Health & Medicine
How Stress Affects Your Body
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Not All Stress Is Bad For Your Body!
Stress is defined as something that causes a psychological, physical, or emotional strain. Someone says the word stress, it conjures up images of anxiety and depression, or even anger.
Some stress is actually okay for your body. Eustress is a form of stress you experience whenever you're doing something fun and exciting, like riding a rollercoaster. Even acute stress, which is short-term stress you have from time to time, like when someone cuts you off on the highway, isn't necessarily damaging to your body.
But when the small stress evolves into episodic acute stress or chronic stress, you have a problem on your hands. Episodic acute stress is when someone is constantly in a state of chaos and anxiety - the person who's always late to appointments, consistently angry during rush-hour traffic, or exhausted seven days a week.
The chronically stressed individual is someone who also can't escape stress, but it's stress built on a long-term event, like their career or marriage, and not events that occur, cause anxiety, and are over quickly.
For those who have been living with chronic or episodic stress, there is help available.
Click here to discover how to deal with stress on a regular basis and improve your life for the better.
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Health Implications of Chronic Stress
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.
Meditation for Stress, YouTube video
CBS News Bonnie Kaye: Meditation for Stress
Fitness correspondent Bonnie Kaye reports on the health benefits of having a positive mindset.
Runtime: 2:57
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Could Stress Be Making You Fat?
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!
Recommended Reading!
When the Body Says No: Understanding the Stress-Disease Connection
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Is Stress Taking It's Toll on Your Body?
Share your own stress busting tips with us here
Learn more about the effects of stress on your body!
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StacymomBiz
Great lens on stress - 5 stars from me. Keep up the great work! Posted March 26, 2008 |
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jasmineann
I enjoyed reading your interesting and informative lens. Important to raise awareness of how stress can affect us. Stress and back pain have been linked as well. 5 stars and Lensrolling you! Posted January 27, 2008 |
Stress, according to Wikipedia
Stress is the consequence of the failure to adapt to change. It is, in medical terms, the consequence of the disruption of homeostasis through physical or psychological stimuli. Less simply: it is the condition that results when person-environment interaction leads someone to perceive a painful discrepancy, real or imagined, between the demands of a situation on the one hand and their social, biological, or psychological resources on the other. Stressful stimuli may be mental, physiological, anatomical or physicalRippetoe-Kilgore, Mark and Lon. 2006. Practical Programming for Strength Training. ISBN 0-9768-0540-5.
The term stress in this sense was first used by the endocrinologist Hans Selye in the 1930s specifically in relation to the physiological responses of laboratory animals. Selye later broadened and popularized the concept to include the perceptions and responses of ordinary people trying to adapt to the challenges of everyday life.
Stress in certain circumstances may be seen as a positive phenomenon: an evolved adaptive response prompting activation of internal resources to meet such challenges and achieve realistic goals, etc.
The Latest Stress Stories In The News
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What's here
- The Miracle Ball Method
- Health Implications of Chronic Stress
- Meditation for Stress, YouTube video
- Could Stress Be Making You Fat?
- Recommended Reading!
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