Q. Physiologically, how does stress affect the body and what are your suggestions for controlling it?
Q: Physiologically, how does stress affect the body and what are your suggestions for controlling it?
Dr. Hans Selye, a pathologist in the 1930’s, did a tremendous amount of research into how stress affects the body. He identified a pattern of stress-related illnesses as a reaction to chronic stress, concluding from his research that all stress (physical, chemical, thermal, and emotional/mental) is cumulative and directly affects the adrenal glands. He discovered that a person goes through a series of events in 3 general stages:
- The Alarm stage and reaction where the body is alerted to a situation and begins to respond;
- The Resistance stage, where the adrenal glands enlarge (hypertrophy) to adapt to the strain they are under;
- The Exhaustion stage where the adrenal glands give out—they can no longer meet the demands that the body has placed upon them. The adrenal glands are chiefly responsible for regulating the stress response, and they produce several hormones critical for survival, including cortisol, DHEA, testosterone, estrogen, progesterone, adrenaline (aka epinephrine) and noradrenaline (aka norepinephrine). Since the adrenal glands are responsible for so many actions, their exhaustion may cause a myriad of symptoms such as, fatigue, dizziness,
moodiness, mental anxiety and nervousness, joint pain, allergies, digestive disturbances, asthma, palpitations, back pain, mental sluggishness, headaches, impotency, colitis, chest pain, shakiness, and on and on.
The adrenal glands are often in a depleted state from stress. When they are depleted or exhausted, a person loses his/her capacity to handle stress and has a lowered resistance
to disease processes. The adrenal glands “largely determine the energy of your responses to every change in your internal and external environment…The hormones secreted by your adrenal glands influence all of the major physiological processes in your body. Adrenal fatigue is one of the most prevalent conditions, yet it is rarely diagnosed
by physicians. (Michael Lam, M.D., M.P.H., http://www.tuberose.com)
When support of the adrenal glands is warranted when they are in the exhaustion stage, I like to use whole-food supplements. Whole-food supplements contain nothing synthetic or artificial, and more importantly contain “cofactors” which are often stripped during the manufacturing process of supplement production. Cofactors, both known and unknown, are necessary for a vitamin, enzyme or hormone to do its job.
In order to reduce stress, the stressors must first be identified. Once identified, we can explore ways that may enable us to modify or eliminate them, such as meditation,
yoga, exercise, deep breathing, music, art, reading, etc. Find what helps you to relax and get it into your day. Explore nature by going for walks in the park, on the beach or anywhere that you can see, smell, and feel nature and the way it functions. Of course, some of our stressors are difficult to avoid; however, by finding ways to deal with stress we can lessen its power over us.