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Make yourself a priority and take care of yourself by managing your stress and health. Start today by asking your pharmacist for help.
The American Psychological Association reports the stress levels of Americans are on the rise. Some experience short-term stress, long-term or chronic stress, or both. It’s important to know that not all stress is bad.
When you encounter danger, it is the stress that can help you escape danger. Stress kicks in your “fight or flight” alarms, telling you to protect yourself.
Other experiences that can cause stress:
- Project deadlines
- Exams
- Illness of a family member
- Fighting with family members or friends
- Accidents
- Other daily struggles
All of these are very common and can cause physical and mental stress. The good news is that stress is a process that takes place in the body. Therefore, it can be dealt with and improved to reduce negative symptoms.
What is the Stress Process?
Stress and health go hand in hand. To learn more about how stress affects your life, it’s crucial to understand how stress develops. When you encounter something stressful, like a minor fender bender, your brain sends a signal by releasing hormones to your body, telling it to start the “flight or fight” mode.
The next step in the stress process is an appraisal of the stressor. You may see a fender bender as a major stressful event. If so, stress hormones will continue to surge throughout your body, and negative symptoms will start to appear.
Symptoms like racing heartbeat, sweating, shorter breaths, and feeling flush are examples of symptoms that can take place. These can vary among individuals. These symptoms are preparing your body to respond to stress. How will you deal with the fender bender?
Will you strike out in anger (fight) or ignore it and put off dealing with it (flight).
The more time your body spends in the process of stress, the more damage it can do to your health.
How Does Stress Affect the Heart?
When you are stressed, adrenaline and cortisol are pumping through your body. They are the hormones that are going to help you deal with the stressor. However, if your body is in constant stress, the continuous release of hormones can be harmful, especially for your heart.
Stress raises both blood pressure and blood sugar. Blood pressure refers to the force in which blood flows through the artery walls, supplying blood to the heart muscle. The higher the force, the more damage is done to the artery walls. Meaning, proper blood flow cannot get to your heart.
This can lead to:
- Stroke,
- Kidney failure,
- And ultimately, heart failure
Stress causes your liver to release extra glucose, or sugar, into your bloodstream. Over time, this leads to diabetes, which is directly associated with heart disease. Elevated blood sugar over a long period can damage the nerves and blood vessels that control your heart.
The heart is not the only thing affected by stress.
How Does Stress Affect the Immune System?
When your body is in a constant state of stress, hormones are being released that suppress antibodies that typically fight off germs and bacteria. With constant stress, your immune system becomes unable to fight off bacterial and viral infections. This means you will catch colds easier, battle more sore throats and lymph nodes, cold sores, and other ailments.
The immune system interacts with the endocrine and nervous systems, impairing them when in constant stress.
Further, stress can affect your reproduction system.
How Does Stress Affect the Reproductive System?
You may have heard stories of couples trying to conceive a child but without success. Then, when they stop trying, they became pregnant. There is a reason this happens, and it is related to stress in both men and women that interferes with fertility.
Stress prevents proper blood flow to your reproductive organs. There have been studies evaluating women trying to get pregnant based on stress levels. The results showed that women with less stress could get pregnant more often than those with higher stress.
There is a risk that the constant rush of hormones can affect menstrual cycles for women with high levels of stress. In extreme cases, it can stop a menstrual cycle altogether.
Stress can also lower the sex drives of both men and women. When you are stressed, you are not relaxed. You have anxiety, your muscles are tense, your mind is racing, and you are exhausted, too tired to enjoy intimacy with your partner.
How Does Stress Affect Mental Health?
Long-term stress has been shown to lead to depression and anxiety. One reason may be because stress can cause physical aches and pains. For instance, your muscles tense up each time you feel stress. Muscle tension can lead to headaches and soreness in different areas of the body.
The longer you feel aches and pains, the longer you are unable to feel joy and happiness. Therefore, you become more depressed.
Stress also interferes with getting a good night’s sleep. During sleep, your brain sends signals to the parts of your body that need restoration. If you are not sleeping well, the repair is not taking place. Lack of adequate sleep can also lead to sleep disorders that affect mental well-being.
How To Reduce Stress
There are many actions you can take to reduce stress. First, talk to a professional. You may not know this, but your pharmacist is a great resource. They can teach you about the different vitamins, minerals, and essential oils you can implement daily to reduce stress. They can also refer you to other professionals who can help with stress reduction.
Holding in your stress is not sufficient, so finding someone to talk to that you can trust is essential in reducing stress. Also, participate in holistic therapies like acupuncture, massage, yoga, and meditation.
Your pharmacist will explain to you how important self-care is in eliminating the effects of stress on your body.
Even if you don’t think you have stress, you have stress. It’s easy to get so accustomed to your busy life that you don’t even realize just how stressed you are. Make yourself a priority, take care of yourself by managing your stress. Start today by asking your pharmacist for help.
