When I started to get sick originally, I never imagined that I might have a stress related illness. I had such concrete physical symptoms that I was sure there was something wrong with me. Anyway, stress related illnesses were not something that I was aware of. I knew that crazy people could sometimes worry themselves sick in some sense, but I didn't realize how literally true this was. I didn't understand that you can give yourself chronic physical symptoms just from always suffering from acute stress and anxiety.
The thing about stress related illness that makes it so tricky is that it is very difficult to reduced to just one factor. You see, stress weakens your body and mind in many different ways. Being stressed out all the time can wear down your immune system, causing you to be more susceptible to diseases. The concomitant depression can also have its effect, causing your body to produce less endorphins and making you feel achy and sore are all the time. Finally, of course, there is the psychosomatic factor in stress related illness. When you don't accept your constant worry and address the things that are bothering you, they can actually develop into physical symptoms. When you add all these things together, It all points to one thing: you can make yourself very sick just by being very worried.
That is why treating stress related illnesses can be very difficult. Of course, the first step is to try to cut down on the amount of stress that you have. You can take off some time from work, use meditation to relax yourself, and try out a variety of other stress reduction techniques. Sometimes, however, this isn't enough. Occasionally, you have to ask yourself some deeper questions. You have to find out why you developed a stress related illness in the first place. Addiction to work is such an epidemic problem in our society that many of us are afraid to deal with the underlying feelings of unhappiness that made us work too much in the first place. If you want to get over your stress related illness, you eventually have to deal with that stuff. Otherwise, you'll never feel better.
Fortunately, just taking the first few steps does improve stress related illnesses in general. In my case, I started to get a little bit better almost immediately. Granted, I still had aches and pains and other discomforts, but I was able to gradually recover from my stress related illness. It took me about 6 months to feel all the way better, but by that time my life was better than it had been in years. Not only was I no longer suffering from stress, but I was working less and enjoying life more.
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