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Your Healthy Family: Physical & emotional impacts of stress

Posted at 7:51 AM, May 26, 2023
and last updated 2023-05-26 07:52:35-04

NAPLES, Fla. — There are a lot of things to be stressed about: inflation, cost of living, job loss, hurricane recovery. That stress can take a toll on our minds and bodies. Fox 4 talked to the David Lawrence Centers for Behavioral Health in Naples about the physical and emotional impacts of stress.

“A healthy level of stress, of course, is good. We have to have some form of stress in our lives to keep us motivated, keep our passion for things, feel rewarded," Jessica Liria, the Community Outreach Specialist for the David Lawrence Centers, said.

She said when our stress is peaked and we don't manage it well, we start to see the physical and emotional effects.

“Physically, we can start to have a weakened immune system, so we can get sick more often. We can start to literally feel aches and pains throughout our body. We can not sleep as well, not eat as well," Liria said.

And all of that can lead to a long list of other health issues.

Emotional impacts of stress include being irritable with others, being more withdrawn, and isolating yourself. She said this can affect our relationships with others.

"Sometimes we can just have a roller coaster of emotions, and those around us feel like they're walking on eggshells all the time, unsure of how we'll respond. We start to have a lot of relationship challenges conflicts with others," Liria said.

She said each person handles stress differently, so we all feel the impacts differently. But one thing is for sure: if we don't handle stress properly, she said it will manifest into things like anxiety or depression.

"And having a lot of secondary challenges related to maybe job losses, financial stress. So all of that can really start to tie together,” she said.