoms to solve a mystery and create a new life.
Planned Accidents The second Arthur Mitchell and Plutus mystery.
Sasquatch. Wandering through a hole in time, they encounter Sasquatch. Can they survive?
For these and my upcoming books; please visit my Author Page – David Joel Miller
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