Common Areas Your Body That Is Affected By Stress

There's no way to escape stress in a normal day in the life of an active living human being. Our work, our home life, and our day to day experiences will create some level of stress in the body.

The danger comes with the type of stress that can affect our health and well being from our dealing with individual situations and our rules for engaging. Some of us will cry, some of us will yell, some of us will rip our hair out. What we experience and our reaction will always have an effect on our mind and body.

Specifically we will be talking about the effectes of stress on very important parts of our physical being and how we can take basic steps to reverse this negative process and take back control.


Areas of Stress on the Body and How to Cope


Chest & Heart. We have all experienced any one of these feelings including dissapointment, frustration, anger, and heartbreak at one time or another. Such feelings can be triggered by personal challenges like any health concerns, job loss, past failures, or a relationship break up. Sometimes we call these experieces a 'heart break' which many times we feel and carry those emotions in our chest and often times affect the heart by releasing stress related chemicals, causing it to change speed and beat irregularly. 

To counteract and overcome emotions that negatively impact our heart is to count to ten and take deep breaths, slowly exhaling and becoming aware of how you are feeling. Try and recognize that you can immediately change what you are thinking about. Doing this will shift your attention and change how you feel.

The Head. Stress headaches can be brought on by you guessed it..stress! Getting angst at work or at home, getting angry over a major dissagreement will also be felt in your head. A pounding headache and pressure around the eyes can also follow a good cry. According to one source chronic stress is experienced, the body makes more cortisol than it has a chance to release, which eventually can kill brain cells and even reduce the size of prefrontal cortex, the area of your brain that is responsible for memory and learning.

A simple suggestion to help you is to first try and seperate yourself from the current situation. Get up and go for a walk while taking deep slow breaths. This will slow down your heart rate and thus your body's need to release adrenoline and cortisol which are major stress chemicals. Tension headaches can last from 30 minutes all the way up to a week. Go to a quiet place and sit calm. Why not give yourself a head massage?

Abdomen & Stomach. Anxiety can very easily trigger an ache in our tummy or cause our stomach muscles to cramp.  For those who have had to get up in front of a group of other to give a speech or feeling the gitters, butterflies, shaking, shivering, twitching of muscles , and even indigestion that comes with worry over a future event. 'Sick to their stomach'.

Diaphragmic breathing is one of the most effective ways to 'settle your stomach from stress. Start by placing your hand above your belly button, slightly below your ribcage.  Begin by closing your eyes (if you want to) and start becoming aware of your breathing. Take deep breaths, allowing your breath to travel deep into your diaphragm.

Neck & Shoulders. Most of us have ended up with pressure, tension, stiffness, or soreness in our neck and shoulder area after shortly having a seriously stress event in our lives. How many of us called a certain person or job we had to do a 'pain in the neck'? This type of stress response  causes the body’s muscles to tighten in an attempt to protect the body from harm and possibly more resilient to damage.

Tense muscles in the neck and jaw can give you a  headache due to constricting blood flow to the head and scalp. Poor circulation forces tightening and squeezing makes neck to stiffen and knot around the shoulders.

One remedy os to sit up straight in a chair with a straight spine and tilt your head toward your right and left shoulders slowly back and forth while gently stretching your neck muscles. You can also tilt your head from side to side lowering your ear towards your shoulder.

Another option would be to apply massage oils along with having someone rub our neck and shoulders or sit in a chair and use an electric neck massager to loosen tight and knotted muscles in the neck and shoulders. Usually in as little as a 15 minute session can provide needed relief from a stiff and painfully tight neck. 

The Last Word

Surely stress can have damaging affects on the body. In fact every cell in our body will take protectiv action against stress that is caused by the outside world as well as the mind.

Becoming aware of the vital areas that affect our body like our heart, head, and belly and how we can take preventitive measures to avoid these. Things like deep breathing, a change of activity, or refocussing our attention can be excellent ways to lessen and outright avoid unnecessary stress on our precious body and soul.