How does stress affect the body
Stress is a feeling we all experience when we are challenged or overwhelmed. More than just behavior, stress is a hardwired physical response that travels throughout your entire body. It can be an advantage but when activated too often or for too long it fights stress response changes the brain and also damages the other organs of the body.
It can change the function of gut bacteria which may affect the digestion system and health. Chronic stress affects your waistline cortisol can increase appetite and tells the body to replenish energy stores with energy-dense foods and carbs. This results in putting extra calories or deep belly fat. Meanwhile, stress hormones affect cells in a variety of ways. It dampens the function of immune cells making them more susceptible to infections and slow the healing rate. It can sabotage health including acne, hair loss, body dysfunction, headaches, muscle tension, difficulty concentrating, fatigue, and irritability. It can reduce immune function, increase the risk of mood disorder, and interfere with memory.
How stress affects your brain
If you are feeling moody, irritable, isolated, forgetting little things, and sleeping restlessly then you are stressed out. It begins to change your brain, its size, structure, and how it functions. Chronic stress increases the activity level and the number of neural connections in the brain’s fear center. As a result, the part of the brain associated with learning, memories, and stress control deteriorates. There are many ways to reverse what cortisol does to your stressed brain. The most powerful weapons are meditation and exercise which involve deep breathing and being aware of your surroundings. These activities decrease stress levels and increase the size of the hippocampus thereby, improving your memory. Don’t feel defeated by the pressures of daily life and control your stress.
Knowing your stressor: By knowing the reasons, you can work on reducing it. The same factors are not necessary are reasons of stress among the people. Here are five major reasons observed that causes people stress:
- Change
- Relationship
- Loss
- Illness
- Work
Mechanism of Stress
When people have stressed their response is unconscious, immediate, and has no control over it. The second type of stress can be delayed and not immediate.
Life will always be filled with stressful situations. But how you respond to that is what matters most in the end. If you can view those situations as challenges you can control, rather than as insurmountable threats. You will perform better and stay healthy.
Terrible symptoms of stress on the body
Stress can ruin your sleep. It will set your mind racing with worries and anxieties that can keep you awake. Researchers say it can make your skin look worse, it exacerbates skin problems. Acne, alopecia isn’t caused by stress but if you have them stress can make them worse. It can even cause wounds to heal more slowly. It is also bad for the heart, as it increases blood pressure and you are more likely to get sick. A study found that people who suffered chronic stress were twice as likely to catch a cold. And at last, it can mess with your digestion.
Stress management techniques
- Exercise: Endorphin after exercise gets you to a relaxed state. By simply walking or running for half an hour or three days a week can help in activating these hormones. If you are not getting time in the morning you can exercise in the afternoon or evening too. The main point is you need to exercise.
- Reduce stimulants: Reduce the amount of tea and coffee. Sugar, tobacco, any kind of nicotine is stimulant and is bad for you
- Balance diet: Adding 50% of fresh fruits and vegetables will balance your diet and it is recommended to include it in your diet.
- Meditation and yoga: Yoga is an Indian tradition. It will help you strengthening your body with some patterns or poses and focusing on your breath and increasing your awareness. Meditation is narrowing your thought pattern and slow down, helping you in regulating them. Just start with ten-minute meditation. Meditation decreases mood disorder, increases immune response, and enlarges brain areas.
- Mindfulness: Being fully aware of the present moment without evaluating the inner or outer environment. It helps us understand how we are in a relationship to everything. There are different types of mindfulness: Guided visualization, loving-kindness, self-compassion, and mindfulness-based stress reduction that is the cultivation of mindfulness over some weeks in a structured format.
The immune system goes down with chronic stress, which is bad for people because they can get sicker. The above activity makes denser brain regions and helps increase the enzyme that stabilizes and helps DNA. The more regular you follow the things, the easier it gets with time to manage stress.
:By- Priya Panwar
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