Physical Symptoms of Stress

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Stress is the archetypical mind-body disease. Your mind's perceptions cause your body to malfunction. It's well known that stress suppresses and weakens your immune system--your first line of defense against viruses, bacteria, and other pathogens. Your reaction to stress lowers your body's white blood cell count which reduces your system's ability to heal itself. Genetically, some individuals are born with disadvantaged metabolic function or have a tendency towards biochemical imbalances.

Although some do not believe in divorce, it has been shown that children who experience trauma and stress in the home have permanent changes to brain chemistry and brain structure for life. Biophysical stressors in the environment will accumulate and contribute to chemical imbalances. Many children living in a stressful environment will complain of stomach problems. This is partly because a large part of your immune system is in your stomach.

Without a doubt, the most widely researched effects of stress on the body deal with the heart. It has been widely publicized that more heart attacks occur at the beginning of the work week than any other day of the week. As an interesting side note, many of those occur in the parking lot of the person's place of employment in the morning.

Other common biophysical stressors are poor diet and the stored stress-effect. If you are stressed and eating a poor diet, your body chemistry will become even more imbalanced and problems in function will be more apparent. The stored stress-effect throws off the endocrine system and causes gastrointestinal weakness. The brain, nervous system, and endocrine system are hit hardest by poor nutrition.

Did you know stress can make you fat? A chronic state of stress and anxiety results in higher than normal levels of cortisol in the bloodstream that can cause poor cognitive performance, poor thyroid function, hyperglycemia, excess abdominal fat, high blood pressure, and lowered immunity to name a few deficits.

Although cortisol is a hormone found naturally in the human body, our bodies manufacture more cortisol as part of the 'fight or flight' reaction to stress. Small increases of cortisol have some positive effects such as giving us a quick burst of energy and insensitivity to pain, however, it doesn't outweigh the negative aspects.

Some of the lesser known physical symptoms of stress reveal themselves in some of the most unlikely places, like the ears, the lungs and even in the hair. Those racing hormones which give us the ability to react more quickly to our perceived danger also heighten our sense of hearing. While this may sound like a benefit, in reality, it can be a danger. Research conducted at Cornell University revealed that even a moderate amount of noise is capable of elevating stress hormones.

You shouldn't be surprised that under conditions of continual stress you discover that your hair is dry and brittle. In fact, you may even discover that you're losing some of your hair. It's part of your body's very real reaction to tension.

Reference: Health Solutions for Stress Relief