Everyone feels stressed from time to time. Routine activities such as exercise, work, school, major life changes, or traumatic events can be stressful. Routine stress may be the hardest type of stress to notice at first and it can affect your health. Each of us need to pay attention to how we deal with minor and major stress events. This will help to alert us when to seek help. Some people cope with stress more effectively than others. There are different types of stress but they all carry physical and mental health risks.

Stress can help people to prepare or perform, like when they need to take a test or interview for a new job. In response to danger, your body prepares to face a threat or flee to safety (fight or flight). Your pulse quickens, you breathe faster, your muscles tense, your brain uses more oxygen and increases activity (all functions aimed at survival). Health problems can occur if the stress response goes on for too long or becomes chronic. With continuous exposure to stress your body can begin to suppress immune, digestive, sleep, and reproductive systems. This causes them to stop working normally.

Different people may feel stress in different ways. If the source of stress tends to be more constant than in cases of acute or traumatic stress, the body gets no clear signal to return to normal functioning. Over time, continued strain on your body from routine stress may lead to serious health problems, such as heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, and other illnesses, as well as mental health problems like depression or anxiety.

Some symptoms of Chronic Stress are: