By Dr. Mercola
Your stress level is a major player in your overall health,
impacting your risk of chronic health conditions like heart
disease, depression and obesity.
But unlike other more obvious risk factors, like
over-indulging in junk food or not exercising, stress is more
insidious, subtly sneaking up on you over time, increasing your
risk of health problems even as you don’t noticeably feel
sick or realize that your late-night work habits and
financial worries are slowly zapping away your vitality.
That said, you may very well feel stressed, and if
you do, this is a warning sign that should not be ignored.
People Who Believe Their Health Is Affected By Stress Are Twice
as Likely to Have a Heart Attack
In a recent study of stressed individuals, those who said
that their health was “extremely” affected by stress had more
than twice the risk of having or dying from a heart attack,
compared to those who believed stress had no impact on their
health.1
This could mean that these individuals were highly in tune
with their bodies, and correctly perceived that stress was
wearing them down. On the other hand, it could also be an
example of the mind-body connection, in that if you believe
stress is harming your health, it increases the likelihood that
it will.
Either way, this is a significant increase in heart attack
risk, so if you currently feel stressed to the point that you
believe it is affecting your health, it’s time to take stress
relief very seriously.
Severe Stress Can Raise Your Heart Attack Risk by 21 Times
Losing a significant person in your life raises your risk of
having a heart attack the next day by 21 times, and in the
following week by 6 times.2
The risk of heart attacks begins to decline after about a month,
perhaps as levels of stress hormones begin to level out.
The study did not get into the causes of the abrupt increase
in risk of cardiovascular events like a heart attack, but it's
likely related to the flood of stress hormones your body is
exposed to following extreme stress.
For instance, adrenaline increases your blood pressure and
your heart rate, and it's been suggested it may lead to
narrowing of the arteries that supply blood to your heart, or
even bind directly to heart cells allowing large amounts of
calcium to enter and render the cells temporarily unable to
function properly.
Interestingly, while your risk of heart attack increases
following severe stress, so does your risk of what's known as
stress cardiomyopathy -- or "broken heart syndrome" -- which is
basically a "temporary" heart attack that occurs due to stress.
This stress and the subsequent release of stress hormones are
thought to "stun" or "shock" the heart, leading to sudden heart
muscle weakness. This condition can be life-threatening and
requires immediate medical attention, however it is often a
temporary condition that leaves no permanent damage.
When your body is under the stress response, whether acute or
chronic, your cortisol and insulin levels rise. These two
hormones tend to track each other, so when your cortisol is
consistently elevated under a chronic low-level stress response,
you may experience difficulty losing weight or building muscle.
Additionally, if your cortisol is chronically elevated, you’ll
tend to gain weight around your midsection, which is a major
contributing factor to developing diabetes, heart disease and
metabolic syndrome.
Ignoring Your Stress Can Devastate Your Health
We all experience stress sometimes, and this isn’t
necessarily a bad thing. Some stress, like exercise, is
beneficial. Likewise, the stress response can work to your
advantage in some cases to give you a burst of energy and focus
when you’re facing a challenge, be it warding off an attacker or
completing an assignment with a tight deadline.
Stress turns ugly when it is either extremely severe, such as
facing combat or another traumatic scenario, or long-term.
It is the latter that poses a risk to many Americans, who live
in a chronically elevated state of stress and anxiety. Over
time, chronic stress may impair your immune system and cause a
number of detrimental events in your body, including:
Decreased nutrient absorption |
Elevated cholesterol |
Increased food sensitivity |
Decreased oxygenation to your gut |
Elevated triglycerides |
Heartburn |
As much as four times less blood flow to your digestive
system, which leads to decreased metabolism |
Decreased gut flora populations |
Decreased enzymatic output in your gut – as much as
20,000-fold! |
Further, when your body remains in a stress-induced
‘fight-or-flight’ mode for too long, one of the most common
consequences of this scenario is that your adrenal glands, faced
with excessive stress and burden,
become overworked and fatigued. This can lead to a number of
related health conditions, including fatigue, autoimmune
disorders, skin problems and more. Stress has also been linked
to
cancer by down-regulating immunosurveillance, potentially
triggering the growth of tumors, and even activating multidrug
resistance genes within cancer cells. In fact, stress, and by
proxy your emotional health, is a leading factor in virtually
any disease or illness you can think of.
Are You Tending to Your Emotional Health?
Keeping your stress levels under control has to be an ongoing
commitment, like preparing healthy meals and exercising.
Unfortunately, many fall into a vicious trap where their
strategies for dealing with stress center on unhealthy
activities, like watching TV, drinking alcohol, or eating junk
foods; many also simply fail to address their emotional health
at all, a serious mistake for your well being and physical
health.
What you do for stress relief is a personal choice, as your
stress management techniques must appeal to you and, more
importantly, work for you. If a round of kickboxing
helps you get out your frustration, then do it. If meditation is
more your speed, that’s fine too. Even having a good cry now and
then may be beneficial, as tears that are shed due to an
emotional response, such as sadness or extreme happiness,
contain a high concentration of adrenocorticotropic hormone
(ACTH) — a chemical linked to stress.
One theory of why you cry when you’re sad is that it helps
your body release some of these excess stress chemicals, thereby
helping you feel more calm and relaxed. Energy psychology
techniques such as the
Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) can be very effective as
well by helping you to actually reprogram your body’s
reactions to the unavoidable stressors of everyday life. This is
important as, generally speaking, a stressor becomes a problem
when:
- Your response to it is negative
- Your feelings and emotions are inappropriate for the
circumstances
- Your response lasts an excessively long time
- You’re feeling continuously overwhelmed, overpowered or
overworked
When you use EFT, simple tapping with the fingertips is used
to input kinetic energy onto specific meridians on your head and
chest while you think about your specific problem -- whether it
is a traumatic event, an addiction, pain, etc. -- and voice
positive affirmations. This combination of tapping the energy
meridians and voicing positive affirmation works to clear the
"short-circuit" -- the emotional block -- from your body's
bioenergy system, thus restoring your mind and body's balance,
which is essential for optimal health and the healing of chronic
stress.
© Copyright 1997-2013 Dr. Joseph Mercola. All Rights Reserved.