056 - What Stress Can Do To You

What stress does to you

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What stress does to you

Stress is something that can catch us all at one point or another no matter the job/business/industry.

Having attended a huge conference for entrepreneurs in the UK back in November and through working with female business owners something has become very clear to me.

Too many people running their own businesses are STRESSED!

I mean we all know it can be stressful juggling and running a business but it almost feels like it’s just accepted as the norm, as part and parcel of chasing your dreams, or even worn as a badge of honour.

They’re MORE stressed than when they were in their jobs. It’s almost as if it’s accepted to be par for the course of owning your own business that you head towards burnout on a daily basis.

But what if we just let go. What if it didn’t HAVE to be that way...that would be nicer right? Maybe even more fun?

In previous blog posts i’ve talked about a lot of things that contribute to (Overwhelm, Procrastination, Perfectionism, Lack of certainty to name a few) and can help ease stress (Mindfulness, Visualisation, Journaling, Gratitude, Reframing, Kindness) but I want to just highlight a couple of things that I feel are really important to understand.

Stress can be literally dangerous to your health.

In certain situations stress CAN be good for you don’t get me wrong, in terms of an extra boost of motivation, or saving your life from a rogue lion but when there is no real imminent danger or threat and you’re living your life in a perpetual state of stress and anxiety it’s very much in the NOT good for you camp.

It’s a natural reaction and very normal but what we want is to be able to limit it and not let it get out of control. As I often say, you can’t control your first reaction but you CAN control your second.

Unfortunately your body doesn’t really tell the difference very well between emotional ‘threats’ and actual real life danger physical threats so you get stress hormones, Cortisol and Adrenaline, running through your body either way. Which, over time, can have huge detrimental effects on your overall health.

Over time stress has a big effect on your body.

It can affect pretty much every area. All your energy is constantly going to the key areas to help with ‘fight or flight’ which means energy and attention is taken away from other key systems and processes you need in your body.

For example, when you’re stressed a lot you tend to get ill, have a bad stomach, headaches, sleep issues, pains in your body, extreme tiredness, you also have an increased risk of heart attack among many other things. So, many physical symptoms from quite an emotional response.

Other effects of stress on the body is heart disease, high blood pressure, physical aches and pains, loss of sex drive, stomach issues, insomnia among a tonne of other things that it can CAUSE you to do. Think overeating, not eating enough, too much alcohol, smoking, snapping at people, withdrawing from people...essentially numbing out!

The danger is also stress turning into full on burnout which can wreak havoc for entrepreneurs (and anyone really!) and can leave you floored for weeks, sometimes much longer.

It’s also not just you it affects, it ...