Our thoughts and feeling determine our health. Stress is believed to be an amorphous gray area, and we cannot measure it, so many of us think it is not “real” because of that.
Maybe in future, we will be able to measure the stress hormones like cortisol and adrenaline, maybe thanks to a sticker that we will wear on our wrist, or it will be an application on the phone. This is when the gray area is going to become either black or white. Then we will be able to understand how these hormones affect our body, our health and our life in general.
These ten concrete ways show the dangerous impacts stress has on your body every day:
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Stress changes gene expression.
When under stress, the body produces chemicals which turn on and off the genes that change everything, starting from the amount of fat it stores, through the function of the immunity, through the tempo of the aging process, to whether or not it will develop cancer.
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Early life events determine your set point for stress.
Study has discovered that events from the early childhood can ‘set’ the CRH, corticotrophin releasing hormone, at a low or high level. It works as a foot on the gas that turns on the adrenals and the stress level.
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Stress causes brain damage.
High amounts of stress hormones harm critical brain areas, such as the hippocampus, the area responsible for memory. One cause people experience “adrenal burnout” after long term chronic stress is the fact that the brain, in try to save itself, turns off the adrenals.
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Stress shuts down the immune system and increases inflammation.
Stress is the ultimate immune-modulator, since it slows down the process of wound healing, reduces the effects of vaccines, and increases the liability to infection. Stress can also reactivate recent infections — especially people who get cold sores know this.
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Chronic stress damages the energy powerhouses of your body, your mitochondria.
These energy suppliers produce ATP, the currency through which all cells and organs in your body perform their function. It is relieving that this damage is reversible over time, as stress is being eliminated.
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Stress reduces your ability to metabolize and detoxify.
Researches have proven that the activity of hundreds of genes responsible for enzymes that break down fats and detoxify prescription medicines, are negatively affected by stress. Stress can also boost your toxin load by mounting your craving for high fat and high sugar foods.
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Your cardiovascular system responds to stress, increasing cardiac output if you have to run away from a tiger.
Chronic stress has also been proven to thicken the walls of the arteries, which causes high blood pressure and heart ailments.
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Stress messes with your sex hormones.
Stress raises the level of something known as sex hormone binding globulin, the school bus that conveys testosterone and estrogen around your body, meaning fewer of these hormones are available to your cells. Chronic stress also boosts the production of cortisol, and this leads to something called “cortisol steal,” a state where less sex hormones are produced.
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Stress is bad for your bones and muscles.
There is scientific proof that increased stress levels are linked to lower bone mineral density, and numerous researches show that people under chronic stress are more familiar to physical pain.
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The gut and stress are intimately intertwined.
95% of your serotonin is in your gut, and you probably remember a time when you were anxious or sad, and your stomach was in knots.
More and more studies are showing how stress affects the function of your gut every day. It slows down the transfer, causing constipation and the re-circulation of hormones such as estrogen through your liver. This leads to overgrowth of bad bacteria and it causes inflammation, food sensitivities and even autoimmune illnesses.
This means that you must learn how to deal with stress and how to manage it, and find ways to get rid of it, or at least reduce it. That will save you a lot of energy and you will improve not only your lifestyle, but your health as well, and you will prolong your lifespan.
