Did you know that stress affects women's health differently than it does men’s? It’s obvious that men and women have their biological differences, but there are additional differences in the way stress impacts women’s health.
Ongoing or unmanaged stress can take a huge toll on overall health and well-being. Read on to find out the affects on stress on a woman's body.
1. Messes up Periods
When under stress, especially constant stress, hormonal imbalances are the result. This imbalance can affect a person in different ways, so you may suffer from any of the following effects:
- Missed periods
- Late periods
- Longer lasting periods
- Shorter periods
Studies show that women who have stressful careers often have less time between periods, a cycle lasting less than 24 days. You can get your hormones and your cycles back on track by getting stress under control.
2. Causes Hairfall
Both emotional and physiological stress can affect body chemistry and make a person lose their hair. When you’re stressed, it interrupts your hair’s normal life cycle.
While you won’t suddenly go bald, you will notice hair coming out when you brush it and at times, it may be in clumps. Sometimes the hair loss happens three to six months after the stressful situation.
The good news is that hair will grow back and stay by mitigating stress.
3. Stomach Problems
If you are under stress for a long time, it can start to affect your digestive system. Your stomach makes more acid that can cause frequent bouts of indigestion.
This increase in stomach acid can also lead to or worsen irritable bowel syndrome and ulcers. Once stress is managed, stomach discomforts will disappear.
4. Ruins Libido
When stressed, the body releases cortisol, which can reduce sex hormones. These hormones are responsible for an active and healthy sex drive.
Even small stress episodes can lower a person's sex drive, so keeping the stress under control is important for physical intimacy and overall health and well-being.
5. Causes Insomnia
Stress causes your brain to work overtime. If you’ve ever spent a night tossing and turning, unable to shut down your thoughts, you were most likely stressed.
When you’re stressed, you worry and your brain seems to put thinking into overtime, so it won’t calm down to allow you to sleep. This leads to insomnia and can impact concentration and cause irritability during the daytime.
Getting a handle on stress will help you return to a normal sleep pattern.
6. Causes Weight Gain
It’s that darn cortisol again. Not only does it affect your sex hormones, but also your waistline. Excess cortisol in the body causes weight gain in a few ways:
- Decreases metabolism
- Increases appetite
- Causes sugar cravings
All these aforementioned things contribute to stress-related weight gain.
You can lose stress weight once you learn ways to manage stress and regain control of your body.
To conclude, a little stress from time to time is normal, but if you are not sleeping or losing your hair, it’s time to take action and learn ways to cope with your stress.