It has been known for a long time that stress can affect your health but we are only now starting to really understand precisely how stress can affect the body. Some of the myths surrounding stress, such as the fact that stress may lead to ulcers, are finally being laid to rest while others are now being confirmed.
Some of the obvious affects of stress such as, a rapid heartbeat, muscle tension, hypertension, headaches and digestive problems are easy to recognize and well known, but there are also a variety of longer-term and potentially serious conditions which can result from persistent stress.
Studies which have been done at the National Institutes of Health and elsewhere for example strongly suggest that stress affects the immune system. Interestingly these very studies show that the affect can be both negative and positive.
Given that one definition of stress is that it is merely a person's 'fight or flight' response to an apparent threat, it can have a positive affect. For example, it can, trigger the release of chemicals which help to heal infections from bites. This makes sense if you think about how evolution might have tailored the immune system to cope with these events.
But, when this response persists over a lengthy time period, the affects can be harmful and one consequence is that the immune system actually becomes less effective leading to an increased susceptibility to infection and a lowered resistance to flu and other virus induced illnesses.
Another consequence is an overall feeling of tiredness and sometimes even depression. When an individual is stressed for long periods of time then a feedback loop is created between the cause of the stress (the belief that it is not possible to solve the problem which is causing the stress) and its affects. This gives rise to a cycle where your belief becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Chronic stress can also effect your health by compromising you circulatory system. When stress hormones released as a result of the 'flight or fight' trigger are not used up by {some form of physical activity such as fighting infection|the physical activity of, for example, fighting infection then they can cause actual physiological stress on the body.
High blood pressure increases the pressure on the walls of blood vessels which can lead to small tears appearing in the blood vessels. When the body then reacts to repair these micro-tears, scar tissue can be produced which lowers the flow of blood through the vessels.
When stress levels are extremely high or remain for long enough then heart attacks can occur. The likelihood of heart attack is also raised in older people or in people who carry certain genetic characteristics. With narrowed blood vessels, the heart might well not be able to deliver sufficient blood and oxygen at moments of high demand.
Doctors have also known for a long time that stress can worsen the affects of rheumatoid arthritis and this is now also explained by the affect of stress on the immune system as there is a proven and well documented link between rheumatoid arthritis and the immune system.
It is vital for us all to avoid stress if we are to maintain good health and, luckily, as we gain a better understanding of stress we are also developing a variety of extremely helpful techniques for relieving stress.
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For more information about stress, including such things as stress symptoms and stress relief please visit Stress-Relief-And-Anxiety-Relievers.com
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