When I’m stressed out I either shut down or overreact. If my daughter comes home late I may raise my voice or talk without even trying to listen. If someone I care about psychically injures me, I may avoid her or carefully word any interaction I have with her to steer clear of confronting the situation and working it out. I do both of these things because, at times, my reaction causes a definite and immediate stress response. This reaction has a definite impact on my communications.

Let me ask you, are you having problems with your relationships at home and at work? Do even the smallest annoyances cause you to respond with angry “knee jerk” reactions like yelling or swearing? The facts are that the stress caused by your response to these events can immobilize you emotionally. This stress response can wear down the communications in all of your relationships.

Chronic stress affects you both physically and emotionally. It also wears you down psychologically. Stress can cause your mind to race and your sleep to suffer. As it wears you down your nerves get set on edge. Things that you used to laugh about can infuriate you. You suddenly find yourself exploding at co-workers and loved ones and remaining angry long after the incident is over. This can lead to a vicious spiral of avoidance followed by louder and even more violent outbursts. Left unchecked, this type of chronic emotional stress can ruin you both personally and professionally.

Why does stress interfere with your ability to communicate? It’s because your body’s nervous system was made to keep you alive. When your ancestors were worried about fighting saber toothed tigers or other human beings just to stay alive your stress response was a good thing. The stress response, also known as the fight or flight response was designed to increase your heart beat, your blood pressure and your metabolism. Your stress response increases your blood flow to your major muscle groups, such as your arms and legs, while cutting down the blood supply to your stomach and other organs that are unnecessary for combat. This is good when you need to run or fight. But it also narrows your mind’s focus which shuts down your ability to communicate. This isn’t good for your relationships.

What your body does during stressful situations is provide you with the strength and extra energy that will either help you run faster or fight with more strength and focus. The problem is that very few, if any, situations at home or at work have a need for you to run away from them or fight with them. But when you are stressed your fight or flight response can get out of whack and cause you to react the same way you would if you were attacked by a saber toothed tiger.

Once you begin to react this way you mind can start to develop a habit of behaving in this manner over and over again and, unless you do something to counteract it, your stress can become a trigger that can shut your communications down completely.

So, as you can probably already tell, if you want to maintain good relationships, it’s very important to develop some ways for dealing with stress. Some of these can be as simple having a simple exercise program such as walking or other exercises that involve the use of the mind and body such as Tai Chi and Yoga. Some people seek counseling, biofeedback or visualization using hypnosis and NLP. All of these are excellent methods of dealing with stress and can help you calm down and communicate better.

If you are experiencing chronic stress and you find that it’s affecting your quality of life start developing strategies for dealing with the effects of stress today. Your body doesn’t need to be constantly in the fight or flight mode, in fact not only can this hurt your communications it can kill you! Learning to calm your stress response will be one of the best investments you have ever made and might save your relationships and your life!

Wil Dieck is the founder of Total Mind Therapy and author of an e-Course “Steps to reducing your stress“ that you can have at absolutely no charge. Drop by http://www.beststressreliefinfosite.com/ for your copy today