What is stress? The causes & impact of stress

Spotting stress in the heat of the moment can be tough, but its effects can stick around for the long term. That's why it's so important to keep tabs on your stress levels and look out for those close to you too.

Understanding what stress is and what might be causing it is the first step to tackling its impact. In this guide, we’ll fill you in on everything you need to know about stress, from what it is, to its causes and its impact on your health and well-being, so you can start tackling your stress today.

Simply put, stress is our body’s natural reaction to feeling under pressure or threatened. This usually happens when we’re in a situation that we don’t feel we can manage or control.¹

When we feel stressed, our bodies release a hormone called adrenaline that gives us a boost to act quickly.¹ This is also known as the fight or flight response, a term which was coined in 1932 by Walter Radford Cannon.²  Cannon’s theory stated that animals (and humans) respond to threatening situations with a flood of hormones to prepare them to fight or flee.²

This was once really important for our survival and critical to keeping our hunter-gatherer ancestors alive, but in our modern world, stress could be damaging our health. Whilst it is believed that a little bit of stress is good for us, as it motivates us to push through fears or pain, too much stress can leave us in a permanent fight or flight mode.³

High stress levels can affect our body, relationships, and mood in the long term and can lead to mental, physical, and emotional exhaustion, often referred to as burnout.¹

Many situations can make us feel stressed, from day-to-day activities to even life events like getting married, having a baby, or moving house – despite being perceived as exciting life changes!⁴

Identifying what is stressing you out can be hard, but doing so can help you find ways to manage your feelings, find a solution and seek adequate help if necessary.

The NHS states that the 4 most common causes of stress are thought to include:⁴

Stress affects everyone differently and can have a wide range of symptoms that can affect:⁴

How you behave: you may feel irritable, find yourself snapping at people more, stress eating, and indulge in drinking or sleeping more.

How you think: you might have difficulty concentrating, struggle to make decisions, forget things, and feel overwhelmed.

How you feel physically: you may have more headaches, stomach problems, muscle tension, chest pain, and sexual problems.

Handpicked content: Symptoms: What are the signs of stress?

Stress can really take its toll on your body and mind, particularly if you experience high stress levels for long periods of time. tress symptoms when unmanaged can worsen over time and, in some cases, can lead to long-term issues.¹

In the long-term, chronic stress can really affect your mental health, often increasing the risk of developing anxiety and depression, , loneliness, and mood swings.⁶

Stress can cause long-term physical problems too, with research showing potential links between chronic stress and conditions like heart disease, obesity, Type II diabetes and hypertension.⁷

Whilst stress may result in changes in your behaviour in the short term, it can also affect your behaviour in the long term too. Research has explored a role of stress in addiction, increase danger, and sexual problems.^6,8,9

Other long-term behavioural effects of stress can include:⁶ 

You may notice that as your stress levels go up, your sex drive goes down, but don’t panic; you’re not alone. Low libido is incredibly common, and experts think that stress plays some part in that.¹⁰

There are a few reasons that stress stops you from having the urge to get close to your partner:

Even though your eyes haven’t seen a sabre-toothed tiger for some years now, your brain classes stress as a physical threat that you will either need to run from or fight.²

As such, when you’re under stress, it makes you not want to lie around having a kiss and a cuddle – which may be the reason why you don’t feel the urge.

At the same time, stress triggers hormonal changes in the body, producing higher levels of the stress hormone cortisol.¹¹

Cortisol is made from the same building blocks as testosterone – and if your body is making one hormone, it can interfere with the production of the other, so if testosterone levels fall, so does libido.¹²

It can be difficult to notice that you’re stressing out when you are in the middle of it, but learning the signs and symptoms of stress can help you recognise it sooner and help stop it from having an impact on your work, home life, and your relationships with others.

There are methods of managing stress that you can try to incorporate into your daily life, like:^14,15

To find more easy ways to help you manage your stress levels, check out our guide to tackling stress.

Everyone experiences stress in their lives from a range of causes, whether it’s work, money, health, or family. It can be very overwhelming and make you feel not yourself. In the long term, too much stress could worsen pre-existing conditions and exacerbate mental health conditions such as anxiety and depression.

It is important to find ways to manage your stress levels, but you don’t have to struggle alone. If you find that you are stressing out frequently or feeling under pressure and overwhelmed constantly, speak to your GP – they’ll be able to offer you advice and help.