Stress can be difficult to manage. It can also lead to an increase in anxiety and adverse effects on your mental, emotional, and physical health. Antonia Hall, a psychologist and relationship expert, says that stress hormones such as adrenaline, cortisol and epinephrine are constantly changing throughout the day. With each stressful event, blood pressure and heart rate go up. Stress can have a profound impact on our lives in many ways. It’s no surprise that stress also has an effect on our relationships. This means that if you don’t take care of yourself and manage your stress well, it will impact your partner’s stress levels and overall satisfaction in your relationship.
These are the top ways stress can affect your relationship. We will show you how to defuse, reset and destress so that you can be happy in love again.
Your partner can help you take your stress out.
Hall explains that when we are under too much stress, our closest friends and family can become the victims of the backlash. She says that being under pressure does not bring out the best in people, especially emotional. It can cause us to withdraw, see problems where none exist, lash back emotionally and avoid affection which is naturally very difficult for our partner and the relationship. She suggests that you increase your self-care routines in this case. It is important to get out in nature, exercise, and meditate in order to lower stress levels and restore balance.
Your partner may be less sympathetic to you.
Studies have shown that stress causes couples to be less compassionate towards each other. Hall warns that if there is no bonded sense of belonging, then partners can feel alone and isolated, which can lead to emotional reactions that can cause a deeper division in the relationship. Hall recommends that you show your love and appreciation to your partner, even if it is not easy. She adds that even just 10 minutes per day of touching, kissing and intimately connecting can make a huge difference in your relationship and lower stress levels.
You should make stress your priority, not your relationships.
It’s important to remember what you are about to do, marry the love of your lives, when you get engaged. Although planning every detail of your wedding day is important, it’s not as important as making sure you and your partner love each other. Hall says that a happy and healthy relationship requires constant energy to infuse it with the love it needs. If either partner withdraws from the other, it can cause a distancing effect that can damage the relationship and the bond between them. To strengthen the importance of the relationship, she recommends that you make time for each other. “Find activities that you feel like playing together.”
You don’t have to be sexy.
For your overall happiness and well-being, it is crucial to be physically intimate. Mike Dow, Ph.D. is the author of Chicken Soup for the Soul. Remember that stress changes your state from ‘feed and breed’ to ‘fight/flight’, and high levels of stress can lead to you being stuck in that negative place.
It’s easy to mistakenly believe you are falling in love.
Dr. Dow says that love is a chemical fingerprint in the brain. High levels of stress can make it seem like you aren’t in love anymore because it can lower your levels of serotonin. We know that couples who have been in a long-term relationship for a while tend to have high levels of serotonin. This creates the illusion that you are not in love. You can manage your stress to get out of a rut and focus on what is most important-your relationship.
