Feeling stressed out means you probably can't sleep or your head aches. But do you know that stress may be causing your brain to shrink?

A new study found that stress, caused by a series of stressful events in a person's life, can actually shrink the brain. Researchers found that stress was linked to markedly less gray matter than expected in a part of the prefrontal cortex that regulates emotion and self control.

Stress was also linked to blood pressure and blood sugar such that brain shrinkage may serve as a warning about a chronic disease such as high blood pressure, or even psychiatric disorders, researchers noted.

According to Stress and Relaxation.com, stress aggravates following illnesses: Hypertension, insomnia, diabetes, herpes, multiple sclerosis, among others. In addition, experiencing stress for long periods of time can lead to: poor concentration, irritability, anger, and poor judgment.

Stress has many different causes, which can vary from person to person. However, the top causes of stress are:

1. Financial Problems - The number one source of stress these days, lack of money can really cause a lot of stress, what with debts are piling up, credit card payments, pending mortgage installments, rising costs of education, mounting expenditure on health concerns.

2. Workplace Stress - Stress at workplace is another of the main causes of stress, and this include concerns about promotion, facing the negative or bullying behavior of your boss, or that you are not able to achieve your goals. Change in your organization or the prospect of losing your job can also cause severe stress.

3. Personal Relationships - Relationships with parents, in-laws, relatives, children; illness in the family, and arguments with spouse, education of children, etc. are cause of stress.

4. Health - Health problems such as heart diseases, hypertension, problems with eye sight and sugar are becoming a major cause of life stress for many people. Thus maintaining good health, and leading a healthy life-style should be a top concern to avoid stress.

5. Everyday Irritants - Various other irritants such as problems in the workplace, balance of work and family life, workload, not enough sleep, no time to relax, nagging problems. All these are causes of stress.

According toYale neurobiologist Rajita Sinha, senior author of the new report, the stresses of modern life are far more complicated than what our ancestors experienced.

"You can say stresses are a part of life, so what's the big deal?" Sinha says. But research has showed extensive evidence that stress has contributed to the rise in chronic diseases, she said.