Some Information About Stress
What we think and feel, and how long we think it or feel it, determines our health. The science is strong, and yet so often stress is considered an amorphous gray area, something we can’t put our finger on or measure, and so it gets dismissed as not being “real.”
What we think and feel, and how long we think it or feel it, determines our health. The science is strong, and yet so often stress is considered an amorphous gray area, something we can’t put our finger on or measure, and so it gets dismissed as not being “real.”
Here are 10 concrete
ways stress is possibly the most dangerous toxin your body faces every day.
1.
Stress changes gene expression.
The chemicals your body produces when you are under stress
turn on or off of genes that change everything from how much fat you store, to
how well your immune system works, to how fast you age, to whether or not you
will developcancer.
2.
Early life events determine your set point for stress.
Research shows that even very early childhood events “set”
your CRH, or corticotropin releasing hormone, at a high or low level. CRH is
like the foot on the gas turning on your adrenals, and therefore your stress
levels.
3.
Stress causes brain damage.
High levels of stress hormones damage critical parts of the
brain, such as the hippocampus, the area responsible for memory. One reason
people experience “adrenal burnout” after long term chronic stress, is because
the brain, in order to save itself, turns off the adrenals.
4.
Stress shuts down the immune system and increases inflammation.
From slowing wound healing, to diminishing the protective
effects of vaccines, to increasing your susceptibility to infections, stress is
the ultimate immune-modulator. Stress can also reactivate latent infections —
people who get cold sores know this from experience.
5.
Chronic stress damages the energy powerhouses of your body, your mitochondria.
These energy factories produce ATP, the currency through
which all cells and organs in your body do their work. The good news is this
damage is reversible over time, as stress goes away.
6.
Stress reduces your ability to metabolize and detoxify.
Studies have shown that the activity of hundreds of genes
responsible for enzymes that break down fats and detoxify prescription drugs,
are negatively impacted by stress. Stress can also increase your toxin burden
by increasing your desire for high fat, high sugar foods.
7. Your
cardiovascular system responds to stress, increasing cardiac output if you have
to run away from a tiger.
But chronic stress has been shown to increase the thickness
of the artery walls, leading to high blood pressure and heart disease.
8.
Stress messes with your sex hormones.
Stress increases the amount of something called sex hormone
binding globulin, the school bus that ferries testosterone and estrogen around
your body, meaning fewer of these hormones are available to your cells. Chronic
stress also increases the production of cortisol, leading to something called
“cortisol steal,” where fewer sex hormones are produced.
9.
Stress is bad for your bones and muscles.
There is evidence that higher stress levels are associated
with lower bone mineral density, and many studies show that people under
chronic stress experience more physical pain.
10. The
gut and stress are intimately intertwined.
You may have heard that 95% of your serotonin is in your
gut, and you may remember a time when you were nervous or sad, and your belly
was in knots.
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