High stress levels can cause anxiety and migraines. It can even affect your fertility.
1. Stress can decrease your chance of pregnancy
If you’re trying for a baby, you might want to jet off to Tahiti (or at least take up yoga). High stress levels were directly linked to greater difficulty falling pregnant in a study at Ohio State University.
Women with high levels of alpha-amylase – an indicator of stress measured in saliva – are 29 per cent less likely to get pregnant each month and twice as likely to meet the clinical definition of infertility (remaining not pregnant after 12 months of trying) than women with low levels, researchers found.
2. Stress can bring on migraines
Migraine sufferers may be at the mercy of a delayed stress effect, according to a study showing that symptoms are most likely to set in after stress eases off. Relaxation following heightened stress is an even more significant trigger than an all-nighter, researchers wrote in the American Academy of Neurology’s online journal.
In the first six hours of stress, declining migraine risk rises five-fold. Reason? Stress hormonecortisol reduces pain and may keep migraines at bay. Avoiding major build-ups of stress could avert the extreme rise and fall, researchers said.
