Stress

Stress is a necessary part of life. It has its benefits but too much stress can break down your body and create an environment for disease.

Benefits of stress:

• Moderate stress increases productivity, improves memory, and increases attention span. It strengthens the connection between neurons in the brain. This explains why we often work better when we have a deadline.

• Stress causes our bodies to go into fight or flight mode. This state can actually help our bodies fight off sickness when experienced short term.

• The more you operate under moderate levels of stress, the stronger and more resilient you become.

Too much stress, especially long-term stress, is hard on the body. Stress causes:

• Cortisol and adrenaline to course through the body

• There's an increase in heart rate, blood pressure, and breathing

• Glucose is released so the body has the energy it needs to deal with stress

• Important functions like digestion, reproduction, immunity, and growth are suppressed in times of stress

It takes about 90 minutes for the body to return to its normal state after an incident of stress. Long-term stress causes the body to remain in an abnormal state, fight or flight, for too long. During this state, the adrenals continuously release adrenaline. Too much sugar in your diet can cause a higher release of adrenaline as well. This can lead to adrenal insufficiency and eventually adrenal fatigue. Symptoms of adrenal fatigue are:

• Fatigue

• Trouble going to sleep

• Trouble waking up

• Sugar cravings

• Salt cravings

• Lack of motivation

• Brain fog

Stress reduction is vital whether you feel rundown or not. Here are some ways to do that:

• Rest when you feel tired

• Get 8-10 hours of sleep at night

• Go play!

• Remove things, and people, from your life that cause stress

• Exercise on a regular basis

• Eat foods that nourish your body

• Do things YOU enjoy

• Self-talk is so important so only speak positive things to yourself

Reduce stress and take care of yourself. It will take time to recover from long-term stress but the benefits are worth the effort. Peace of mind is a wonderful side-effect, too!

Resources

1. Higuera, V. (2018, August 14). 4 benefits of stress you didn’t know about. Healthline. https://www.healthline.com/health/benefits-of-stress-you-didnt-know-about#1.-It-improves-cognitive-function

2. Levy, J. (2023, October 27). Suffering from chronic stress? learn ways to Cope. Dr. Axe. https://draxe.com/health/chronic-stress/

3. Dhabhar, F. S. (2018, April). The short-term stress response - mother nature’s mechanism for enhancing protection and performance under conditions of threat, challenge, and opportunity. Frontiers in neuroendocrinology. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5964013/

4. DiGiacinto, J. (2021, August 16). Adrenal fatigue treatment. Healthline. https://www.healthline.com/health/adrenal-fatigue-treatment#1

5. Axe, Dr. J. (2023, October 25). Is adrenal fatigue real? yes. Dr. Axe. https://draxe.com/health/adrenal-fatigue/