Complications of stress
If you experience stress over a long period, or you have severe stress, you may develop other conditions.
These conditions can include:
- depression: feelings of extreme sadness, despair or inadequacy that last for a long time
- anxiety: constant feelings of unease, such as worry or fear, that affect your daily life
- insomnia: difficulty getting to sleep or staying asleep
- high blood pressure (hypertension)
- stomach ulcers (peptic ulcer)
Cardiovascular disease
If it is not treated, high blood pressure can cause many different types of cardiovascular disease (conditions that affect your heart and circulation), including:
- stroke: a serious condition where the blood supply to the brain is interrupted
- heart attack: a serious condition where the blood supply to the heart is blocked
- aneurysm: a serious condition that is caused by a weakness in the blood vessel wall, which forms a bulge in the blood vessel
Get tips to manage stress effectively.
- Inflammation
- Inflammation is the body's response to infection, irritation or injury, which causes redness, swelling, pain and sometimes a feeling of heat in the affected area.
- Intestines
- The intestines are the part of the digestive system between the stomach and the anus that digests and absorbs food and liquid.
- Stomach
- The sac-like organ of the digestive system that helps digest food by churning it and mixing it with acids to break it down into smaller pieces.
