How Stress Affects Your Body

When your body endures stress on a regular basis, it releases hormones to combat it, such as adrenalin and cortisol. This speeds up your heart and slows digestion. Blood races to the major muscle groups and your body goes into fight or flight mode.

As soon as the stress threat disappears, your body is supposed to go back to a relaxed state. But some people continue on their stress path, and the body never recovers. Eventually, symptoms become obvious and your body is left vulnerable to disease, including:

• cancer
  
• depression
  
• diabetes
  
• hair loss
  
• heart disease
  
• hyperthyroidism
  
• obesity
  
• OCD
  
• sexual disorders
  
• tooth and gum decay
  
• ulcers

Scientists now believe stress can be a factor in everything from simple headaches to fibromyalgia. It can cause a woman to miss her menstrual cycle. It can result in dermatological conditions and irritable bowel syndrome.

Diet and exercise aren't enough to combat the effects of high stress levels. To find out how you can better manage the stress in your life, visit How to Deal with Stress.

We all know the effect of obesity on your health. If your weight gets out of control, it can cause depression, diabetes, and even contribute to cancer development in your body. Many men and women alike gain weight because of all the stress in their lives.

We mentioned earlier that when you're under stress, your body releases hormones to help you during fight or flight mode. But this period also alters your metabolism. It's a common thread for many overweight individuals - stress and food go hand in hand!

The coritsol your body pumps out slows your metabolism, making it harder to lose or even maintain your weight. In response to the stress, your body begins craving certain foods - because it's seeking the feel-good endorphins to fend off stress you carry with you.

Your blood sugar spikes, which means your moods get altered, you experience extreme fatigue, and you begin storing fat your body can't process. These factors can all lead to a disease like diabetes.

As our bodies respond this way over time, we form bad habits, like stress eating. Whenever someone annoys us at work, we make a quick trip to the vending machine. A bad relationship at home causes us to avoid it by stopping off for some fast food.

The busy schedule that leads to so much stress in the first place means we take shortcuts in other areas, such as relying on pre-packaged or fast, unhealthy food. And because we're too busy, we can't squeeze in 30 minutes a day to move our bodies.

If you're feeling overwhelmed with the stress of your life, and it's starting to show in your waist, check out How to Deal with Stress, where you'll learn how to manage times of anxiety without reaching for a chocolate bar!