9 Psychological symptoms of stress

​The symptoms of stress can be divided into many categories including behavioural, psychological, emotional and physical. In this post I want to focus on the psychological symptoms of stress. Stress is a multi-modal problem, and your psychological processes can impact upon your emotions, behaviour and physical well-being. There are many potential psychological symptoms of stress. This post shall focus on some of the most common.

​The following list introduces and, some of the most common psychological symptoms of stress.

Repetitive work such as assembly work or many forms of administration can be an immense source of boredom. The lack of variety fails to stimulate the mind and boredom and fatigue can set in. This may result in a loss of concentration, increased accidents and underperformance.

Where there is insufficient work or, the work is not challenging enough, boredom can also be a common problem.

It is important that there is variety in the work, to keep the mind stimulated and alert.  It doesn’t have to be an extreme amount of ​variety; just enough to force you to switch focus at regular intervals.

Where work is entirely repetitive, it is essential that sufficient breaks are taken, so that the mind can be stimulated with some other activity; even conversation.

​If you are struggling with stress, check out Stress Free Living.

​A little tension can be helpful. It can increase arousal and alertness leading to improved performance. However, constant tension is one of the more common psychological symptoms of stress. It often arises as a result of difficult relationships e.g. personality clashes. Excessive competition can also result in tension.

Tension is meant to encourage you to take action. For example, if you there is tension in a relationship, you are meant to take action to resolve the tension. However, tension is not meant to be long-term. If you are constantly feeling tense in your life, there are some major changes which need to be made.

Tension is one of those things that some people will tell you is a sign of ‘good stress’ but the very idea of good stress is just complete nonsense. The idea that you should be constantly feeling tense is just as idiotic.

​Anxiety occurs when one feels incapable of coping with potential problems. These problems may or may not arise but they feel real to the anxious person. A little anxiety is perfectly natural when we are facing a new challenge or an important event.  

Most people can cope with these feelings through mental and/or physical preparation. The anxious person, however, is overcome by what could go wrong. They find it hard to think about anything else and the potential problems tend to grown in their mind.

If you spend your time being anxious about the possibility of something going wrong, you are not going to be prepared for it. Therefore, the chances of it going wrong will be higher. Anxiety is often a self-fulfilling prophecy like this; thus making it one of the more dangerous of the psychological symptoms of stress.

Depression is a serious illness. The depressed individual experiences prolonged feelings of helplessness and hopelessness. They are unhappy with their life but feel that they are incapable of improving things. Confidence and estimation of self-worth are very low, and self-judgements can be incredibly harsh.

It is common to feel unhappy from time to time, and many people incorrectly label this as depression. These people tend to move past their feelings of unhappiness relatively quickly.

There used to be a stigma attached to depression but thankfully times have moved on and people are generally supportive and caring when someone they know/love experiences depression. Depression is a prolonged, serious illness which requires professional help.

Anyone who feels they might be experiencing depression should consult their GP.

​Insecurity can be a result of many different psychological symptoms of stress. A reduced sense of self-worth may mean that the individual cannot see what value they offer. They may feel that they are underperforming and it is only a matter of time before they are found out.

Unhelpful comparisons and harsh self-judgements may lead them to feel inferior to others. People suffering stress will often feel insecure in a number of areas of their life including job insecurity and relationship insecurity.

When external factors appear to be spinning out of control, as they will do from time to time, it is easy to believe that your self-worth is defined by everything that is going wrong. This causes you to feel insecure.  But your self-worth is based on who you are; not what you are achieving. When you raise your self-esteem, you build resilience against some of the psychological symptoms of stress.

​If you struggle with low self-esteem, check out Unlock Your Self-Esteem.

​Many modern jobs are designed in a manner which requires a number of employees to work on small aspects of the job e.g. car assembly, certain forms of administration. In these jobs, it is usually more effective and efficient to work this way.

One negative aspect of working this way is that the individuals who perform the different functions do not get to see the whole project. As a result, they may fail to see the importance of the job they are performing in achieving the goals and objectives of the company.

It is human nature to get caught up in our own lives and, our own activities. In doing so, we lose sight of the big picture. We fail to see how we are part of the greater whole. We fail to see how we make things a little bit better and / or, easier for others.

While high-performance does come from being able to focus on what you are doing in any given moment, it is essential that you regularly look up to see the big picture and; how you are progressing / contributing towards it. This simple act can help you to see the meaning and purpose in your life; thus, helping you avoid one of the psychological symptoms of stress.

​If you don’t see meaning in your life, check out Living Purposefully.

​Many jobs have strict working conditions. Many more are very rigid in the way they must be performed e.g. assembly line work. It is common in these types of jobs that employees feel like they have no say or control over their job i.e. they are powerless to change anything.

It is human nature to want to feel like we have some control over our lives and, our destiny. When everything is dictated to you and, you feel like you don’t have any level of control; you will feel powerless.

Powerlessness is one of the slow burning psychological symptoms of stress. It slowly eats away at you until it overcomes you. It eats away at your confidence self-esteem. You begin to feel irrelevant; as though you have no value to offer.

Many businesses fail because they never get access to the great ideas that exist within the hearts and minds of their employees. The employees are the ones who do the job every day so, who is in a better position to offer ides and insights?

Thankfully, more and more companies are starting to embrace the knowledge and ideas which exist within their employees. This helps to improve the business and, it improves the morale of the employees by removing the feeling of powerlessness.

​Where an individual is not inspired or motivated by their work, they are disengaged. Their heart and soul is not in the work, and they see the job solely as a means to gain income.

When you fall behind with what you were hoping to achieve, you will always be tempted to try do more, achieve more, be more. In the pursuit of more, you start to disengage from life. You get wrapped up in work and you start to drift away from the people, hobbies, interests and pursuits that you are truly passionate about.

Regarding work, you start to lose sight of why you do what you do, and you become obsessed with external factors such as quantify of work, income and revenue etc.

This is what it really means to disengage. You lose the purpose for what you are doing. You forget about the quality and you lose touch with the people and activities that allow you to be who you are.

As you lose touch with the people and things that bring you joy, you begin feeling like you are just a cog in the machine or, a hamster in a wheel. You must ask yourself, what is the point in doing / having more if you are not going to be happier. You need to re-engage with life; with the things and people that allow you to experience your own happiness.

​Isolation occurs where the individual has little contact with management or colleagues. This may be due to remote working conditions or, it may be that they are a one-man operation and thus have no colleagues.

People in this situation may have nobody, or feel as if they have nobody, to share the burdens, the workload, the goals, the good times and the bad etc.

The danger in isolation is that it often happens gradually. Bit by bit, you start to drift away from others. You lose contact with people one by one until eventually, you notice that when you need to talk to someone, you have no idea who to talk to.

Just as worrying, people who become isolated are not noticed as absent by others. Other people don’t mean any harm, but they are wrapped up in their own lives. They don’t have time to notice that someone else is becoming isolated.

​If you feel that you may be experiencing stress, check out Stress Free Living.

​Psychological symptoms of stress can be hard to identify. Unless, they tell us what they are experiencing, we do not have access to the inner workings of someone else’s mind. There may be others reasons why some of these symptoms arise but where one or more are observed, particularly over a prolonged period, further exploration is a necessity.