You have a headache, an upset stomach, problems getting to sleep, elevated blood pressure and chest pains.

If you looked this up on WebMd.com you’d probably think you were dying from some sort of horrifying disease. But in fact, these are the symptoms of a much more common health problem affecting almost all of us.

Stress

In the same way that pain isn’t all bad because it lets you know the difference between a warm shower and scalding yourself with boiling water, stress isn’t always a bad thing either.

Stress responses in your body during life threatening situations signal your body to stop all non-life-saving functions and focus on getting you out of the burning building, or running away from the man eating lion.

But the problem with stress is that your physiological responses to non-immediate stresses are largely the same as when you’re fighting for survival.

In other words…