When I left university back in the Eighties and was looking for work I would often see recruitment advertisements seeking people who “thrive on stress”.

Twenty five years on I doubt many people would be attracted by an ad which implies that you should work in what must be a very unpleasant workplace.

Indeed stress is increasing recognised a major health problem.  Awareness of its debilitating impact on our lives is growing.  To assist this process we felt it would be useful to provide our readers with an overview of the signs and symptoms of stress.  We would also love it if you could share your stress stories with other readers.

If you do feel that you may be suffering from stress then it is important that you see a healthcare professional such as your family doctor as soon as possible.

Broadly it is possible to break the symptoms and signs of stress into four main groups.

Firstly stress has a number of very clear physical symptoms which may include:-

a)      Muscle pain.  I’ve always assumed this is where “pain in the neck” came from?  Is this correct?

b)      Multiple colds and other infections due to the body being run down.

c)       Lowering or loss of the desire to have sex.

d)      Bowel problems.

e)      Feeling like throwing up.

f)       Heart palpitations.

Next up there are also a fair few issues with behaviour:-

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a)      Over and under eating are common reactions.  Indeed during a very stressful period of my life I ended up only having one small meal each day.

b)      Becoming insulated and losing touch with family and friends.

c)       Disturbed sleep.  This could be insomnia or occasionally sleeping far too much.

d)      Smoking and drinking.  Far too many of us drink a little bit too much when “under the cosh”.  And let’s not forget a hangover makes it all so much worse.

e)      Physical activities such as not being able to sit still, nail biting and occasionally just walking around.

The mental symptoms are pretty much as one would expect:-

a)      Anxiety is common.

b)      Lack of concentration and “wandering thoughts”.

c)       Poor memory.

d)      Always looking at the bad side of things and not accentuating the positive.

Finally emotional issues are often the easiest for others to spot.  They can involve:-

a)      General moodiness and in some cases full scale depression.

b)      Really bad temper and outbursts.  I’m very guilty of this one.

c)       General agitation which can manifest itself physically as above.

Obviously not everyone will have all these symptoms if suffering from stress.

A physician will be able to advice on treatments but you might be interested in an older blog post which covers a few natural treatments for stress.  You can access it here https://patienttalk.org/?p=229.

As we said we are interested in finding out a bit more about our readers’ experience of stress.  It would be super if you could use the comments box below to share your story.  Some of the following questions may be useful in framing your response:-

1)      What were your main symptoms of stress?

2)      What, do you think, were the primary causes of your stress?

3)      How did you treat your stress?  How successful were the treatments?

4)      Have you made any major lifestyle changes to help combat your stress?

5)      Is there one thing you would advise another person who is under stress to help?

Thanks very much in advance.  We look forward to reading your comments.