What Happens When the Body is Stressed? Stress is a massive issue in health, but generally what we’re told about stress is a little oversimplified: Reduce your anxiety; a lot of stress is bad for your health. This is not bad advice, but stress can be such a vague and overwhelming notion it is tough to know where to begin.
Let’s see…
Understanding what actually occurs when the body is stressed can help you to be more conscious of what’s happening during times of increased stress. When your body is reacting to a stressful situation – if that’s a stressful environment or thought or feeling – your body goes into”fight or flight” mode, meaning it prepares itself to deal with the strain by either facing it or avoiding it. Heart rate, breath rate, and blood pressure are increased.
Smooth muscles in the body, like in the digestive tract, slow down. More energy is sent to the skeletal muscles used for movement. Glucose and fats are released into the blood stream for greater energy. Energy is diverted away from growth and sexual function. Memory and concentration is increased in the short term, but over time both are diminished. The immune system is weakened to conserve energy to take care of the stressful situation.
Pain
Pain signals are diminished. The brain signals the body to release hormones to manage stress, such as adrenaline, cortisol, and endorphins. On a short term basis, these physiological changes pose no actual harm to your system, and at a real stressful situation can allow you to effectively handle it. But in the long run, continuous stress from the body poses a variety of health risks. The long term effects of stress on the body are far reaching and can have a negative impact on health generally.
Fatigue
Stress demands the creation of energy. Whether the stress is real or imagined, your body will attempt to produce energy to attempt to deal with stress. Weakened immune system: Since stress dissipates energy away from the immune system, it can lead to more incidences of cold or flu, or increase the risk for autoimmune conditions such as allergies or rheumatoid arthritis. Moreover, a weakened immune system is less able to fight potentially cancerous cells, so stress can increase the risk for cancer.
Cardiovascular disorder
Stress causes the whole cardiovascular system to work harder, causing the blood vessels to wear out more quickly. More fat enters into the blood stream for energy, and this may collect in the blood vessels resulting in an increased risk for atherosclerosis and cardiovascular disease.
Digestion
The smooth muscles in the digestive tract are deactivated during anxiety, making digestion considerably slower. This may lead over time to symptoms such as irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), ulcers, and constipation. The digestive system is filled with nerve endings and closely linked to other elements of the human body, so the negative effects of stress on digestion can be difficult on your general health and vitality.
Diabetes risk
When stress occurs, it triggers the pancreas to release glucagon, which raises blood glucose levels for energy. Additionally, it decreases the production of insulin – a hormone responsible for keeping sugar in the body – and promotes insulin resistance. Over time this may result in an increased risk for developing insulin-resistant (Type II) diabetes.
Reduced concentration
For a brief period, stress improves concentration and memory. But in the long run, the region of the brain responsible for concentration and memory loses its capacity to respond to the hormones released by anxiety, and memory and concentration reduction.
Aging
The life span of these cells in your body decreases in response to long-term anxiety. This speeds up the aging procedure. Muscular tension: If your system is experiencing constant stress, it’s sending energy into the muscles in the body. But since the body is not using those muscles, the energy stagnates and results in chronic muscle strain, and symptoms like persistent neck or back pain can develop.
Let’s understand it
Due to the harmful effects of long term stress, it’s important to realize that stress is a lot more than only a psychological or emotional sense, but a very real physical reaction in the body. This could help you in managing anxiety as a way to take better care of your health. The first step in managing stress is having the ability to recognize when it’s occurring, and what it is you’re stressing about. This is often the toughest part, as anxiety can become such a normal part of life that it becomes a struggle to even realize it’s there.
Your body can not tell the difference between a real stressful situation in the surroundings, or a perceived situation of anxiety. This means that whether you’re thinking of imagining a stressful situation, or are actually going through one – the body reacts the same way. Most often, those who suffer with long-term excessive stress have trouble differentiating between actual stress and perceived stress. They’re not able to let go of anxiety as it does not serve them. Recognize when you’re stressed.
Take note
Note physical symptoms which may be associated with your stress – for instance, increased heart rate, irritability, fatigue, anxiety, or depression. People respond differently, so get to know your own unique reaction. What type of stress have you got? There are various types of anxiety out there. Hyperactive, type-A, anxious anxiety? Depressive, “giving-up” kind of anxiety? Getting to know how your distinctive personality manifests stress is beneficial in coping with it. For example someone who’s stressed from too much action would could slow down some and find time to unwind. Someone who’s worried from high expectations and a desire to give up might benefit from taking a more realistic and easygoing approach to their life.
Get off the train. The mind has a propensity to run as a freight train, oblivious to just how much energy it’s burning or what it’s running within its path. Recognizing when this is occurring and taking some time out for a pit stop will help give you some perspective on the stress you’re feeling and give your body a break.
- Exercise: Light exercise is a terrific way to escape your head and revel in your body. Natural medications: Adaptogens are natural medications that help you to “adapt” to pressure by balancing the amount of stress hormones within the body. Examples are ginseng, ashwaghanda, and rhodiola.
- Avoid stimulants: Stimulating substances such as caffeine, or actions like too much tv or computer use can increase the action of the body’s nervous system, which makes it more difficult to come down and unwind.
- Talk about it: it’s easy to become wrapped up in our own little worlds, so speaking to someone you trust about the stressors in your life can enable you to see more of what specific methods of thinking are raising your stress.
- Do what you like: Along with caring for life’s responsibilities, it’s helpful to remember to use your energy doing things which are relaxing and pleasurable.
Conclusion
Reducing stress does not just involve reducing stressful tasks, it’s also about doing other more fun things instead. As scientific understanding of stress grows and we start to know more about the negative effects of long-term stress on the body, it’s becoming more clear how important it is to decrease the quantity of chronic stress we’ve got in our lives so as to enhance our health. This is a trying thing to manage, but knowing the nature of anxiety, recognizing when it’s occurring, and doing some basic things to reduce it is going to be of great benefit to your health in the long term.
