Have you ever found yourself with sweaty hands on a first
date or felt your heart pound during a scary movie? Then you know you can feel
stress in both your mind and body.
This automatic response developed in our ancient ancestors
as a way to protect them from predators and other threats. Faced with danger,
the body kicks into gear, flooding the body with hormones that elevate your
heart rate, increase your blood pressure, boost your energy and prepare you to
deal with the problem. These days, you're not likely to face the threat of
being eaten. But you probably do confront multiple challenges every day, such
as meeting deadlines, paying bills and juggling childcare that make your body
react the same way. As a result, your body's natural alarm system the “fight or
flight” response, may be stuck in the on position. And that can have serious
side effects on your health.
When stress starts interfering with your ability to live a
normal life for an extended period, it becomes even more dangerous. The longer
the stress lasts, the worse it is for both your mind and body. You might feel
fatigued, unable to concentrate or irritable for no good reason, for example.
But chronic stress causes wear and tear on your body, too. Reducing your stress
can not only help in the present moment but in the long run as far as your
health goes.
I never knew that stress actually shrinks brain networks! That's very discouraging. Most people in college are stressed from exams, but it's crazy that stressing so much about your education could cause damage to your brain. Everyone knows that a stressful week of finals can drain you out, but I didn't know that the symptoms of stress were actually physiological.
ReplyDeleteNowadays it’s likely that almost everyone suffers from stress especially with the high demands from work and school. It seems as we have chosen stress to become part of our lifestyle. I know I have, and yet I have not learned to control it. Some people consider that stress is good for our body because it helps us perform better under pressure. But like you mentioned stress is responsible for many of our illnesses since it could increase our chances of getting heart disease, depression, and etc.
ReplyDeleteWow, I knew that stress was bad for you, but I didn’t know how bad until I read your blog. I mean I didn’t know that too much stress in your life was so detrimental to our health, and learning that that it shrinks brain networks was something that was totally knew to me, now I’ll have to make sure I don’t stress out to much about the things in my life.
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