Do you become so stressed it feels unmanageable?

If your stress can often feel overwhelming or uncontrollable, you might recognise some of the common experiences described below.

How your body might feel

• Faster or shallow breathing
• Increased heart rate
• Tense or tight in your muscles, headaches
• Restless, unable to relax
• You may notice pains when worrying more
• Trembling
• Dry mouth
• Sweating
• Nauseousness or stomach churning
• Exhaustion

Thoughts you might have

• “My mind is always racing”
• “I can’t cope”
• “This is a disaster”
• “I’m going to fail”
• “I’m going to lose my job/relationship”
• Expecting the worst possible outcome

Feelings you might have

• Angry
• Unhappy, upset, tearful
• Feeling keyed up or on edge
• Overwhelmed
• Anticipation and dread
• Irritable or “wound up”
• Guilty
• Less interested or engaged in things you usually like

Things you might do

• Put things off
• Have difficulty sleeping
• Drink or smoke more than usual
• Eat too much or too little
• Make mistakes that aren’t like you
• Grinding teeth or biting nails
• Have lots of tasks in hand but feeling unable to get anything done with them

If these sound familiar to you, you can find out more about worry in the ‘Learn’ section. You’ll also find some tips and strategies for managing stress in the ‘Manage’ section.