It would be easy to say that we all are stressed out and leave it at that. Given that we all maybe stressed, it becomes serious when our stress starts to kill us or at least effects our enjoyment of life.

Medicine over the last 25 years has grown beyond believing that only genes or microbes cause all disease. Today the entire health care system accepts stress as a cause of illness. We now know stress is real because we have lifestyle disease, an increasing matrix of diseases where stress plays a huge part. Everyone knows how high blood pressure, ulcers and irritable bowl syndrome is caused by stress. What we may not be aware of is how extensive the list of stress illness has become, here just a few that are now being attributed to stress: cardiovascular disease, immune system disease, asthma and diabetes. I suspect as medicine better recognizes and understands stress what is a long list will get longer.

All this attention is good. The media has become aware that stress may kill us. So, if you have a possible medical condition, see your health care professional.

What I am more interested in writing about are the more incepted aspects of stress, what might be called the pre-clinical symptoms of a stress illness. If you have high blood pressure, it is reasonable to assume you are stressed out. As I say to my clients, hypertension is tension – you are stressed.

The subtle signs of our stress we are often not aware of. Some of this is due to the fact that we all live in a culture of stress. Everyone around us is often stressed out. We are expected to perform under stress. We often become conditioned, if not addicted to the affects of stress, such as its adrenaline.

So how do we discern our relative “stressness” in a society that is stressed out? There are several perspectives to take. One is our behavior, another is our productivity, a third is observing our bodies and there are always our trusted friends for their impressions. There is also clinical testing that your health care professional can perform. The caveat here is that not all stress will show itself in tests.

When we can separate our behavior from those around us to observe what we are doing, we will learn something. Some simple questions to ask about your behaviors are:

• Sleep – are you getting enough, do you wake rested
• Weight – have you been gaining or loosing weight
• Sex – are you wanting it, is it good
• Athletics – is your performance decreasing not in portion to your workouts
• Substance support – do you use even natural substances to get you up and others to bring you down

How is your productivity? I don’t accept much of what we blame on age as age; it is the cumulative effect of stress wearing out our bodies. So, do you experience any of these that limit your effectiveness:

• Focus – does it take more effort to keep your concentration
• Team – are you less of a team player, more concerned about you own survival
• Denial – have others told you to chill out and you are saying that it is them
• Assistance – do you need chemicals from caffeine to Prozac to keep you in the game
• Desire – are you burnt out, is the thrill gone, are you just buying time until …

Relationships often suffer the effects of chronic stress. These effects may show up at home or at work. What once was enjoyable becomes just another responsibility, another stressor. What symptoms of stress in this realm of you life do you have:

• Impatience – has your fuse is shorter
• Burdens – has being with and relating to your love ones and friends become a burden
• Communication – is it still there, is it just what it needs to be keep getting along
• Desires – who are you imagining being with, what are you dreaming of·

Ron Kurtz, an old friend of my use to say, the body never lies. It is always speaking to us and others. The question is; are we listening. With awareness and honesty, we can hear a signal before it becomes a problem. What is your body telling you:

• Tension – is your body getting tighter, are you clenching my jaw, are there other idiosyncratic tension behaviors
• Breath – right now – is your breath relaxed and full
• Posture – are you loosing the war with gravity, are you hunch over looking like an old man or woman and maybe feeling like one
• Sore – are you always sore, stiff and generally feeling old before your time
• Unsettled – do you have behaviors such as tapping your feet, shaking your leg, or tensing a body part
• Present – are you living in the past or future, escaping what is happening in the present moment
• Low energy – you may not be chronically fatigued, but are you tired
• Sick – do you go from one cold or flu to another
• Headaches, back pain – do you have one of the common chronic pains that can’t be attributed to a specific cause

Then there are the psychotically behaviors that transgress from being our unique mannerism to self perpetuating stressful emotions. Before we receive a diagnosis of depression, there are warning signs to our stress. What are yours; here are a few questions to guide you:

• Despondent – is the thrill gone, are you burnt out and nothing gives you pleasure
• Reclusive – do you want to be left alone
• Hysterical – do you find yourself over reacting, someone says something and you start crying or wanting to cry
• Frozen – are you in a daze, or just unable to decide or act
• Needy – are you feeling your needs are not being meant or maybe never will be
• Control – are you loosing control or working hard to maintain it
• Resistant – do your find yourself resisting when you would have not in the past
• Over achieving – are you too focus on tasks, getting things done becomes your purpose in life
• Compulsive – are you obsessing
• Aggression – are you in reaction or constantly aroused ready for the next event, are you often angry

One pragmatic way to look at all the aspects of our lives is to ask how many parts of my life take more energy from me than give me. When we are not constantly stressed out, we receive a lot from life. When we are living on the edge with stress, our resources are down and everything begins to be a strain, draining our precious resources.

Determining your level of stress and its impact on you may prove to be more challenging than we first would imagine. We live in a culture of co-conspirators. We all are in some level of mutual denial. To step beyond the cultural mindset and ask these questions can be the beginning to not only a healthier life, but also a more rewarding life.

For more on are you stressed out, check out the Univ. of London site. The Mayo Clinic compiled a simple chart of what your thoughts do to your body and your behavior. If you need any convincing that our modern society generates stress, read about how Indigenous communities in Australia are suffering from being integrated into what we have lived in for the last 100 years.

Here are some questionnaires testing your stress level. A short one initially designed for teachers, but applicable to everyone. This one comes from the Brits. This questionnaire represents the classic questionnaire that has been around for years asking questions that are more based on external events.

Please use other postings on this site to provoke and guide your journey out of the clutches of stress. As I used to say teaching stress reduction courses; we learned to be stressed, we can unlearn it.