Identify Chronic Stress – Are You Losing Quality of Life?

What Is Chronic Stress?

Stress, in itself, isn’t all bad. In small doses, stress helps us stay alert and responsive. For example, stress can motivate you to accomplish goals, like becoming more alert and efficient so you meet deadlines. That’s especially true for short-term stress.

However, when stress becomes a constant companion, it begins to erode physical and mental health. It also disrupts the ability to handle life’s curveballs - impacting relationships, eating, sleeping, exercising and other activity patterns. As the body continues to operate in "fight / flight / freeze / fawn" mode—elevating heart rate, suppressing digestion, and releasing stress hormones like cortisol—it never gets a chance to reset and restore. Over time, this can lead to long-term health consequences, such as:

• Cardiovascular problems: Prolonged stress can increase the risk of hypertension, heart attacks, and strokes. 
• Mental health challenges: Persistent stress contributes to anxiety, depression, and difficulty concentrating. 
• Immune system suppression: Chronic stress contributes to increased inflammation, weakens your immune response, making you more susceptible to infections and slower to recover. 
• Digestive issues: Stress interferes with digestion, leading to problems like acid reflux, irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), and constipation. It also increases risk of obesity, particularly if quality of food choices and amount of exercise deteriorates. 

There's many references out there related to the relationship between chronic stress, chronic inflammation and chronic disease. Here are a few if you want to research further. (1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9) When you add in working greater than 55 hours per week, the odds for chronic disease increase.

As believers, we are called to trust in God’s provision and not carry our burdens alone. Philippians 4:6-7 reminds us: “Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.” God doesn't want us suffering with chronic stress, He wants us to find peace through Jesus Christ. Our faith can help help us reduce work-related stress and find work-life harmony. If you decide to accept the status quo, listening and acting to all the pressures and noise of the fallen modern world, you will continue to be drained and exhausted from stress and working too much. In time, chronic stress will impact all areas of your life.

RELATED: When Anxiety Great Within, God's Consolation Brings Joy

The Ripple Effect of Stress on Your Life

When stress goes unmanaged, it impacts every area of your life, including your relationships, performance at work, and personal well-being. You may find yourself feeling constantly tired, irritable, or overwhelmed by even the smallest of tasks. Stress can even change how you interact with loved ones, leaving you disconnected from your family and faith.

While many people are aware of the dangers of stress, they may not realize how easy it is to reverse its effects through small, sustainable changes. This is where my stress recovery coaching comes in. As someone who has experienced the relentless pressure of workaholism, I understand the journey firsthand. Through personalized, one-on-one faith-based coaching, I help busy Christian professionals reclaim their health and balance with small, actionable steps.

Do You Recognize Yourself?

How stress impacts day to day life. Meet Alicia -

Right after lunch Alicia gets a work assignment and a tight deadline for tomorrow’s end of day. From what her boss said and her internal expectations, she subconsciously identifies significant consequences of not accomplishing this assignment on time and in full. The moment the consequences are identified as significant and a probable threat to her well-being, the body begins the stress reaction. Adrenaline helps her focus on delivery of the goals and cortisol provides energy to the blood stream and suppresses non-essential functions.

• Mentally she is hyper-focused on whatever it takes to deliver the goal (to get to safety).
• Her muscles are tight and ready to spring into action. 
• That lunch she just ate feels heavy in your stomach and is slow to digest.
• She is not hungry yet feels the need for more energy. She just grabs a cup of coffee or a sugary snack for a quick energy punch that can be eaten on the run and as she works. 
• Feeling like she is in a race, her heart is pounding, her breathing is faster and her blood pressure is up. She is hypervigilant and alert.
• Anytime she thinks of the consequences or feels it nipping at her heels, she gets an extra internal punch to drive forward to the goal.
• When she arrives home, her husband asks for help and wants to talk about his day. She speaks to him sharply and with little patience. Her brain is in survival mode, so doesn’t as easily access the areas that allow her to be loving in her response and to be sensitive in her communication. As soon as she says it, she feels ashamed but keeps moving on with her to do list.
• She still isn’t hungry, particularly after having had a sour stomach in the afternoon. Because she was sharp with her husband when she got home, she goes ahead with dinner plans and forces herself to eat. She is distracted with the assignment and not fully present. Bitter thoughts cross her mind because she is not working on this critical assignment, yet are quickly suppressed.
• So she can work on her assignment, she skips the evening walk with her husband and the dogs. Her husband goes by himself.
• She has difficulty sleeping. Her mind is spinning and still working on the assignment and dreams are fitful of all the bad consequences of not getting it done. Additionally, her body is still trying to slowly digest. The brain is not getting enough time and fuel to recharge.
• In the morning, she needs to do some complex calculations as part of the assignment. Her critical thinking is slower and more cloudy from lack of sleep and how her brain is still in survival mode and not as easily accessing areas for complex thinking. She gets frustrated with herself because she is not as productive and efficient as normal.

In the end, she delivers on the assignment and gets the accolades from her boss on a job well done and a quick turn around. None of the bad consequences she was stressed about occur. She feels safe and secure again. Her muscles start to relax. She is tired and wants to rest. Yet, she is hungry looking for another quick energy hit and something to satisfy and reward. She picks up greasy fried food and a dessert for dinner to celebrate and to make it up to her husband for the other night. She falls asleep right after dinner while watching tv. Another night that her husband walks the dogs by himself.

If this was an isolated event, everything would get back to normal.

She would look back and figure out how to better manage her stress reaction, how to improve her relaxation response to reduce the time in survival mode and to improve recovery, or how to make better choices as she rebuilds her reserves. This way she is better equipped the next time there is a threat that triggers a stress reaction.

On the other hand, if this is just a couple of days in a long stream of stressors and there is no time for recovery, can you see how the stress-induced behaviors can add even more stress to her life - tension in her relationship with her husband, weight gain from unhealthy diet & lack of exercise, reduced work performance, reinforcement of any existing limiting elements in her self-image? This is what differentiates chronic stress from acute stress. For people like you, chronic stress is fueled by a prolonged period with a high workload & a lot of pressure. Work is prioritized (maybe even preferrable) to other activities and relationships in life.

RELATED: Understanding Common Stressors

My own blind-spots  

Change can only happen once the need is acknowledged and embraced. Conditioned habits and behaviors are hard to break – it is easy to fall back into them when stress occurs. Additionally, there may be blind-spots in self-awareness that are obstacles to transformation. I’ll use my story as an example.

While in corporate roles, I was the stereotypical Type A person, putting career as a top priority and primary to my identity. I tried to control everything in my life and was unbalanced with the time, attention and focus I gave to work over my personal life. I lived with chronic stress for years before I figured out how to break free.

It took a trip to the hospital over 10 years ago to even acknowledge I had a problem. There was a lot of trial and error to figure out how to do more than pause chronic stress for short periods. Each break was enough to give me sufficient perspective to learn and adapt. Yet, it was so easy to fall back into the patterns of chronic stress, almost without noticing, as stress ratcheted up with different projects at work.

Looking back over the last 20 years - I probably should call myself an adrenaline junkie. While I would never engage in the adventurous actions or sports that most people think of when you say that phrase, I constantly put myself in that position as it came to work. It was an aspect of being a workaholic - adrenaline kept fueling me to work harder and more hours to get ahead of perceived threats and my weaknesses.

At some level, I convinced myself that the risk vs reward was worth being chronically stressed. Subconsciously, I would imagine all the consequences of complete failure, which created an adrenaline-fueled drive. This was magnified by consciously thinking through the risks of how decisions, projects or strategies could go wrong or fail. The approach repeatedly propelled me up the corporate ladder, allowing me to better support my husband and I.

After another major health crisis, it forced me to take a hard look at myself. Once I acknowledged I was inviting chronic stress. I adjusted perspective and approach. I no longer get caught up into a self-perpetuating cycle of chronic stress. (I still had workaholic episodes, as that was a slightly different mental beast to tame.)

To be clear – it does not mean I never experience stress. When I feel stressed, I am able to more effectively move into recovery and reserve building in order to get back to a normal psychophysiological state. With my new perspective, there are also fewer situations that trigger a stress reaction as compared to before.

RELATED: Am I a Workaholic? Or Just a Stressed Hardworker?

My prayer for you...

Each person has their own journey and will need to learn their own lessons along the way in order to reduce stress, achieve improved health, more energy and more joy.

Do either of these women demonstrate behaviors that you recognize or resonate with?

As a Christian professional, you're not alone in feeling like there’s never enough time for everything. Yet, God offers us a way to break free from the cycle of overwork and stress. Change begins with self-awareness; recognizing where you are missing the mark of who you want to be and the plan God has for you. Matthew 6:34 encourages us, “Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.” Instead of carrying the weight of tomorrow’s troubles, start with these simple steps to manage stress today:

1. Use stress journaling to begin to recognize patterns of stressors so you can effectively address them. See where God can help you shift perspective or where He is encouraging you to grow.
2. Use quiet time for gratitude practice, prayer or other spiritual disciplines to break the cycle of stress and worry. Consistently strengthening the connection to your faith and feeling supported and calmed by God's love, breaks the stress response and calms the nervous system. 
3. Don't believe you have time or energy for either of these tactics? Use faith-driven tiny habits to begin to reclaim time and restore energy. By taking the smallest step possible, you can slowly transform your life. By anchoring your choices in your faith and Christian identity, God will guide you toward greater work-life harmony.

The journey of stress recovery can begin today. If you're ready to break free from chronic stress and regain control of your health, download my free guide on building tiny habits for stress relief. This guide, rooted in Christian identity, provides small, sustainable steps that can make a big difference over time. As a Christian stress recovery coach, I am here to help you thrive with grace and grit—one tiny habit at a time.