The Impact of Stress on Your Body

"So, as we know, stress can take a very emotional toll on an individual. Sometimes we overlook the fact that stress or trauma can also take a toll on your physical health. Research has shown that stress over a long period of time can definitely affect your body in different ways, such as high blood pressure, stomach and digestive issues, even heart attack, stroke, headache, dizziness, things like that.

So, my story, when I reported my abuse, I tended to hold my stress physically and that has ended up not being good. So, when I held my stress physically, it actually manifested as SVT, which stands for superventricular tachycardia. And the first event started, I think, it was about a week after I reported the abuse, and at rest my heart rate was over 200 beats per minute and I obviously knew something was wrong. So, I was at work and they had to take me to the hospital. They were able to get my heart rhythm back to normal without any drastic measures, however another event of SVT happened at a different time, and they had to use medication to actually slow down and almost stop my heart so my body could naturally kick into normal rhythm.

Obviously this event or these events were automatic in itself and because of it, I have had to have two heart surgeries where they go in and, because of all of this and it happened over the a two-year period, I'm still on medication to, you know, help with the heart rhythm and there's always a chance I can go back into SVT at a later date because once you, you know, have that issue, there's a possibility of having it in the future.

So, instead of holding in your stress, I encourage you to use self-care which I'll talk about later on, but for me, what was going to be most helpful was to actually schedule time to feel my emotions, and this may sound weird, but we're all busy, we have jobs, maybe kids, things to do, but I was scheduling maybe 10, 15, 20 minutes out of my day, and usually at the end of the day, where I would just feel what was going on and I could set a timer. And this worked for me. It doesn't necessarily work for everybody, but it allowed me that space to be emotional and I could get it out, but then also have the ability to get back into my daily life and not have those emotions be so strong throughout the day and manifest in my body. So, I encourage you to maybe try that for yourself, or other self-care options."