How Stress & Anxiety Affect Your Health
It’s no secret that we are living in stressful times. The future seems unpredictable, and stability unattainable. While life poses real challenges, the key to staying healthy may be as simple as practicing some self-care. Although stress and anxiety are a very real battle for many people, by working to reduce them in your life, you could see serious health improvements.
How Stress Affects the Body
Stress can be described as our body’s physical response to an emotional or physically taxing situation. When your body feels threatened, it wants to brace itself for the incoming attack. It does this by producing cortisol and adrenaline. Cortisol and adrenaline are extremely helpful in small doses. Cortisol can help your body cope with physical trauma until it can get to safety. And it also allows you to cope with emotional trauma. While adrenaline “hits the gas” so to speak, boosting our energy levels and exhausting all our energy. There are two different types of stress.
Acute Stress
This is the type of stress we are all going to experience at some point in our lives. Whether we are about to take a test, or we are ascending the peak of a scary roller coaster, our body produces cortisol for these small stressors.
Chronic stress
Chronic stress is the stress that poses a real problem for many people. This is the type of stress that causes us to lose sleep and worry to no end. This stress can be caused by a recent lay-off, the loss of a loved one, financial hardship, or domestic troubles.
How Anxiety Affects the Body
Anxiety works against your body in a similar way that stress does. However, there is a difference between anxiety and anxiety disorders. Much like acute stress, there may be times in all of our lives where we experience a bout of anxiety. Anxiety disorders, however, are much different and can be debilitating to those who have it.
The Body’s Response
When in a chronic state of stress or anxiety, the body produces a continuous amount of cortisol and adrenaline to compensate. Our bodies were not meant to function off a constant stream of these two hormones.
Cortisol
Cortisol works by diverting our energy sources from things that are non-essential to things that need immediate attention. This is fine when we’re running from a bear, but over time it will weaken your immune system.
Adrenaline
Adrenaline works by increasing things like our glucose levels, our blood pressure, and our brain’s ability to process these sugars. When we are living under a constant source of high energy, our bodies start to break down from overexertion. This reaction from our body can lead to a myriad of problems. Weight gain, fatigue, depression, and anxiety are all common issues that can be traced back to stress.
Seeking Balance
The first thing to do if you think you may be suffering from chronic stress or anxiety is to remove any stressors from your life. It is impossible to remove all stress forever, but here are a few ways to help you.
Adaptogens
There are many different helpful herbs and mushrooms that can help your body adapt to its environment. These can be extremely helpful, and come in many forms. You can find them in various forms like teas, or powders to add to your coffee. A few helpful adaptogens for stress and anxiety are ashwagandha and reishi.
Therapy
There are many therapies available to help bring balance to the body. Sound therapy is an excellent way to “tune” the body back to a healthy state. Craniosacral therapy can help by removing all of the tension that has built up in your body over time. Massage therapy is helpful for alleviating tension throughout the body in a more physical sense.
Self-Care
This method has a variety of ways it can be applied. No two people self-care the same way. Whether it’s taking a nice bubble bath, or taking a nap. Remember to take time for yourself to stay healthy.
How Can We Help?
At Intuitive Health Restoration, we work on any issues the body may have during the healing process your body is making. A well-rounded program works the best. One that cleans the gut, the organs, promotes drainage, and handles the neuroendocrine system. Contact us today to schedule a consultation and take a positive step towards health restoration.