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What Happens To Your Body When You Are Stressed?

What Happens To Your Body When You Are Stressed?

You have accidentally deleted your work from your computer and are about to blow an important deadline. At that moment, your hypothalamus, a tiny control tower in your brain, sends stress hormones such as adrenaline, cortisol and norepinephrine. These stress hormones are the same ones that trigger your body’s “fight or flight” response. 
 

The stress response or the “fight or flight” response is your body’s way of protecting you. When your body is stressed, your heart pounds faster, your breath quickens, your senses become sharper and muscles tense up. Muscle tension is almost a reflex reaction to stress; the body's way of guarding against injury and pain. These physical changes increase your strength and stamina, speed your reaction time, enhance your focus, helps you stay energetic and alert; preparing you to either fight or flee from the danger at hand. In emergency situations, stress can save your life by giving you extra strength to defend yourself. 


Effects of Stress
 

Stress is a natural part of human life. You may encounter stress every day: in driving through traffic, falling behind schedule and managing big projects. Yet if your stress response doesn’t stop firing, and these stress levels stay elevated far longer than is necessary for survival, stress stops being helpful and starts causing major damage to your health, your mood, your productivity, your relationships, and your quality of life.

Your body is only meant to handle stress in small bursts. But many people tend to get stressed out frequently in today’s demanding world. This is dangerous because chronic stress disrupts nearly every system in your body. It can suppress your immune system means you are more prone to colds and infections. It can upset your digestive and reproductive systems, increase the risk of diabetes, heart attack and stroke, and speed up the aging process. It can even rewire the brain, leaving you more vulnerable to anxiety, depression, and other mental health problems. Also both tension-type headache and migraine headache are associated with chronic muscle tension in the area of the shoulders, neck and head. You might have trouble sleeping at night when you’re stressed. 
 

You Can’t Avoid It, So How Do You Manage It? 
 

  • It’s impossible to completely get rid of stress. You must learn how to manage stress in order to lead a more productive, healthy and happy life. The goal of stress management is to identify your stressors, which are the things that cause you the most problems or demand the most of your energy. In doing so, you can overcome the negative stress those things induce. 
     
  • Eating unhealthy foods such as sugary snacks can worsen symptoms of stress while eating a diet rich in fresh fruit and vegetables, high-quality protein, and omega-3 fatty acids, can help you better cope with life’s ups and downs.

 

  • Talking face-to-face with another human can trigger hormones that relieve stress when you're feeling agitated or insecure. Even just a little chat and a friendly look from another human being can help calm and soothe your nervous system. So spend time with people who make you feel good. Talk to a physician or a therapist if you need professional help. 

 

  • Avoid drugs and alcohol, which may seem to help with stress in the short term, but can actually cause more problems in the long term. Alcohol can aggravate anxiety and trigger panic attacks. 
     
  • About three hours a week of working out should keep the stress hormone levels in check. And exercising can also make you feel good. So what are you waiting for? Get moving!