The "fight or flight" theory - when faced with increasing stress, a person has two ways to confront the problem, the first is to distance himself from the situation, thus solving the immediate need for stress relief (but not necessarily solving the problem, since people need to return to some places) the second is dealing with the problems, solving or eliminating them and simply fighting the stress away. These are the two options you have when dealing with increasing stress, in many cases it is recommended to stay and fight, and in others you can simply cut yourself away from the stressful situation.

One example is a failing marriage, day after day of fights and arguments, insults and acquisitions, inevitably creates an ongoing stressful life, while most people will feel the need to "flight" from the situation right away most choose to stay and fight, only after all attempts to solve the problems and reach a better relationship fail they will choose to end the marriage. On some cases, however, people forget that they have the option of distancing themselves from the situation, and are determined to solve a potentially unsolvable problem, sometimes leading to years and years of constant stress and inability to advance.

Try and be as honest as you can with yourself while reading this next few lines, almost everyone suffers from stress at some points in their lives, and you are no exception, it is only when this symptoms are continues and prolonged that you should start to move into solving them.

Stress has real, clear physical symptoms, some people think that a mental, mind problem will express itself exclusively in the mind, it is not so. There are many "real" physical symptoms that accompany increased stress, if you think about it for a minute, you will understand that it is very easy to spot a stress person when you see one.

Stress may cause sleep problems, lack of sleep, inability to sleep, or oversleeping are all potential indicators of stress. Back or neck pain and stiffness are also indications of stress, as well as back pain. Headaches have been found to be related to stress, to the point you can hear someone saying that he has a "stress headache", try and think of the kind of headaches you get and when you get them, some of them may be related to stress.

The digestion system also suffers the effects of stress, including heartburn and gas, stomach pain and cramps, constipation and diarrhea. Hair loss has also been found to be related to increased stress. Skin problems may also indicate stress, in some cases causing them and in others making them worst, disease like psoriasis and eczema tend to significantly turn bad under stress.

Everyone reacts differently to stress, some people get into a semi depressive mood and stop eating and loss weight, others get into a bulimic state and eat their stress away thus gaining weight. Stress is also a main reason for chronic fatigue.

As a main reason for heart disease and heart attacks, stress has a strong connection with all of the expressions of heart pain, high blood pressure, palpitations (heart beats fast) or irregular heart beat, pain in the chest, pressure on the chest, inability to breath, sweaty palms, cold or hot waves.

On the emotional side, stress has even clearer symptoms. It is surprising to find out that a lot of people ignore these emotional warning signals, or get used to them without questioning the reasons behind them. If you feel that you are experiencing a few of these symptoms, you might suffer increasing stress. On the other hand a lot of these emotional symptoms are stress related and sometime not directly linked to stress.

It is not difficult to identify signs of emotional stress, an increased sense of nervousness or anxiety, symptoms of depression (moods swings, anti social feelings), an "edgy" feeling, anger and frustration, lack of concentration and memory problems and a tendency to over react to situations.

All these things listed about are symptoms of stress, there may be more symptoms, but we think we got most of them, now the question is what to do if you feel that while going over this list you have a lot of stress symptoms... the answer is first try and identify the source of your stress in your efforts for stress relief.