How can you tell when your stress level has become too much—before things are overwhelming? Symptoms are different for everyone, but some common signs that you’ve had too much excitement and need to slow down include:
- Impatience or Edginess
- Lack of Enjoyment
- Sleep Problems
- Exhaustion
If ignored, stress symptoms can get more serious and difficult to deal with. The tricky part of managing stress is that, when dealing with stressful events that are enjoyable—the ‘good’ stress—you may not always notice how stressed you feel until you experience the more serious stress symptoms, or until you feel overwhelmed. This tends to happen particularly often to people with ‘Type A’ personalities, overachievers, and self-described ‘adrenaline junkies’.
Because everyone’s early warning signals are different, it’s important to get in touch with your own response to stress overload, and pay attention so you can notice the toll that stress is taking so you can focus on managing stress before things get to be too much. A good way to stay connected with yourself and reduce stress at the same time is to maintain a daily journal, or practice regular meditation, both of which are excellent stress relievers that carry many other health benefits as well.
For ongoing help managing stress, you can subscribe to the weekly Stress Management Newsletter from this site--it's free!--or you can use one of the other ongoing resources for stress reduction, including the About Stress Management Facebook page.
