11 Ways Your Body Warns You That You’re Neglecting Your Mental Health
What those twitches and headaches are trying to tell you.
MAYA LAB | Shutterstock.com Amid the chaos of our daily routines and the responsibilities we’re burdened with, it can be challenging to acknowledge when our body is sending us warning signs. There’s a fine line between overwhelming stress and healthy challenge, nervousness and anxiety, and growing pains compared to generally poor mental health. According to the American Psychological Association, the best way to find a balance and protect your mental health is intentional boundaries — figure out what’s sparking anxiety in your life and turn towards habits that safeguard your mental and emotional well-being.
Starting with our daily experience, there are several ways your body warns you that you’re neglecting your mental health. Many of these begin as subtle annoyances. Recognizing and addressing these signs encourages a healthier physical baseline and a more balanced mental state.
Here are 11 ways your body warns you that you’re neglecting your mental health:
1. Waking up anxious signals neglected mental health.
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Many people, regardless of an anxiety diagnosis, struggle with morning anxiety, according to psychiatrist Steven Gans. With racing thoughts, nervousness, headaches, and trembling, people with morning anxiety often start their day in a constant “fight-or-flight mode,” unable to regulate themselves before they’re even out of bed.
The causes of morning anxiety can vary, depending on the situation. For many, it’s a symptom of chronic stress at work — they’re not only anxious about having to go in but immediately overloaded with information and anxiety about everything they have to do when they wake up. For others, it’s a symptom of their anxiety diagnosis and spiked cortisol levels in the morning — a stress hormone the body releases as a means to cope.
Coping with morning anxiety and acknowledging it as one of the ways your body warns you that you’re neglecting your mental health can look different for everyone. Experts like Gans suggest finding the best way for you, such as committing to a healthy sleep routine, reducing screen time in the morning, moving your body before work, or limiting caffeine.
2. Drastic changes to your eating habits reveal chronic stress.
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When our bodies are so focused on overcompensating stress and anxiety in our lives, the basic habits we’ve always relied on often fall to the back burner. From sleeping to eating, these changes can be subtle ways your body warns you that you’re neglecting your mental health, but over time, they can severely impact your quality of life.
Stress can spark weight fluctuations and unhealthy eating habits in many ways. From struggling to find time to eat healthily amid a chaotic schedule to reaching for comfort foods to cope and losing your appetite, recognizing the subtle changes in your eating habits can help you to healthily set boundaries and deal with stress before it becomes too overwhelming.
A study from Frontiers in Endocrinology argues that our body’s ability to store fat alongside spiked stress hormone levels like cortisol can also affect weight. So, even if your eating habits have remained consistent, weight fluctuations can still be a warning sign that you’re under too much stress or emotional turmoil.
3. Your constant inner critic fuels self-doubt and anxiety.
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When we fall out of a healthy routine that fuels our confidence and supports our feelings of self-worth, stress, and anxiety can indirectly impact our relationship with our inner critic — causing it to overtake our inner monologue and spark self-doubt.
Our harsh inner critic thrives when our healthy habits and mindsets are compromised. Urging us to adopt unhealthy behaviors like people-pleasing and seeking external validation, this negative internal voice can cause anxiety and frustration, which can manifest as headaches, fatigue, and poor sleeping habits. While this negative internal voice isn’t necessarily a physical experience, the added anxiety and frustration it causes can manifest as physical symptoms.
4. Low energy throughout the day shows burnout.
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Anxiety, stress, and a generally poor mental state often contribute to poor sleeping habits like insomnia and morning anxiety, which can often contribute to feelings of fatigue throughout the day. Still, there’s more to low energy than just how much sleep you get.
According to pulmonologist Nick Villalobos, hormonal changes that occur alongside overwhelming stress, anxiety, and burnout can leave us in a constant state of lack of energy and fatigue, sabotaging our concentration and focus during the day. As our body works to cope with stress, releasing hormones and focusing energy on our anxious thoughts, we have less capacity to live and complete our tasks.
5. Poor concentration reflects mental overload.
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While it’s true that stress sometimes improves concentration for a short time, helping procrastinators to motivate themselves through tasks, it’s impossible to deal with overwhelming stress and anxiety all of the time, especially without healthy coping mechanisms.
When you forgo healthy habits or a schedule focused on recharging and resting, you don’t take care of your mental health, and it’s common to experience lacking mental clarity and brain cognition as a result.
Not only does this make the spaces in our lives often sparking this anxiety — like the workplace — much more challenging to succeed within, but it also encourages us to doubt ourselves and let our harsh inner critic sabotage our mental well-being and stability.
6. Chronic headaches indicate relentless stress.
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According to a study from World Psychiatry, chronic pain, headaches, and muscle fatigue are some of the ways your body warns you that you’re neglecting your mental health. As a physical embodiment of overwhelming anxiety or burnout, these symptoms can be difficult to truly address without diving into the source of your poor mental health and habits.
With the proper boundaries and lifestyle, you can combat these physical symptoms. It all starts with acknowledging that your mind and body are intrinsically linked—unable to function together without cohesion.
7. Insomnia points to anxiety-fueled sleep issues.
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Psychiatrist Nicole Washington argues that stress and poor mental health often lead to a dysregulated sleep routine where we struggle to fall asleep, stay asleep, and get good quality rest.
In addition to our body’s coping with stress hormones, our brain’s inability to turn off when we’re constantly battling stress and anxiety can encourage our sleep patterns to fluctuate, sabotaging our ability to get genuinely relaxing and replenishing rest.
8. Restlessness during the day exposes mental strain.
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Despite struggling with a consistent sleep routine and waking up feeling rested, many people who don’t take care of their mental health feel restless throughout the day. Similar to taking too much caffeine, people with unregulated anxiety and stress are constantly overcompensating — experiencing mood swings, irritability, and an unbalanced mental state throughout the day.
While recharging amid a chaotic schedule can be challenging, even a few minutes of mindfulness can help combat these uncomfortable feelings and help you achieve a healthy baseline.
9. Stomach pain signals stress-driven digestive upset.
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Along with other physical anxiety experiences, many of the ways your body warns you that you’re neglecting your mental health manifest in digestive symptoms. According to experts from UChicago Medicine, there’s a strong connection between our brains and our digestive system. When we’re experiencing more stress than usual or battling anxiety, the hormones and neurotransmitters our body releases to cope often result in digestive symptoms like an upset stomach or uncomfortable “butterflies.”
Of course, when we struggle to cope with mental health struggles, many of us also turn towards unhealthy vices like alcohol or smoking — which can also contribute to GI issues and uncomfortable physical sensations in our bodies.
Alongside mindfulness techniques and psychological support, being mindful of your diet can help alleviate many of these symptoms. By eating artificial sugars and processed foods in moderation and limiting caffeine intake, you can support a more balanced digestive system and avoid the uncomfortable and often overwhelming ways your body warns you that you’re neglecting your mental health.
10. Brain fog shows cognitive overload from anxiety.
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According to the Bangkok International Hospital, there are many entirely physical ways your body warns you that you’re neglecting your mental health. Still, the cerebral experience of brain fog is just as common. When we forgo taking care of ourselves, work towards burnout, and take on constant anxiety and stress, we overload our brains with information — making it difficult to unwind and recharge.
Rather than processing information and maintaining a healthy baseline, our brain overcompensates, resulting in brain fog. While it can be disorienting to experience — unable to focus, concentrate, and motivate ourselves — combating brain fog starts with recognizing the stressful parts of our lives that we’ve been ignoring. Find ways to carve out pieces of your day solely committed to relaxation and mindfulness.
Eliminating all your stress and anxiety won’t happen overnight, but mediating physical symptoms could, with the proper habits and mindset.
11. Constant muscle tension reveals unaddressed mental strain.
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Many of us struggling with anxiety and overwhelming stress tend to tense up our bodies to cope with uncomfortable feelings and emotions in our minds.
Whether we constantly clench our jaws or let our shoulders rise to our ears, our body’s tendency to stiffen throughout the day can sabotage passing moments of relaxation and spark other physical symptoms like headaches and fatigue.
As Johns Hopkins Medicine experts explain, clenching your jaw or grinding your teeth at night — physical symptoms of anxiety and stress — can spark chronic headaches and a nagging sense of discomfort. While it might seem like a subtle change to relax your body intentionally throughout the day, it can genuinely impact your quality of life and help you understand the importance of self-soothing exercises and emotional acknowledgment.
Zayda Slabbekoorn is a staff writer with a bachelor’s degree in social relations & policy and gender studies who focuses on psychology, relationships, self-help, and human interest stories.