Truth About How Stress And Anxiety Affects You
How Stress And Anxiety Can Make You Sick It's estimated that some 70-90% of all visits to primary care physicians are for complaints and conditions that are, in some way, stress-related.
Every week over 112 million people take some form of medication for stress-related symptoms.
It's not that surprising when you figure the wide-ranging physiological changes that accompany a stress response.
Just about every bodily system or body part is affected by stress.
Stress and anxiety can exacerbate the symptoms of a wide variety of other disorders and illnesses as well.
That Pain in Your Neck Your muscles are a prime target for stress and anxiety.
When under stress, your muscles contract and become tense (lump in the throat sensation for example).
Muscle tension can affect your nerves, blood vessels, organs, skin, and bones.
Having chronically tense muscles can result in a variety of conditions and disorders, including muscle spasms, cramping, facial or jaw pain, bruxism (grinding your teeth), tremors, and shakiness.
Many forms of headaches, chest pain, and back pain are among more common conditions that result from stress-induced muscle tension.
Taking Stress to Heart Circulatory diseases like coronary heart disease, sudden cardiac death, and strokes can be fueled by stress.
This is not surprising when you realize that stress can increase your blood pressure, constrict your blood vessels, raise your cholesterol level, trigger arrhythmia's, and speeds up the rate at which your blood clots.
Stress has become a major risk factor in heart disease, right up there with smoking, being overweight, and a lack of exercise.
This all becomes exponentially more important when you consider that heart disease kills more men over 50 and more women over 65 than any other disease.
Belly Blows Stress has a lovely habit of finding its way to your stomach.
Your gastrointestinal system is a waiting target for much of the stress and anxiety in your life.
Stress can affect the secretion of acid in your stomach and can speed up or slow down the process of peristalsis, which is the rhythmic contraction of the muscles in your intestines.
Constipation, diarrhea, gas, bloating, and weight loss or gain can all be stress-related.
Stress can fuel gastroesophageal re-flux disease and can also play a role in exacerbating irritable bowel syndrome and colitis.
Your Immune System There is growing evidence that stress affects your immune system.
Researchers have named this psychoneuroimmunology and study the relationships between moods, emotional states, hormonal levels and changes in the nervous system and immune system.
Basically, they've concluded that stress, particularly chronic stress, can compromise your immune system, leaving it less effective in resisting bacteria and viruses.
Stress can even exacerbate a variety of immune system disorders such as HIV, AIDS, herpes, cancer metastasis, viral infection, rheumatoid arthritis, and certain allergies.
Stress Sniffles Stress really does lower your resistance to colds.
Chronic stress, lasting a month or more, was the most likely to result in catching a cold.
Long term stress, ranging from 1-6 months, doubles a person's risk of coming down with a cold.
Stress of two or more years quadruples the risk.
Lowbido A stress headache is just one of the ways stress can interfere with your sex life.
Stress can also affect sexual performance and rob you of your libido.
When feeling stressed, feeling sexy isn't exactly at the top of your to-do list.
Disturbed sexual performance can appear in the form of premature ejaculation, erectile dysfunction, and other forms of difficulty in reaching orgasm.
Ironically, sex can be a way of relieving stress.
More on this later.
Good Stress? Stress can be good for you.
The good kind of stress, eustress, is the kind you want, as opposed to the bad kind, distress.
Stress can be a positive force in your life.
Watching a playoff game, solving a problem, falling in love - all these events can be stressful.
These are the kinds of stresses that add to the enjoyment and satisfaction of our lives.
We want more of this kind of stress, not less.
Change and the pressures of modern life don't necessarily create the bad kind of stress.
Rather, how you view the potential stress in your life and how you cope with them makes all the difference.
Every week over 112 million people take some form of medication for stress-related symptoms.
It's not that surprising when you figure the wide-ranging physiological changes that accompany a stress response.
Just about every bodily system or body part is affected by stress.
Stress and anxiety can exacerbate the symptoms of a wide variety of other disorders and illnesses as well.
That Pain in Your Neck Your muscles are a prime target for stress and anxiety.
When under stress, your muscles contract and become tense (lump in the throat sensation for example).
Muscle tension can affect your nerves, blood vessels, organs, skin, and bones.
Having chronically tense muscles can result in a variety of conditions and disorders, including muscle spasms, cramping, facial or jaw pain, bruxism (grinding your teeth), tremors, and shakiness.
Many forms of headaches, chest pain, and back pain are among more common conditions that result from stress-induced muscle tension.
Taking Stress to Heart Circulatory diseases like coronary heart disease, sudden cardiac death, and strokes can be fueled by stress.
This is not surprising when you realize that stress can increase your blood pressure, constrict your blood vessels, raise your cholesterol level, trigger arrhythmia's, and speeds up the rate at which your blood clots.
Stress has become a major risk factor in heart disease, right up there with smoking, being overweight, and a lack of exercise.
This all becomes exponentially more important when you consider that heart disease kills more men over 50 and more women over 65 than any other disease.
Belly Blows Stress has a lovely habit of finding its way to your stomach.
Your gastrointestinal system is a waiting target for much of the stress and anxiety in your life.
Stress can affect the secretion of acid in your stomach and can speed up or slow down the process of peristalsis, which is the rhythmic contraction of the muscles in your intestines.
Constipation, diarrhea, gas, bloating, and weight loss or gain can all be stress-related.
Stress can fuel gastroesophageal re-flux disease and can also play a role in exacerbating irritable bowel syndrome and colitis.
Your Immune System There is growing evidence that stress affects your immune system.
Researchers have named this psychoneuroimmunology and study the relationships between moods, emotional states, hormonal levels and changes in the nervous system and immune system.
Basically, they've concluded that stress, particularly chronic stress, can compromise your immune system, leaving it less effective in resisting bacteria and viruses.
Stress can even exacerbate a variety of immune system disorders such as HIV, AIDS, herpes, cancer metastasis, viral infection, rheumatoid arthritis, and certain allergies.
Stress Sniffles Stress really does lower your resistance to colds.
Chronic stress, lasting a month or more, was the most likely to result in catching a cold.
Long term stress, ranging from 1-6 months, doubles a person's risk of coming down with a cold.
Stress of two or more years quadruples the risk.
Lowbido A stress headache is just one of the ways stress can interfere with your sex life.
Stress can also affect sexual performance and rob you of your libido.
When feeling stressed, feeling sexy isn't exactly at the top of your to-do list.
Disturbed sexual performance can appear in the form of premature ejaculation, erectile dysfunction, and other forms of difficulty in reaching orgasm.
Ironically, sex can be a way of relieving stress.
Good Stress? Stress can be good for you.
The good kind of stress, eustress, is the kind you want, as opposed to the bad kind, distress.
Stress can be a positive force in your life.
Watching a playoff game, solving a problem, falling in love - all these events can be stressful.
These are the kinds of stresses that add to the enjoyment and satisfaction of our lives.
We want more of this kind of stress, not less.
Change and the pressures of modern life don't necessarily create the bad kind of stress.
Rather, how you view the potential stress in your life and how you cope with them makes all the difference.