Here are few behavioural symptoms of stress seen in day to day activities. -
People often do not realize that their stress levels are high and their mental health is suffering especially when it comes to noticing the small changes that occur in daily activities. In India especially, not much importance is given to mental and emotional health.
This is a misconception because the more at peace your mind is, the more productive and hardworking a person will be. Therefore mental health should be given as much importance as physical health.
Let us now read the behavioural symptoms of stress that we may all face but do not pay attention to. These symptoms are often seen as changes in our daily activities. Ignoring these symptoms makes the stress reactions get worse ultimately leading to serious conditions like anxiety disorders or even depression.
• Feeling tired all the time – to feel tired at the end of the day is normal but if a person feels fatigue all the time, it means that their body is unable to keep up with the stress. Sometimes, parents see this as laziness which creates even more stress for the child because instead of creating a amiable environment, parents end up nagging their child.
• Change in sleeping pattern - often, people think that stress is related to sleeping less but that is not always the case. In many cases, a person may be unable to stay up and feel sleepy the whole day because there is too much pressure on them and their mind is too able to cope. Sleeping less is a more recognised symptom of stress and is also seen as a sign of ‘hard work’ which is not good because sleep is very important for proper functioning of the body and even if a person may be able to work more due to lack of sleep, their mind will slowly deteriorate.
• Changes in eating habits - just like sleeping, the way a person eats may also change because of stress. A person may binge eat which is a condition of eating too much food especially the unhealthy kind. A person may also stop eating because ‘they do not have time to eat’. This shows how stress can sometimes completely take over the mind of a person as food is a basic necessity and if a person is not getting ‘time to eat’ it means that they are overworked and have started prioritizing work over food.
• Loss of interest in pleasurable activities – while it is good to focus on work and studies, a person may sometimes completely revolve their world around their work and forget about their personal life. This may give good results at first, but the person will soon lose interest in the work as well because they get no break from it. There should be a balance in everything in life including pleasurable activities one may enjoy. This can also result in feelings of loneliness and hopelessness.
• Nervous habits – biting of nails, playing with hands, fidgeting, not being able to sit in one place are all symptoms of stress which people do not notice and but are great indicators of stress.
• Procrastination - this is one of the symptoms of stress that is misconceived as laziness by the society when in actuality, it is a technique acquired by stressed out people to avoid the stress inducing activity which they may be afraid of. For example, a student will keep watching TV and not study for their exam the next day because as soon as they pick up their book they will have to face the reality of the situation that they have an exam and that they need to work hard for it.
