Stress Awareness Month

Due to the ever-increasing levels of stress observed in the last few decades, people have started taking stress and the load of trouble it brings with it very seriously, and something known as the stress awareness month was declared.

The stress awareness month is observed every April, and people are encouraged to both spread awareness of this potentially deadly issue, as well as engage in acts of self-care and stress reduction for themselves and others.

In this article, we’ll be covering the history of this month, the organizations most involved in it, and what you can do in order to help the fight against stress worldwide. In addition, we will also focus on some of the lesser-known effects of stress.

The History Of Stress Awareness Month

Back in 1992, a non-profit organization called HRN (Health Resource Network) declared the first stress awareness month, making it the first national (and later international) initiative whose purpose is to educate people about stress and encourage dialogue about the issue.

This initiative gained traction and, in just a few years, it became a yearly internationally observed event, with multiple organizations supporting and promoting it.

One of the defining factors of this month is the fact that, each year, there is a new theme selected. For example, this year (2024), the theme was “Little By Little, A Little Becomes A Lot”.

This theme wishes to communicate that small, yet steady, steps towards positive lifestyle changes aimed at reducing stress will build up on each other, and lead to vast improvements in general well-being, particularly in the context of dealing with stress.

Comparatively, in 2022, the theme was focused on the importance of community, and how having a strong and healthy mutual support network can help reduce or even outright eliminate stress.

What Organizations Support The Stress Awareness Month?

Today, the initiative in the efforts behind the stress awareness month is led by the World Health Organization, which shares information and resources with governments and health organizations worldwide, in their joint efforts against stress.

Doctor Morton C. Orman, the founder of HRN, is still an active part of the efforts behind stress awareness month, and is constantly advocating for leading medical organizations to distribute much-needed stress-related resources during this month.

The American Psychological Association is also deeply involved within the efforts of spreading awareness, and have been working tirelessly to help the cause for many years now.

The Canadian Mental Health Association has started the “Not Myself Today” initiative, which focuses on improving mental health in the workplace, and generally reducing work-related stress by providing information and resources to those who need them.

Numerous other organizations worldwide are involved, as well as countless individuals, independent from any organization, governmental or otherwise.

There is no barrier to partaking in the efforts every April of every year, and anyone can, and is welcomed and encouraged to, spread awareness of the issue in constructive, positive ways, and help those affected by stress in any way they can, including themselves.

What Can You Do To Help?

There are myriad ways one can help in the struggle against worldwide stress, some can be more readily doable than others. I’ve listed a few examples of things you can do to help during stress awareness month below, feel free to improvise or build upon them, as anything positive helps.

1. Distribute information - Handing out stress-related information in public places, such as giving out flyers downtown or sharing links to informative articles on social media, can make quite a difference to people who are unaware of stress and the issues it can cause.
2. Volunteer to help - This doesn’t necessarily have to be volunteering in something like a soup kitchen. You can also volunteer to take a bit of the burden off of your loved ones’ shoulders, for example by offering to watch a relative’s or friend’s kids for a few hours so they can have a relaxing evening.
3. Self-care - Even helping yourself is important. In fact, it’s strongly encouraged. Taking some time out of the day for yourself to simply relax and enjoy life, away from any and all stressors, is a great way to contribute during stress awareness month. After all, by doing this, you’re reducing worldwide stress.
4. Make a change (or more) - Making positive environment changes, when possible, can make a world of difference to both you and those you share said environment with. For example, bringing a radio into the office and having it play smooth, relaxing music during the workday may take a bit of the stress off of you and your coworkers.
5. Petition the authorities - Writing to your local elected political representative, or otherwise petitioning your local government and its institutions to place a higher importance on stress and ways to combat it, is one of the many ways in which you can help both raise awareness of stress and the issues it causes, as well as nudge the competent authorities in the necessary direction to help address this very serious issue.
6. Donate to organizations fighting stress - Donating any sum of money, be it large or small, to organizations leading the worldwide effort against stress and its negative effects, such as the Health Resource Network or the Canadian Mental Health Association, will help the cause by providing more financial resources to these organizations, which in turn will increase their ability to spread awareness of the issue and find more ways to help people dealing with stress worldwide.
7. Building mutual support networks - Inside of your community and social circles, you can help in the struggle against stress by creating helpful, mutual support networks, where members look after the mental well-being of one another, and aid each other during stressful times, in order to minimize the levels of stress occurring. This has the added benefit of forming a stronger bond between the members of the community and/or social circles.

Now, however, we should move on to answering some questions that people have about stress and what it can or can't do to us.

Research has, repeatedly, linked stress to gastrointestinal issues. Stress is known to cause conditions such as indigestion, abdominal pain, and others.

However, one question that is still frequently asked is, can stress make you constipated? In order to find out the answer to this question, we need to take a closer look at how stress affects the gastrointestinal system.

 Common Causes For Constipation (That Aren’t Stress):

Being dehydrated is pretty high up there in terms of being one of the most common causes behind constipation. This is because hydration is required for virtually all bodily processes, including passing stool. During times when the body is dehydrated, the body redirects the scarce amount of water inside it to the most urgent needs first, typically leaving the intestines near the bottom of the list of priorities.

This, in turn, leads to a very dry and hard stool composition, making the stool very hard to pass, meaning constipation.

A diet which lacks a sufficient amount of fiber present in it is also a very common cause for constipation. This is particularly common in people who eat lots of meat, milk and cheese, while neglecting to balance these out with fruits, vegetables and cereal.

The reason a low fiber diet leads to constipation is because fiber is necessary in the process of good digestion, and the stool will have a generally harder and drier composition due to lack of fiber present in it.

A lack of physical exercise can also contribute towards developing constipation. Sedentary lifestyles are one of the most common causes behind constipation, closely behind dehydration and low fiber diets.

This is because exercise promotes blood flow throughout the entire body, including the bowels. In the absence of sufficient amounts of exercise, blood flow to the bowels (and other areas) may decrease, which results in diminished functionality of the digestive system, particularly the guts.

 Stress And The Gastrointestinal System

The link between stress and the digestive system has been known about for a long time, even before medical research formally discovered it. That is why we have terms such as “gut-wrenching emotions” and “stomach butterflies” in our vocabulary.

Like with other parts of our bodies, our brain is also always connected and communicating with the gut. A little known fun fact is that the gut contains more nerves than the entire spinal cord, which is a prolongation of the brain itself. Quite fascinating to think about.

It should then come as no surprise that yes, when the brain experiences stress, this leads to consequences in the digestive system as well.

When the fight-or-flight response becomes activated, as a result of stress, this can lead to several things happening in the digestive system as a direct result of the release of stress hormones.

The gastric acid levels in the stomach increase, leading to indigestion, and spasms in the esophagus are also common. This is because, under normal circumstances, the stomach acid’s levels only increase in response to ingesting food, whereas during stress responses, the increase in gastric acid volume may occur during times when the stomach is empty of food, leading to irritation and scarring of the stomach lining and esophagus.

The sensation of nausea, with the possible urge to vomit, is also commonly resulted from highly stressful situations, or just general stress. This is due to the fact that, as mentioned earlier, the digestive system contains a huge amount of nerves, all directly communicating with the brain, and responding to stress stimuli in a fast and powerful way, typically unpleasantly so.

In severe cases, stress can reduce the amount of blood and oxygen supplied to the digestive system, particularly to the intestines, which can lead to inflammation, discomfort, and an increase in vulnerability to infections and parasites due to the lowered ability of the immune system. These have the potential to be deadly.

Stress can also exacerbate, or amplify, pre-existing issues in the digestive system, such as IBS (irritable bowel syndrome). The body diverting blood flow away from the intestines and towards more vital organs during fight or flight mode results in the intestines being more prone to the effects of illnesses such as irritable bowel syndrome.

Imbalances in healthy gut bacteria may also occur, as a direct result of the reduced blood and oxygen flow to the intestines caused by the stress.

Now that we know that stress definitely does affect the gastrointestinal system, let’s find out if it can lead to constipation as well, because it can certainly lead to the opposite issue, namely diarrhea.

Can Stress Make You Constipated?

The release of epinephrine by the adrenal glands, which happens during stress-triggered fight-or-flight responses, causes blood flow to be diverted away from the digestive system, particularly from the intestines, and towards more vital organs, such as the heart and brain.

Due to the reduced blood flow to the intestines, the intestines can no longer function at the same pace as normally, which means that they perform their function slower.

Bowel movements are then slowed down due to this, and constipation can occur.

The problem is further amplified by the release of something called CRF (corticotrophin-releasing factor), which is something the body releases directly into the guts as a response to stress.

This CRF causes the bowels to become inflamed, further hindering the intestines’ ability to excrete properly, which in turns makes constipation even more likely.

In severe cases, constipation resulting from stress may last for very long periods of time and, if left untreated, can lead to ruptured intestines, a potentially deadly occurrence, due to the extreme risk of septic shock.

In summary, let’s answer the question once more:

Can stress make you constipated?

As written above in detail, it definitely can, and often does.

In fact, constipation is a quite common side effect of chronic stress, and many people suffering from stress complain of constipation as a result.

It is important to manage your stress levels, in order to prevent such unpleasant conditions from occurring, and also to generally preserve good health.

Dandruff, What Is It? 

As a skin condition that mainly affects the scalp, dandruff causes flaking and, in some cases, itchiness in the affected area. There is also a more severe form of dandruff, known under the name of seborrhoeic dermatitis. This more severe form of the condition causes inflammation of the affected skin.

Diagnosis is based on symptoms, as there is no such thing as a blood test or tissue test to determine whether someone has dandruff, as of yet. This means that, sometimes, someone might be misdiagnosed with dandruff when they are, in fact, suffering from another skin condition.

The two main symptoms that appear with dandruff are flakiness and an itchy scalp. In some cases, patches of skin on the scalp may become greasy and red, and a tingly feeling on the skin in the affected area may also be experienced by the person with dandruff.

Currently, there is no cure for dandruff, although there are a limited number of potential treatments that people with dandruff can try to alleviate their symptoms, including ketoconazole (an antifungal cream) or salicylic acid.

With the skin layers on the scalp continually replacing themselves, the old skin is shed as a new layer finishes developing underneath. In people not suffering from dandruff, this process happens roughly once a month. In people with dandruff, however, this happens once every 2 to 7 days typically.

The excessive shedding resulting from this accelerated skin replacement process results in the older layer of skin coming off in tiny flakes, typically of a white or light gray color, and causing itchiness.

Research is still uncertain about the exact cause of dandruff, although most research points in the direction of a combination of genetic factors and environmental factors such as fungal and/or bacterial infection of the skin of the scalp.

 

Stress And The Immune System

 

Stress impacts the immune system in a way that reduces its ability to defend the body from threats, such as bacterial and fungal infections, for example.

The way that stress causes this decrease in the immune system’s capabilities is by releasing stress hormones, such as cortisol, which directly diminishes the number of leukocytes present in the body.

Leukocytes are the body’s natural killer cells, which the immune system uses to identify and eliminate threats to the body, such as bacteria, fungi and viruses. These leukocytes are also responsible for eliminating cancer cells.

Small side-note, but yes, you read that right. Stress can increase your risk for deadly illnesses like cancer. (It can also lead to unhealthy coping mechanisms, like smoking or vaping, which increase your risk of cancer)

The stress hormones can also influence the body’s anti-inflammatory response, either making it more powerful, or less powerful, depending on a multitude of different factors.

This meddling with the anti-inflammatory response can make it even easier for bacteria, and other harmful threats to our body, to wreak havoc freely.

Back to the leukocytes: Without enough leukocytes, the immune system is forced to make do with whatever resources are left at its disposal when combating threats, which means that its chances of success when it comes to protecting the body are lower than usual.

This directly links stress to a higher chance of all sorts of illnesses and infections. In fact, the higher the level of stress, and the longer the duration of this stress, the higher the chance of catching a number of contagious health conditions.

Stress levels are, effectively, directly proportional to the chance of catching something like a cold or the flu.

Does Stress Cause Dandruff?

Let’s now focus on the main point of this section, which is answering the question: does stress cause dandruff?

Stress, on its own, does not cause dandruff, as stress cannot cause the skin on the scalp to shed more rapidly than that of the general population, at least those without dandruff.

The inverse, however, can be true. Dandruff can cause stress, due to the unpleasant symptoms that it manifests itself through. This increase in stress can possibly make dandruff’s symptoms more severe.

Here’s how:

Since fungal and bacterial infections may be part of the reason behind dandruff, this means that the body’s immune system has not been able to prevent this infection from settling in on the scalp.

This means that stress may have very well played a part in the development of dandruff, on account of weakening the immune system sufficiently, through killing of a number of leukocytes, to allow for the infection to bypass it and invade the scalp.

If the unpleasantness of dandruff ends up causing further, additional stress, this can lead to an even more weakened immune system, allowing the dandruff resulting from the infection to become even worse in terms of symptom severity.

With all this being said, the answer to the question posed earlier is that while by itself stress does not cause dandruff, it can very much play a part in facilitating its onset and even further worsening of symptoms.

 

Can Stress Cause Swollen Glands? 

On its own, stress does not have any effect on the glands, being unable to cause swelling or anything else to happen to them on its own. Stress does, however, lead to an increased likelihood of getting ailments which do cause swollen glands.

This is due to the fact that stress hinders the ability of the  immune system to identify and remove threats to the body, and a number of the threats can cause swelling of the glands, for example the threats listed below:

Several types of bacterial and viral infections are known to lead to swelling in the glands as a primary symptom, and even more infections have the swelling of the glands as one of their secondary, less common, symptoms.

Additionally, cancer of various types has been linked to swelling of the glands, and these types of cancer may be caused, indirectly, by stress, due to a combination of reduced immune system capabilities and the potential of cortisol to lead to its appearance.

Given the information presented above, the answer to the question of whether or not stress can cause swollen glands can be stated in this way: Yes, stress can absolutely cause certain health conditions, such as infections or cancers, which may cause swelling of the glands, a number of these conditions being quite severe and downright very dangerous.

Stress, though, does not have the capacity to swell up the glands on its own, in any way, shape or form, and may only indirectly contribute to the swelling of the glands, by aiding other health conditions in taking hold inside the body.

If you suffer from chronic stress, or are going through a stressful period, and also have swollen lymph nodes, then the stress may have facilitated a health condition in occurring and settling in, which ended up being the direct cause for the swelling in the glands.

It is important to get examined by a medical professional, if this is the case, in order to receive appropriate treatment for whatever condition it is that is causing the swelling.

What Is A Stroke?

There are two types of strokes, namely, ischemic and hemorrhagic strokes. Both are roughly equally dangerous, and considered an extreme medical emergency, to be treated immediately.

An ischemic stroke occurs when blood flow to the brain is either partially or totally blocked, thus preventing oxygen and nutrients from reaching the brain and supplying its needs.

In the absence of sufficient oxygen and nutrients supplied to the brain, brain tissue begins to die, a very dangerous and potentially fatal predicament unless immediate care is provided by medical experts.

Depending on the length of time between the onset of the ischemic stroke and the treatment, brain damage may or may not be permanent.

Brain damage resulting from ischemic stroke can occur in any and all areas of the brain, and can impair cognitive ability, affect the personality of the patient, impair motor functions, and many more brain-related bodily processes. In severe cases, total brain death may result.

A hemorrhagic stroke, on the other hand, occurs when a blood vessel ruptures within or around the brain, leading to bleeding inside of the brain. The resulting blood flooding the brain gradually increases pressure on brain tissue in the affected areas of the brain, damaging it.

A hemorrhagic stroke also carries the additional risk of death by blood loss, if the bleeding is severe enough and left untreated for too long.

Hemorrhagic strokes are also considered a medical emergency of extreme importance, and are supposed to be treated as soon as possible, as otherwise they can lead to debilitating injuries of the brain, and even death.

Brain damage that comes as a result of hemorrhagic stroke is pretty much bearing the same potential as that resulting from ischemic stroke, with the death of brain cells leading to similar outcomes.

Other Causes For Stroke

A large number of health conditions can increase the risk for, or directly cause, a stroke. This applies to ischemic and hemorrhagic strokes alike.

Let’s take a look at some of these possible causes aside from stress:

1. High blood pressure - The link between high blood pressure and increased risk of stroke is very well known and thoroughly researched, and has been proven time and time again by medical academics. This is because high blood pressure increases the risk of suffering a vascular accident in the brain or the blood vessels leading to it, resulting in a stroke.
2. Reduced blood coagulation ability - In the case of blood thinning medication, for example, if a vascular accident were to happen in the brain, the bleeding would be made more severe due to the reduced ability of the body to coagulate the blood. This can easily lead to a hemorrhagic stroke, where the brain becomes flooded with blood.
3. Thicker than normal blood consistency - In the case of thicker than regular blood consistency, this can lead to blood clots developing on the blood vessels, leading to ischemic or hemorrhagic stroke (if the blood vessel ruptures).
4. Plaque build-up - Plaque building up on the arteries and other blood vessels, especially in the brain, is severely heightening the risk of both kinds of stroke, because of the narrower passageway for blood. Plaque buildup can lead as far as completely blocking off an artery, a severely dangerous predicament.

Can Stress Cause A Stroke? 

Research shows that yes, stress can indeed lead to a stroke. In fact, both short-duration and long-lasting (chronic) stress have been linked to an increased risk of suffering a stroke.

Research has also shown that the cause of the stress is irrelevant when it comes to the increased likelihood of stroke, with people stressed out due to work stress and people stressed out due to social anxiety, for example, having just about the same increased likelihood of suffering a stroke as a result of their stress.

Stress increases the risk of both ischemic, as well as hemorrhagic, stroke, with virtually no difference between the two types when referring to the increased risk.

The way that stress can lead to either an ischemic or hemorrhagic stroke, is through its negative effects on cardiovascular health. Stress is known to cause narrowing of the arteries, which in turn leads to increased blood pressure.

Stress has also been known to provide a boost to the blood clotting ability of the body, increasing the risk of blood clots forming in the arteries, effectively blocking them.

Due to these two factors, stress can lead to an ischemic stroke due to the combination of narrower arteries and blood clots. Similarly, it can also lead to hemorrhagic stroke due to narrower arteries, blood clots and increased blood pressure.

Conclusion

Stress, dangerous and deadly, is something that needs more awareness brought to it.

Thankfully, the stress awareness month and other, similar initiatives are doing just that, and even better, anyone is welcome to help, in any way that they can.

Take care of yourselves, and keep working towards a better, less stressed world.