A deadline is on your heels. You’re up late, up early, pumping through coffees and striding to the finish line. And you make it. Er, phew?
Granted, this situation isn’t dire when it only happens once or twice in a given month, but spin it on ‘repeat’ too often and you’ll start to feel depleted, maybe even agitated or down.
Stress has the effect of acculturating [causing] loss of brain cells and also stimulates the brain’s amygdala and pre-frontal cortex. If you’re stressed all the time, the amygdala gets bigger and more reactive.
Mental health organisation Reach Out explains that stress also stimulates the production of specific hormones. “When you experience stress, your whole nervous system reacts…. adrenaline and cortisol are released into your blood stream. These hormones speed up heart rate, breathing rate, blood pressure and metabolism.”
While this may help you make that deadline, in the long run it leads to burnout; a state of mental, physical and emotional exhaustion.
Try these techniques to keep stress under wraps and avoid hitting the bottom of your energy well.