Can Stress Kill You?

With stress levels rising worldwide, due to a multitude of factors such as financial trouble, workplace stress, romantic mishaps, and more, many are unfortunately experiencing the very unpleasant consequences of stress.

In turn, this leads many people to ask the following question: can stress kill you?

It is worth mentioning that stress is also a leading cause behind people taking up smoking and vaping, which are very harmful habits to have.

The short answer is yes, stress can absolutely kill you, if left unchecked. Stress, especially chronic stress, is incredibly harmful, both physically, as well as mentally.

In fact, stress is nicknamed the silent killer, and not without good reason. Stress is associated with the six leading causes of death worldwide, the implications of which certainly point out the gravity of this issue.

In this article, we’ll broadly cover a lot of aspects about stress and what makes it dangerous, some more known than others.

What Is Stress?

To understand how and why stress can kill you, it’s first important to know what stress is.

Stress can be accurately described as an ensemble of reactions to negative, unpleasant and/or harmful environmental stimuli, such as being late for work or class, to give an example.

It’s basically an adaptation syndrome that an individual experiences when confronted with aggressions from their environment.

Stress. as the ensemble that it is, is composed of the following reactions: feeling on edge, mental and physical tension, constraint, (over-)solicitation, and other pressure-adjacent feelings and reactions.

Stress by itself is something common that virtually all human beings and even most animals experience, and is the body’s natural response to anything that requires attention and/or action.

It does, however, become dangerous when the stress level is either too high, constant, or both.

There is an international stress awareness month, during which people suffering from stress, and even those who don’t but just want to help, aim to spread awareness of just how serious of an issue stress is.

How Stress Messes With Your Body

The title of this section refers to both physical and mental toll that stress can have.

Stress can lead to worsened physical and mental health, and in some cases these effects can be life-threatening.

Stress is known to increase blood pressure levels, which can lead to a plethora of serious, life-threatening health problems, including but not limited to stroke, appendicitis (indirectly) and high red blood cell count.

There are some ways in which stress also helps other negative conditions harm your body, namely because stress lowers your immune system’s ability to defend itself against infections.

This decrease in immune system efficiency has resulted in some misconceptions, such as the belief that stress can cause swollen lymph nodes and UTIs. Stress, by itself, is not a cause of either UTIs or swollen lymph nodes.

Stress does, however, lower your immune system’s ability to fend off various infections, which can lead to the aforementioned conditions.

Studies have also linked high stress levels to increased likelihood of developing anemia.

Stress is also known to negatively impact the vestibular system, leading to vertigo symptoms such as dizziness.

Boils may also appear as yet another unfortunate result of stress, and while they usually are not very dangerous, they can be so on rare occasions, and may require more than home care.

In certain cases, low platelets can also be one of the effects of long term, high stress levels. This leads to excessive bleeding from wounds, and may result in slower healing time of said wounds.

A few other indirect effects of stress, due to lowered immune system functionality, are swollen glands, dandruff, as well as gallstones. Stress is not only dangerous on its own, it also makes other conditions more dangerous, by hindering your body’s ability to fight against them.

Stress is also a known cause for several gastrointestinal issues, including but not limited to irritable bowel syndrome, diarrhea, indigestion and constipation.

Mental Health Consequences, And Causes Of Stress

Stress is known to severely impact the quality of mental health in its sufferers, the reason being that stress is first and foremost a mental condition, despite its numerous drawbacks also affecting the physical health of an individual. Conditions such as depression, anxiety and eating disorders have all been linked to stress as a causing factor.

The relationship between stress and anxiety is an interesting one, with anxiety basically being a different form of stress, while also an effect of stress, and vice-versa.

Anxiety itself can take many forms: from general anxiety to social anxiety, for example. And, typically, anxiety does not discriminate, with even formerly extroverted people facing the risk of developing social anxiety at some point in their lives, for example.

Health anxiety is yet another form of anxiety, which tends to be quite severe. In essence, it makes people worry about the state of their health, usually making them scared of the possibility of them having a serious physical illness or ailment. Since anxiety can sometimes cause physical symptoms, such as localized pain, it’s extra hard for sufferers to calm themselves down while experiencing these symptoms, since it tends to make them believe that their worries are coming true.

As for the causes of stress, there are numerous possible ones. In fact, the list of causes that may be behind stress is so long, that it’d be impossible to list it in detail here. (But here’s an article that goes a bit more in-depth about some facts about stress)

Things such as workplace or academic stress can lead to developing chronic stress issues. Other stressful situations, such as issues in personal relationships, financial trouble, moving, and even boredom, among many others, may be contributing to increased stress levels.

Stress And Cancer

Stress on its own does not cause the creation of cancer cells within the body. It does, however, contribute to the creation of favorable conditions for cancer cells to appear in.

Same as in the case of infections, this happens because stress hinders the ability of the immune system to protect the body from threats, resulting in an increased risk of developing cancer cells that the immune system is no longer able to eradicate.

Leukocytes, the same cells used by the immune system to fight off bacteria and viruses, are also used by the immune system to fight and eliminate any cancer cells which appear. As a fun fact, every single day, the immune system of the average human destroys cancer cells before they have a chance to become a real danger.

Having to rely on a reduced number of leukocytes, as a result of stress, in its fight against these cancer cells, the immune system’s ability to protect the body from these cancer cells is reduced significantly.

As if that wasn’t bad enough, cortisol, one of the stress hormones released as a direct consequence of stress, has been linked by some research to certain types of cancers, and is believed to be able to directly cause the appearance of cancer cells. 

So, on top of the organism being at an increased risk of cancer due to the diminished immune system’s abilities, the risk is magnified further by the presence of a hormone which has been linked directly to some cancer types.

This proves that stress is indeed incredibly dangerous, both directly and indirectly.

Conclusion

Can stress kill you? This article concludes that yes, it can indeed do that, while also lowering your quality of life along the way.

Thankfully, however, there are ways to combat stress that do not rely on medication, and are completely natural, as well as safe. Thanks to those kinds of methods, stress can be dealt with relatively easily, ensuring it can no longer kill you, once you’ve gotten rid of it from your life.

Stay safe, and take care.