Have you ever woken up after having the weirdest dream and thought ‘Where on earth did that come from?’ or felt your muscles were tighter than normal but without knowing why? According to wellness experts, these are just two of six unusual signs of that you’re over-stressed, and they’re very important to pay attention to.
When stress shows up in strange ways, you can confuse it for something else, but doing this puts your wellbeing at risk. Ignoring the signs of stress, however odd they may seem, increases your risk of developing serious health problems, such as high blood pressure, heart attacks, strokes and depression. So what exactly are these six mysterious signs of over-stress?
Firstly, Lauri Quinn Loewenberg, author of Dream On It—Unlock Your Dreams, Change Your Life, says that weird or recurring dreams can be a sign of stress’s impact on your daily life. According to Loewenberg, ‘Unfortunately, the stress we deal with during the day tends to follow us to bed at night and plays out in our dreams.’ Another mysterious phenomenon of stress is inexplicable tight muscles, as Woman’s Day magazine claims stress can causes you to tense your muscles, which can even lead to muscle spasms.
However, Debbie Mandel, author of Addicted to Stress: A Woman’s 7-Step Programme to Reclaim Joy and Spontaneity in Life, argues that stress isn’t just in your dreams while you sleep, and nor does it just present itself physically in your muscles. She says that stress also resides in your mouth, as it can cause you to grind your teeth in your sleep, and unconsciously clench your jaw during waking hours. So if you’ve got mouth pain, but couldn’t find the reason why, you may have just found it.
The phrase ‘pulling out your hair’ seems to make more sense, thanks to the Mayo Clinic, as they report that hair troubles are another sign of stress. Not only does being stressed make you more likely to lose your hair, but the Mayo Clinic says that stress can also speed up the greying process. Also, if you find that you’ve always got a cold, stress may be the culprit there too. According to one study, you’re twice as likely to catch a cold when highly stressed, as stress damages your immune system, leaving you vulnerable to frequent colds.
Finally, this last sign of stress may not be quite so odd to some people, as stomach discomfort or pain has often been linked to high levels of stress. The ADAM Medical Encyclopaedia notes that though doctors don’t entirely understand the connection between stress and gastro problems, they do know that it makes your intestines more sensitive and contract more, which causes your stomach aches.
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