Saqib Rather
Srinagar, Oct 7: It often begins with something easy to dismiss: waking up tired after a full night in bed, another headache by afternoon, a stomach that feels unsettled, or the familiar feeling that sleep never really restored the body.
For many people, these complaints are treated separately. A painkiller is taken for the headache, tea is used to fight fatigue, acidity medicine is taken after a heavy meal and another late night is accepted as part of the routine. But when several such complaints keep returning together, the body may be signalling that the pace of daily life has become difficult to sustain.
Doctors say prolonged stress does not remain confined to the mind. It can appear through physical symptoms that people may overlook because they seem ordinary.
“Stress is essentially the body’s natural response to pressure or perceived threats, but when it becomes chronic, it can severely impact both mental and physical health,” physician Dr Murtaza Khan has said.
He has also pointed to a pattern increasingly seen in patients. “We are witnessing a surge in patients complaining of headaches, hypertension, sleep disturbances, and fatigue, all of which are directly or indirectly linked to unmanaged stress.”
The warning is important because demanding routines rarely look like illness. Work continues, students attend classes, shopkeepers open their businesses and households carry on with their responsibilities. A person may remain functional while gradually becoming exhausted.
The body, however, does not always separate pressure at work from pressure at home. Stress can affect concentration, appetite and sleep, while physical discomfort can make it harder to recover. The World Health Organization lists headaches, body pains, upset stomach, appetite changes and difficulty sleeping among possible signs of stress.
That does not mean every headache, stomach complaint or episode of tiredness is caused by stress. Persistent symptoms can have many medical causes and should not automatically be blamed on a busy lifestyle.
The more useful question, doctors say, is whether the symptoms are becoming a pattern.
Poor sleep is often one of the first signs. A person may stay awake because of unfinished work, spend late hours on a phone or continue thinking about the next day. The morning begins with fatigue, and caffeine becomes a substitute for rest. The cycle repeats.
Dr S. Muhammad Salim Khan, Professor of Community Medicine at GMC Srinagar, has stressed that sleep is a biological necessity rather than a luxury, warning that chronic sleep deprivation can affect physical health, mental wellbeing and quality of life.
Digestive complaints can also become part of the same cycle. Irregular meals, eating late, excessive caffeine and constant tension can coincide with stomach discomfort, though recurring digestive symptoms still require proper medical evaluation.
For people with demanding routines, slowing down does not mean abandoning responsibilities. It can mean creating spaces for recovery: regular meals, consistent sleep, physical activity, time away from screens and periods when the mind can switch off.
WHO recommends maintaining a daily routine, getting enough sleep, eating regularly, staying physically active and keeping contact with trusted people as practical ways of managing stress.
The difficulty is that modern routines often reward people for ignoring their limits. Being constantly available is mistaken for productivity, sleeping less is treated as discipline and exhaustion is accepted as proof of hard work.
But fatigue is not always a weakness, and recurring discomfort is not always something to silence with another tablet or cup of tea. Sometimes the most useful warning is also the simplest one: when the body repeatedly asks for rest, it may be time to listen.
