Episodic acute stress is a form of negative stress that causes people to have intense reactions when they are in situations where there is uncertainty. This type of negative stress can be caused by many different things, including financial instability or job insecurity. Unlike acute stress disorder, episodic acute stress repeatedly happens over time and can last for a few minutes to hours.
Symptoms include panic attacks, irritability and muscle tension. If you experience episodic acute stress, it may help determine how it’s caused and what treatment options are available for the condition before beginning treatment.
Short term stress is expected in the lives of many people. Still, it’s essential to know when episodic acute stress becomes too much so you can get help before it gets dangerous or unmanageable. In addition, knowing how episodic acute stress affects our bodies and what we should do about it can help us combat the condition before it worsens.
The content will discuss episodic acute stress, its symptoms, causes and treatments.
Table of Contents
Sources of episodic acute stress
Physical injury
A physical injury can cause episodic acute stress. For example, after being in an accident or suffering from a disease that causes chronic pain, e.g., chest pain, episodic acute stress may affect the body physically and emotionally. Physical injuries such as these are usually short-term but still have significant effects on mental health.
Psychiatric illness
Psychiatric illness or mental disorder like depression, schizophrenia or bipolar disorder can also be episodic. Episodic acute stress may result in disturbances that mimic those seen with mood disorders, including tension, sleep and appetite disturbance, irritability or anger.
Grief and bereavement
Grief and bereavement are both normal reactions to loss. It is a natural process that everyone needs to heal from the death of someone important. However, grief and bereavement can lead to an acute stress response, and a person can experience episodic acute stress for up to six months following the death of someone close.
An example of episodic acute stress is that, due to grief and bereavement, an individual may have difficulty sleeping or eating and experiencing changes in appetite.
Domestic violence is often a combination of emotional, psychological and physical abuse.
Domestic violence can lead to more significant episodic acute stress, as victims are often subjected to ongoing psychological and physical abuse. In addition to this, domestic violence is also a source of episodic acute stress in the form of post traumatic symptoms that cause flashbacks and nightmares – which each day could be considered an episode.
Social media
Recent studies have shown that social media can also cause episodic acute stress. For example, social media usage can lead to increases in depressive symptoms among young adults. In addition, individuals who feel socially disconnected from friends and family may experience episodic acute stress while using social media platforms like Facebook or Instagram.
Getting caught in a traffic jam
Getting caught up in a traffic jam is the perfect example of a source of episodic acute stress. If you are driving, then it’s likely that your mind is preoccupied with thoughts about whether or not this traffic jam will make you late for an appointment, and if so, how long would you be delayed?
Perhaps your heart rate has increased because being stuck in traffic is a source of stress for many. If you are not driving, then the episodic acute stress would be even more intense as you might start to worry about how this traffic jam will impact your day and if there was anything that you could have done differently to avoid it.
The acute stress reaction becomes intense as such a situation has been known to cause miles of tailbacks, leading to an increased risk of accidents.
Overcommitment
Taking on too much responsibility, which leads to experiencing acute stress, is called overcommitment. Having too much on your plate can lead you to feel like an anxious mess because there are so many things that need to be done and not enough time or energy to do them all. Feeling this way for an extended period will eventually lead you into a state of exhaustion, including a compromised immune system.
Overcommitment can happen for many reasons, such as being pressured by others to do more than you’re able or wanting to prove yourself and show how capable you are. It could also be because your boss is a bad manager who doesn’t recognize when employees have reached their limits and need time off to recover.
Having a particularly demanding job
Working a particularly demanding job requires being on their feet for hours and constantly engaged in strenuous activity can lead someone to experience episodic acute stress. This is especially true if the person doesn’t have a break from work during the day or they don’t get enough sleep at night.
Caring for a loved one with serious chronic health problems
In a recent study, chronic health conditions were ranked as the number one cause of episodic acute stress for caregivers. The effect on the caregiver can be significant: this type of episodic acute stress has been linked to high blood pressure and other heart problems in some people.
What are these chronic health issues? These include illnesses like diabetes, asthma, heart disease or cancer.
Symptoms of episodic acute stress in a caregiver may include feeling anxious and restless before the next appointment with their loved one’s doctor. This stressor becomes amplified when they hear bad news about their loved one’s condition from the doctor during that visit; for instance, hearing that treatment is going poorly or that surgery was unsuccessful.
Feeling of bad luck
Perception of misfortune can lead to episodic acute stress, i.e., a response to the feeling that your life or job isn’t going well. It’s usually caused by one event but can also be triggered by a constant worry and mounting pressure from other things in our lives such as work pressures, family troubles, financial worries, etc. You might start feeling on edge or restless and irritable, a sense that there’s no way to escape from the bad luck.
Having interpersonal difficulties
If you have a history of difficulty in relationships, interpersonal conflict and loneliness, this could indicate that episodic acute stress is at play as well.
As a result of episodic acute stress, you can experience an increase in the number and severity of interpersonal difficulties. This means that your relationship with other people may be negatively impacted by episodic acute stress because it is more difficult to engage socially when experiencing this type of distress. For example, many individuals struggling with episodic acute stress have difficulty engaging in conversations without experiencing panic attacks or severe anxiety.
Having a tendency to interpret situations negatively
Some people may be more prone to episodic acute stress because they tend to interpret events catastrophically. If they feel that the situation is uncontrollable, then their reactions to it, and stress level, will be exacerbated.
Arguments
Engaging in difficult arguments can lead to episodic acute stress. When people are exposed to complicated arguments, their brains and adrenal glands release stress hormones like cortisol. This can lead to increased heart rate, headaches, and other physical symptoms, including stomach problems.
Arguments may also cause episodic acute stress when someone is constantly witnessing them happening in his or her daily life, like if he/she lives in a home where arguments happen often.
The person may also experience episodic acute stress from their own ongoing mental health issues. For example, when someone experiences an argument, he or she is likely to have a higher level of anxiety and depression as a consequence.
If these episodes are happening more than once per month, it is wise for them to consider seeking help.
Effects of episodic acute stress
The effects of episodic acute stress can vary depending on the person. For one, it may cause irritability and anger in some cases. Additionally, there is a higher chance that the individual will have sleeping problems or experience increased heart rate, headaches or stomach pain and other consequences of psychosocial stress.
Anxiety
While episodic acute stress is not a disorder, it can be the result of an anxiety disorder. Anxiety disorders are chronic conditions that have recurring episodes and symptoms of excessive worry or fear over time. The individual fears for their safety, worry about embarrassing themselves in front of others and has difficulty concentrating on what to do next. It also has at least one physical symptom, such as rapid or irregular heartbeat.
Episodic acute stress can also be a symptom of other mental health conditions, including depression and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Depression is when someone feels sad for an extended period without any joy in their life. For example, the individual may feel that they are worthless to others and lack interest in their favorite activities.
Episodic acute stress can also be the result of traumatic events, such as experiencing violence or abuse. It is different from posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) because episodic acute stress disorder has shorter periods and does not feel like it lasts all the time. A person with short-term episodic acute stress may only experience it once in a while, and most of the time, they can live their life as if nothing happened.
Confusion and Forgetfulness
People with episodic acute stress may have trouble remembering things, difficulty focusing on a task at hand and confusion. There is also an increase in the number of errors people make when doing tasks requiring concentration.
Insomnia
Insomnia is a symptom of episodic acute stress. Insomnia may be more intense following certain events, such as a stressful situation, extreme emotional distress or when the individual has not slept well for several days or weeks beforehand. Episodic acute stress can also lead to secondary insomnia as the individual has difficulty sleeping at night due to an event that happened during the day.
Insomnia can be debilitating and lead to secondary health problems, such as depression and cardiovascular disease and poor immune response. Insomnia symptoms include difficulty falling asleep at night, waking up during the night, and not feeling rested in the morning after an uninterrupted sleep period, often attributed to lack of deep sleep cycles that allow for recovery.
Symptoms of episodic acute stress include difficulty concentrating and feeling emotionally overwhelmed, irritable or exhausted. Episodic acute stress can significantly impact the quality of life for both the individual experiencing it and those who are close to them due to their emotional distress.
Hypervigilance
Hypervigilance is one primary symptom associated with episodic acute stress. It typically occurs in tandem with other symptoms that cause heightened stress, such as difficulty sleeping, fatigue and difficulties concentrating. It can manifest in several ways, including generalized anxiety disorder or panic attacks.
Hypervigilance is the result of overactive acute stress responses. It includes excessive worry about safety issues such as being attacked by someone outside your home. This, combined with other symptoms from episodic acute stress, leads to an increased sense of fear for one’s safety.
This can sometimes disrupt a person’s daily routine, such as being unable to leave their home or take care of themselves properly because they are too busy worrying about what may happen.
Irritability and anger outbursts
When a person begins to experience episodic acute stress, they are often irritable and on edge. They may become more prone to angry outbursts with their friends, family members or coworkers; this will lead the people around them to avoid being near that individual. Those experiencing episodic acute stress also tend not to sleep well at night and become prone to nightmares. They may also experience headaches, which are often described as being “excruciating”.
Differences between acute episodic stress and chronic stress
The two types of stress are very different from one another, and it’s important to know the difference so you can manage your symptoms appropriately.
Episodic acute stress is a short-term response to an event or situation, while chronic stress is a long-term condition that can lead to mental health problems such as depression.
Episodic acute stress is a short-term response to an event that causes anxiety, fear, and other negative emotions. In contrast, chronic stress disorder is long-term exposure to something that creates the same feelings as episodic acute stress.
With episodic acute stress, the body’s cortisol levels spike quickly, then go back down after the event has passed; with chronic stress, cortisol levels remain elevated for months on end.
Episodic acute stress causes more physical symptoms than chronic does (elevated heart rate and blood pressure), while chronic causes more psychological ones (anxiety, depression)
It’s also important to understand how these two types of stresses affect children differently. For example, kids who experience episodic acute may have trouble in school because they’re distracted by their worries about what happened last time; those who experience chronic will feel sad all the time because they never get relief from their anxiety.
The difference between episodic acute and chronic stresses is in duration, the intensity of emotional responses, and the magnitude of physiological reaction.
Personality and episodic acute stress
Personality is based on how we behave and also how we feel emotions. For example, some people have a personality that is more impacted by episodic acute stress than others, such as extroverts. At the same time, introverts are less likely to be affected because of their need for alone time.
It’s important to understand your personality to react when faced with episodic acute stress. Emotions are a very personal thing and will vary from person to person, depending on their perception of reality. For example, someone who enjoys risk taking may see episodic acute stress as positive stress, an opportunity for excitement, while others might see it as a form of anxiety and a traumatic event.
Your personality will also affect how an acute stressor affects you. For example, someone who is generally more pessimistic might be less surprised by episodic acute stress than someone with an optimistic streak.
Treatment options for adults with episodic acute stress
Medication
Adults can take an antidepressant or anti-anxiety medication to help with episodic acute stress. There are many different antidepressants and anti-anxiety medications that may be helpful for individuals suffering from episodic acute stress, so it is vital to work closely with a doctor when choosing the best treatment option.
Cognitive behavioral therapy
Cognitive behavioral therapy for episodic acute stress can help alleviate depression, anxiety, and angry outbursts.
Cognitive behavioral therapy is a form of psychological intervention that helps people identify negative thoughts or beliefs about themselves and the assumptions they make about other people’s actions.
When these thoughts are identified and challenged, it can help people change their behavior and ultimately relieve symptoms of episodic acute stress.
Cognitive behavioral therapy is effective because it tackles the root cause, not just the effect or symptom.
Mindfulness for episodic acute stress relief
Mindfulness is a type of meditation technique that requires focusing on the present moment instead of thoughts about the past or future. Mindfulness for episodic acute stress can help reduce symptoms and make them more manageable when they arise. It also helps with healthy coping skills if episodic acute stress leads to depression or other mental health problems.
Mindfulness meditation can be done either sitting in a quiet place or on the go. One of the best ways to practice mindfulness is by focusing all your attention on one thing at a time and then moving onto the next object once you’ve fully concentrated. For example, you could begin with observing different sensations in your environment or bodily sensations such as breathing in and out.
Once you’ve practiced mindfulness meditation for a while, it may help with episodic acute stress by teaching you how to cope better with stressful situations when they arise. It also helps teach people skills like mindful living, which is about being fully aware of the present moment with a sense of curiosity, openness and acceptance.
Other stress management techniques
Stress management techniques such as relaxation exercises, meditation, deep breathing exercises, and yoga effectively reduce episodic acute stress.
In general, the treatment for episodic acute stress is about learning how to manage it better by using different coping skills that suit your needs – whether you’re looking for an outlet like sports or hobbies; or something cognitively based such as mindfulness meditation.
The treatments listed above are not intended to be exhaustive and may vary according to the individual. Treatment should always include discussing the risks, benefits, and alternatives with your doctor or therapist.