Can You Be Addicted to Stress? Read on and find out how to break free!

What Being Addicted to Stress Looks Like

It can often be hard to determine if you are addicted to stress, especially if you are used to being in a stressed state a large amount of the time. For people with chronic stress, it is challenging to determine when your stress is a problem and when it is something you might be seeking out. If you have been in a state of chronic stress for a long time, sometimes it can be difficult to know the difference.

Signs You Might Be Addicted to Stress

Never having any free time – If you feel like you never have free time, you might be addicted to stress. Even people who are incredibly busy most of the time and have a busy schedule still have at least a little free time. If you have absolutely zero free time seven days a week, it may be the case that you are seeking more things out to fill your schedule.

Constantly packing your schedule – Similarly, you might continuously look for more to fill your schedule. Maybe you notice that when you have a day off over the weekend, you almost look for more to do. You offer to help others; you add more tasks to the task you are already working on, and you try to learn something new.

There is nothing wrong with hard work and getting ahead in life, but there is something wrong with feeling like you have to work hard all the time. Feeling this way is a big sign that you could be addicted to the stress and overwhelm that a busy life brings you.

Being bored when you have nothing to do – Are you bored on those rare occasions when you have nothing to do and no plans? Do you struggle with what to do with your time? Do you feel uneasy when you have free time? This could be another sign of being addicted to stress.

Feeling more accomplished when you are busier – You might be someone who feels more accomplished the busier you are. That lack of sleep and 80-hour work weeks, and never having time for friends and family means you are working harder than them, dreaming big, and being more accomplished. This is not a healthy attitude to have. As a human being, you need rest for both your mind and body.

Being Used to the Feeling of Overwhelm – This sign doesn’t seem like a problem but can be one of the worst of all. If you spend so much of your time stressed out and overwhelmed, you might not even realise how stressed you actually are because you have become so used to it. You get used to it, you become accustomed to that feeling of unease, you become adapted to the mental and physical signs of stress.

This is possibly from your addiction as not only are you continuing to add more to your schedule, but you aren’t doing anything constructive about the stress you are already living with.

How to Get a Handle on Your Stress Addiction

If any of this sounds like you, now is an excellent time to shift the stress addiction. As mentioned, awareness is key: knowing that you are dealing with chronic stress and may be unconsciously seeking it out is the first step to creating change.

The next steps include consciously working to reduce your stress in simple ways. This can be as simple as saying no to one thing this week or having at least a few hours of free time. Over time, you can shift to more conscious use of time and energy, setting the stage for a gradual return to less stress and a more balanced life.

Begin with small steps. Small steps lead to lasting change over time. Most of all, allow yourself to take small steps towards the kind of change you want to see.