Is Stress Really As Bad For Your Health As You Think?

Doctors have known for some time that stress can affect your health but we are just now starting to fully understand precisely how stress affects the body. A lot of the myths surrounding stress, such as the fact that stress could cause ulcers, are at last being exposed while others are being confirmed.

A lot of the more obvious effects of stress on the body such as headaches, a rapid heartbest, muscle tension, high blood pressure and digestive problems are easily recognized and well known, but there are also a number of longer-term and potentially serious conditions which can be caused by persistent stress.

Studies which have been undertaken at the National Institutes of Health and elsewhere for example strongly suggest that stress affects the body’s immune system. Interestingly enough these same studies have also shown that the affect can be both good and bad.

Given that one particular definition of stress is that it is merely a person’s ‘flight or fight’ response to an apparent threat, it can have a good affect. It can, for example, trigger the release of chemicals that help to heal infections from bites. That makes perfect sense when you consider how evolution may have tailored the body’s immune system to deal with these problems.

However, when this response persists over a lengthy period of time, the affects may be harmful and one consequence is that the body’s immune system actually reduces in effectiveness resulting in an increased susceptibility to infection and less resistance to flu and other viral illnesses.

Yet another consequence is a general feeling of tiredness and sometimes even depression. If an individual suffers stress for long periods then a feedback loop is created between the cause of stress (the clear belief that you cannot solve the problem which is creating the stress) and the affects. This produces a cycle in which the belief becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Chronic stress may also have an influence on your health by compromising you circulatory system. If stress hormones released by the ‘fight or flight’ trigger are not depleted by some type of physical activity such as fighting off an infection then they can produce actual physiological stress on the body.

Hypertension increases the tension on the walls of blood vessels and can lead to tiny tears appearing in the blood vessels. If the body then reacts to heal these micro-tears, scar tissue is normally produced which restricts the blood flow through these vessels.

If stress levels are very high or persist for a long enough period of time then heart attacks may occur. The likelihood of heart attack is also increased in older individuals or in individuals who are carrying specific genetic characteristics. With a narrowing of the blood vessels, the heart may be unable to deliver enough blood and oxygen at moments of high demand.

Doctors have also known for some time that stress can worsen the affects of rheumatoid arthritis and this is also now explained by the affect which stress has on the immune system as there is a well documented and proven connection between rheumatoid arthritis and the immune system.

It is important for all of us to avoid stress to maintain good health and, fortunately, as we gain a better knowledge of stress we are also developing a number of very helpful ways to relieve stress.