What is stress?

What is stress?

“Stress is a normal psychological and physical reaction to the ever-increasing demands of life.”

Stress can come in many forms, but when you hear the word stress you are  probably thinking about emotional stress. Stress on the body can come in physical, chemical and emotional categories.  The constant stress from every day life can really wear on the body causing you to be tired, fatigued, exhausted, and “stressed out.” 

Physical stressors

Physical stressors, which are your traumas, range from severe to micro traumas everyday can lead to neurostructural shifts in your spine. Starting from as young as in utero to adulthood, ways that physical stressors play a role in causing a neurostructural shift are as follows; Babies that are in a breeched position will have abnormal physical stresses on to them, if there are any abnormal birth processes, or as children grow up and get more active they begin to fall down or bump into everything. As children hit their growth spurts or puberty, there are more big changes to the body all at one time. Electronics are another big area that cause us to be in abnormal positions to use them with our head looking down and arms scrunched into the body. Kids starting to play sports can also get injured due to the increased stress onto the body. It is different types of stress depending on which sport they are playing. In adulthood, and many of us have to sit at a desk all day and type. Both sitting and typing for long hours can be very damaging to our bodies. These repetitive micro traumas of every day wear and tear can really add up!

Chemical stressors

Chemical stressors, which are toxins, affect the chemistry of our body. Toxins are everywhere, so it is hard to avoid everything, but we can try to minimize them as much as we can. One major area is our diet. Eating natural, organic foods without pesticides is a great place to start. Also, meats that are grass fed or organic are the best choices.  Another area is our water. There are a lot of chemicals put into the water to keep it clean so drinking purified water is the safest. Also, having a purifier in your home water system so when you shower you aren't getting toxins through your pours. Another big toxic thing we use very often are household cleaners. Also Ladies, I hate to say this, but a lot of your makeup has a lot of toxins in them as well. Alcohol, drugs, and caffeine in large amounts can also be damaging to our body. Why are these toxins so bad?? Toxins can be very damaging to your nerve tissue. It doesn’t allow the signal from the brain to tell your body how to function and be transmitted correctly, which means your body isn't able to function like it should. 

Emotional Stressors

Emotional stressors, or negative thoughts, can also be referred to as stress. Stress is also brought on from our society in that everything is go go go. When your body goes into a flight or fight/go go go mode it causes cortisol to be released from your adrenal glands. This is a normal response, but most of the time we all tend to abuse this at some point in our daily lives. We are only supposed to be in this state about 20% of our day and should only be activated during emergency situations. When your stress is up your immune system goes down. Cortisol and corticosteroids [stress hormones] suppress lymphocytes. Lymphocytes kill invading organisms that would cause disease and they recognize harmful substances and help defend against them. With a lowered amount of lymphocytes, the body is at increased risk of infection and disease. One thing to remember is that once you mess with one hormone you will mess up ALL your hormones. It is a vicious cycle that once it is out of balance it is hard to get back in line. 

Identify how stressed you really are: 

1. Monitor your stress level and also monitor your positive events to help you stay positive! 
2. Identify your stress triggers
3. Start thinking of strategies of how you can either get rid of a stress trigger, or if that is not possible, think of ways that you can better deal with them
4. Reduce habits that you may do in response to stress (stress eating, caffeine, binge watching tv)
5. Don’t try to do it alone! Seek help from family and friends for a good support system. 

Ways to handle the curve balls that life throws at you: 

We can’t get rid of all of these stressors in our lives, but what we can do is try to improve how our body can respond to them. 

1. Move your body frequently—don't sit for more than an hour.
2. Make positive face-to-face connection with other people a priority.
3. When you can't change the stressor, learn to avoid, alter, adapt, or accept.
4. Exercise for fun! Exercise releases endorphins that reduce stress. 
5. Reduce your intake of alcohol, nicotine, and caffeine.
6. Do something you enjoy every day.
7. Get all the restful sleep that you need to feel your best.

In searching about this topic I found a good website of 200+ self help books that you may find interesting too!  http://www.developgoodhabits.com/175-top-habit-books/