Is It Really True That Stress Is Bad For Our Health?

Doctors have known for years that stress can affect your health but we are only now beginning to really understand exactly how stress affects the body. Many of the myths surrounding the subject of stress, like the fact that stress may give you ulcers, are finally being exposed while others are now being confirmed.

Several of the obvious affects of stress such as, hypertension, muscle tension, headaches, a rapid heartbeat and digestive problems are easy to recognize and well known, but there are also a variety of long-term and potentially serious conditions which can be created by chronic stress.

Studies which have been undertaken at the National Institutes of Health and at other institutions for example suggest strongly that stress affects the body's immune system. Interestingly these very studies also show that the affect can be both good and bad.

Given that one definition of stress is that it is simply an individual's 'fight or flight' response to an apparent threat, it can clearly have a good affect. For example, it can, trigger the release of chemicals which help heal infections caused by bites. That makes sense if you consider just how evolution may have tailored the body's immune system to cope with these events.

But, when this response lasts for an extended time period, the affects can be detrimental and one result is that the body's immune system actually reduces in effectiveness leading to an increased susceptibility to infection and a reduced resistance to colds and other virus induced illnesses.

Yet another result is a general feeling of tiredness and sometimes even depression. When an individual is stressed for long periods then a feedback loop develops 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 results in a cycle where the belief becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Chronic stress can also impact your health by compromising you circulatory system. When stress hormones released as a result of the 'fight or flight' trigger are not depleted by {some form of physical activity such as fighting infection|the physical activity of, for example, fighting infection then they can lead to actual physiological stress on the body.

High blood pressure hightens the pressure on the walls of blood vessels which can result in small tears appearing in the blood vessels. When the body reacts to heal these micro-tears, scar tissue is commonly produced and this lowers the blood flow through the vessels.

When stress levels reach extremely high levels or remain for a long enough period of time a heart attack can occur. The possibility of heart attack is also higher in older people or in people who are carrying certain genetic characteristics. With a narrowing of the blood vessels, the heart might be unable to deliver sufficient blood and oxygen at moments of high demand.

It has also been known for some time that stress can aggravate the affects of rheumatoid arthritis and this is also now explained by the affect of stress on the immune system as there is a well documented and proven link between rheumatoid arthritis and the body's immune system.

It is important for us all to avoid stress if we are to maintain good health and, fortunately, as we start to gain a better understanding of stress we are also developing a variety of extremely successful techniques for relieving stress.

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