Stress – the Silent Killer
Stress- It’s a guarantee to downhill journey of health
Whenever we visit the doctor, we are advised not to take stress. It is bad for health, bad for everything, heart health, diabetes, reproductive health, hypertension, etc.
Let us understand what stress really does to our body!!
Susan is always under stress, anxiety; every little thing bothers her. She is indisciplined, does not eat well, doesn’t exercise.
Now have a look inside her body.
Inside her Estra, Progi, Andra, thyra are all misbehaving. Corti grabs this opportunity and starts dominating overall. Are these names familiar? These are our hormones. Oestrogen, Progesterone, Androgens, thyroid and cortisol, etc.
Our body is a very delicate and intricate balance of hormones. Our indiscipline can lead to a lot more indiscipline of our hormones and our internal environment can become really chaotic leading to multiple problems.
Understanding the mechanism of stress
When we are undergoing stress, our body produces excess of CORTISOL. Cortisol is called the stress hormone. Cortisol prepares the body to fight stress. That means the body will focus only on mechanisms which are vital for our survival and starts shutting off other functions.
For instance, one will not think of any luxuries, parties, nice dinner, new dress or sex when there is a fire in the house. Stress means the body is constantly on fire and the high cortisol levels are constantly trying to fight out the situation.
High cortisol levels affect functioning of different systems like:
- It increases gastric juices especially acids leading to stress ulcers, acidity, etc.
- It decreases our immune system making us more prone to infections
- It decreases our strength to tolerate pain
- It decreases our reproductive potential. An infertile couple spend lakhs at the IVF centres, still are unable to conceive at times merely due to the huge stress they face.
- Constant stress disturbs female menstrual cycles to such an extent that they eventually land up with hysterectomy
- Diabetes, hypertension, insomnia are all the well-known effects of stress
Many minute damages keep occurring in the organ systems of people who are in stress all the time, which finally take the form of a big disease.
The treatment to so many problems is not in getting fancy investigations done or popping pills. Rather the focus should be on a stress free, happy and contended life.
Well said. Stress is a killer! I wish we follow your advice