MENTAL STRESS

 What stress does to your body?

Are you sleeping restlessly feeling irritable forgetting little things and feeling isolated, don’t worry we’ve all been there. Chronic  stress  is not a bad thing it can be handy for a boost of extra energies and focus like when you are playing a competitive sports or have to speak in public, when it continues  the kind most of us experience day in day out ,it actually begins to change your brain. Chronic stress like being over worked or having arguments at home, can affect brain size structure and how it functions right down to the level of your genes. Stress begins with what is called the HYPOTHALAMUS PITUITARY ADRENAL AXIS. A series of interaction between endocrine glands in the brain and on the kidney which controls your body reactions to stress. When your brain detects a stressful situation your HPA axis is instantly activated and releases the hormone called the CORTISOL which primes your body for instant action.

Chronic stress increases the activity levels in number of neural connections in the AMYGDALA your brains fierce center, and as levels of cortisol rises, electric signal in your HIPPOCAMPUS the part of the brain associated with learning, memories and stress control deteriorates. The hippocampus also inhibit the activities of the HPA axis when it weakens so does your ability to control your stress. That’s not all though cortisol can literally cause your brain to shrink in size, too much of it results in a loss of synaptic connections between neurons and the shrinking of the pre frontal cortex, the part of the brain that regulates behaviors like concentration, decision making and judgment, social interactions it also leads to fewer new brain cells being made in the hippocampus, this means chronic stress might make it harder for you to learn and remember things. And also set the stage for more serious mental problems like depression and eventually Alzheimer’s disease. The effect of stress may filter right down to your brains DNA.

An experiment shows the amount of nurturing a mother rat provides its new born baby creates a path in determining how that baby response to stress later in life. The parts of nurturing mums turns out less sensitive to stress because  their  brains develops more cortisol receptors, which stick to cortisol and dampen stress response .

The part of negligence mums had the opposite outcomes and so becomes more sensitive to stress throughout  life, these are considered the EPIGENETIC CHANGES  meaning they affects which genes are  with stressed without directly affecting the genetic code and these changes can be reversed if the mums are swapped. But there is a surprising result; the epigenetic changes cause by one single mother rat will pass down to many generations of rats after rats.  In other words the result o9f the actions where inheritable ,it’s not all that news there are many ways to reverse  what caused that to your stressed brain.  The most powerful weapon are exercise and meditation which involves breathing deeply and being aware focused on your  surroundings , both of these activities decreased your stress and increase the size of your hippocampus thereby  improving your memory. So don’t feel defeated by the pressures of daily life. Get in control of your stress before it gets in control of you.

How Stress Can Affect Your Body by Sharon horesh  bergquist

Cramming for a test, trying to get more done than you have time to do, stress is a feeling we all experience when we encounter new challenges or overwhelmed with a lot of work, but more than just an emotion, stress is a hard-wired physical response that travels in your entire body in a short term. Stress can be advantageous but activated too often or too long your primitive fight or flight response not only changes your brain but also damages the other organs and cells throughout your body. Your adrenal gland releases the stress hormones cortisol epinephrine also known as adrenal gland as these hormones travels through your blood streams, they easily reach your blood vessels and heart. Adrenaline caused your heart to beat faster and raises your blood pressure, overtime causing   hypertension.

Cortisol can cause the blood vessels not to function properly, scientist now know that this is the early stage of stress and triggering the processes of cholesterol build up in your arteries, together these increases chances of heart attack or stroke, when your brain sense stress, it activates your nervous systems, the network of nerve connections. Your big brain communicates stress to your eccentric or intestinal nervous system. Besides causing butterflies in your stomach these brain gut connections can disturb the natural contractions that move food through your gut leading to irritable balance and can increase your gut sensitivity to acid, making you more likely to feel heart burn. Stress hormones affect immune cells in a variety of ways initially they help prepare the fight of invaders and heal after injury.

However, if You want to live a long life; you may have to cub your stress life that’s because it is even associated with shortened telemeters.  Chronic stress has ways it sabotage your lives; it includes acnes, hair loss, headache, sexual dysfunctions, muscle tension, difficulty concentrating, fatigue and irritability. What does this tell you, if you control your stress life on time, you will perform better in a short run and stay healthy in the long run.

Easy steps to take when you are stressed.

• Sing a song while shower.
• Talk face to face with people about anything at all. Even listening to other people helps you.
• Don’t walk in your house, skip and jump to your destination like a protagonist (if your circumstance allows it) it’s about awakening your inner child.
• Add the happy songs from your playlist to your daily chores
• Stop! Breathe! Take a paper and write all of your honest feelings and problems (and possible solution) and shred it to pieces afterwards.
• Hug loved ones if circumstances allows it
• Always talk to your mother, research shows stress can be greatly reduced if you constantly hear your mother’s voice. ( if you are closer to your dad, then by all means go ahead)

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