March 4, 2024

How Stress Impacts Vital Organs

Stress affects just about everyone’s daily lives. Unfortunately, stress is not a benign thing. It can affect your body in ways that can have long lasting health effects. Here are some ways stress can affect your health:

• The Effect Of Stress On Your Brain - Stress can cause you to lose your concentration and memory abilities. Whether this is psychological or physiological is not completely clear. When you are under stress, parts of your brain associated with memory, such as the hippocampus, do not work well and you cannot turn short-term memory into long-term memory. You can also fail to concentrate on things you hear or things you’re reading. It isn’t clear whether this effect is long or short-term. However, things like stress reduction techniques seem to be able to restore your ability to think.
• The Effect Of Stress On Your Gastrointestinal Tract - Stress triggers the body’s fight or flight response so that epinephrine and norepinephrine are released from your adrenal glands. This has multiple effects on the body. One thing this phenomenon does is shunt blood away from the gastrointestinal tract and toward the muscles of the body as a way of gearing up to “fight or flee” from a real or imagined opponent. This can lead to decreased blood flow to the gastrointestinal tract, which translates into indigestion and poor uptake of nutrients. Fortunately, this can be short-lived unless you live under situations of chronic stress. Then the GI system will be more permanently affected.
• The Effect Of Stress On Your Cardiovascular System - Stress causes the release of epinephrine and norepinephrine, which automatically raises your blood pressure and heart rate. This puts more stress on your heart and puts you at higher risk of suffering from hypertension-related diseases like heart failure, stroke, and heart attack. These kinds of things do not happen overnight but if you suffer from chronic stress, the long lasting implications of heart disease, peripheral vascular disease (a slow and progressive circulation disorder), heart failure, and stroke are real possibilities, especially if you don’t eat well or have a strong family history of heart disease.
• The Effect Of Stress On Your Immune System - Excess stress also causes the release of cortisol from the adrenal cortex. Cortisol has many effects on the body but one of the main ones is that it suppresses the immune system. High levels of cortisol mean that you are at greater risk of getting colds and the flu and have a harder time healing from open sores, cuts, or wounds. Cortisol can suppress several aspects of the immune system so you will find yourself sicker more often when under stress than you would be if you were under less stress.

Things You Can Do To Reduce Stress

Because stress can wreak havoc on your body, you need to do what you can to lessen it so you can remain healthy. Sometimes it’s just a matter of reducing the things in your life that are major sources of stress. It might mean getting out of a stressful relationship, getting your finances in order or changing your job situation.

If you can’t change your circumstances, you may want to practice stress-relieving techniques. These include things like meditation, Tai chi, yoga, and Qi gong.  

These activities can be easily learned through attending classes at a local health club, by purchasing a DVD, or by watching YouTube videos.

Another great way to reduce stress is to take a vacation, or spend time in nature that naturally calms the mind, body, and spirit.

Stress is a fact of life. Don’t ignore it; and work to reduce it and you’ll live a healthier more fulfilled life.

dhf

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