Stress and Human Body
Everyone might have experienced stress in their life and most of us are still experiencing stress almost everyday. Sometimes stress is good to get out of danger or achieving goals but chronic stress can have harmful effects on our mind and body. In this article, I would like to share about how the human body reacts to stress and how stress management can help.
In daily life, we are experiencing many threats or perceived challenges. Stress is referred to as the physical and emotional reaction of the body to stressors. Psychologists categorized these stressors into 4 categories - significant life changes, catastrophic events, daily hassle and ambient stressors.
Daily hassle stressors are more significant since it leads to minor negative events daily in many of our families. Aggravating with friends, family members or colleagues, workloads of home, office or school, damage or loss of your valuable things, etc. come under this category. Ambient stressors include crowd, pollution, noise, etc.
When we are exposed to stressors, the human body prepares itself to fight against these situations. Stress reactions happen when the body tries to cope with environmental threats or challenges. Fight or flight response and tend or befriend response are examples of such body reactions.
How does the stress response work on the body?
Fight or flight response works mainly under the control of Nervous and Endocrine systems. Some of the ways Nervous system responds to stress are,
- Increased heart rate
- Increased respiratory rate
- Peripheral vasoconstriction.
- Elevated Temperature
Sympathetic nervous system helps to increase circulation by increasing heart rate in order to supply more oxygen and nutrients all around the body. Similarly, increased respiration helps to get more oxygen into tissues and gives the ability to remove carbon dioxide. It facilitates the muscles to work efficiently. Blood vessels in the peripheral parts of the body like arms and legs get tightened in order to push more blood into these areas.
When we consider the Endocrine system, it releases hormones like Adrenaline and Cortisol. Cortisol is a steroid hormone involved in stress reactions by redistributing glucose energy in the body and suppressing the immune system.
Another category of stress response is Tend or befriend response. You might have noticed that, in a dangerous situation or threat, how a mother protects her offspring or how we seek help from social contacts to protect ourselves. A hormone called Oxytocin promotes affiliative behavior including maternal tending and social contacts. It can moderate stress reactions of the body by lowering heart rate, blood pressure and cortisol activities. Since the hormone oxytocin is majorly integrated with hormone Estrogen, Tend or befriend response is mainly seen in females than males.
What all are the main consequences of chronic stress?
Major Depression
Our body is designed to cope up with acute stress reactions. When we are exposed to stressors continuously or when we are not ready to change our mind from previous stress responses, then our body's stress response resources start to get depleted. Famous psychologist Richard Lazarus mentioned that stress arises less from actual events but more from assessment of those events.
When we become more emotional or think too much, our body releases more amount of cortisol as mentioned earlier. Hippocampus and frontal cortex areas of the brain contain cortisol receptors. Hippocampus part is responsible for learning and memory. Frontal cortex is associated with impulse control, judgement, planning and reasoning. In response to this, part of the brain specifically anterior cingulate stops making or not responding to serotonin, which is a neurotransmitter/hormone responsible for relaying signals from one part of the brain to another. Serotonin is involved in regulating mood, happiness, anxiety, memory, sleep, etc. As a result, we are becoming gloomy and lose the ability to identify the coping mechanisms and to respond to stress. This leads to the stage of major depression.
Anger, phobias and anxiety
Anger is an emotional and behavioral effect of stress reaction. It is always associated with fight part of Sympathetic response to get out of danger or unfavorable situations. Controllable anger for a short period is normal but you might have seen many people with anger or rude behavior all the time. Most probably they might have experienced a situation of continuous stress.
Fear is naturally associated with flight part of a sympathetic response. Amygdala, part of the brain, is involved in fear and phobias. When we continuously perceive things as more fearful, it leads to anxiety.
Addictions
Abuse of alcohol and drugs, addiction to video games, television or mobile etc. are seen in people associated with stress. Something that connects the stress and addiction is impairment in the frontal cortex. Since the frontal cortex is associated with reasoning and planning, impaired judgement can increase the possibility of inappropriate coping mechanisms as mentioned above.
Diabetes
During fight and flight response, the body needs more energy to work the muscles effectively. Cortisol and Glucagon hormones are released in response to stress reactions and increase blood glucose level. But, if the stress is psychosocial, the extra glucose can worsen our metabolic conditions, especially in Diabetes. Diabetes can also contribute to cardiovascular diseases. As I mentioned in my previous blog on Yoga for Diabetes, stress is one of the major reason for diabetes
Cardiovascular diseases
Hypertension is one of the damaging effects of stress on the heart. The blood vessels get distended by increased force of higher blood pressure during stress and becomes rigid by building up muscles. As a result, the increased vessel rigidity requires more force from the heart to pump the blood and leads to Hypertension.
Vascular diseases are associated with hypertension. When blood constantly hits against the blood vessels with higher than normal pressure, it can cause damaging effects like inflammation or plaque buildup on arteries and veins. These plaques can easily attract cholesterol, fat and other substances causing blood vessels to narrow. One of the worst spots to experience this vascular disease is the coronary artery. Heart attack occurs when the heart tissues are unnourished and start to die. It happens when the coronary artery get narrowed or blocked by plaques. Coronary arteries are responsible for supplying oxygen and nutrients to the heart tissues.
Immune system disorders
During stress, you might have noticed the onset of pain in joints, decreased wound healing etc. Many experiments show that these inflammatory responses occur due to the overuse of the immune system in association with fight and flight response. If we already have inflammation in joints, acute stress can make our joints overly inflamed. Due to the over response, our immune system starts attacking good things in our body. Rheumatoid arthritis is an example for this.
In the case of chronic stress, our body get conditioned with these inflammatory responses and the immune system can become suppressed. In this case, we are susceptible to more illness due to weak immunity.
Reproductive system disorders
Acute stress doesn't affect our reproductive system. But chronic stress can have negative impacts on reproductive capacity. In girls, psychosocial stressors associated with chronic stress can imbalance the hormones which are necessary for ovulation, uterine growth and pregnancy. In males, chronic stress can cause a decrease in the level of hormone testosterone and associated complaints.
How do we overcome negative stress responses ?
Meditation and Breathing exercises
Getting control over our mind is not an easy thing, but perceived control can help us to cope up with stress. Meditation, Pranayama and other breathing techniques help us to get more oxygen and reduce and regulate the respiratory rate, heart rate and blood pressure. Meditation stimulates the nervous system and controls every system of our body.
Yoga and Exercise
Regular practice of exercise or Yoga is the other managing tool for stress. It reduces the possibility of getting cardiovascular diseases. Certain Yoga postures like Trikonasana, help to reduce anger. Yoga touches the physical, mental and emotional aspects of the body and corrects the imbalances.
Social contacts
Social contact is an important aspect in everyday stress management. Sharing our painful and difficult experiences with someone who does care and support makes us feel that we are not alone. Deep connectedness always makes us comfortable and happy. Sense of humor, cheerfulness etc. reduces negative impacts of stress on the body.
Maintaining daily routines
Sound sleep, eating healthy food especially, warm, light and easily digestible food, and daily bathing routines help to alleviate anxiety and other stress reactions in our body. It is better if you go for a daily oil massage daily for 30-60 minutes before taking a bath. It helps to get rid of tiredness and brings more energy.
Listening to music
Music is considered to have great effects on the human mind which helps balance the tridoshas of the human body. There are certain ragas in Indian classical music like Neelambari, Shahana, Madhyamavati, Hamsadhwani. These are beneficial to calm down our mind. Below are a few links in these ragas.
Shahana Madhyamavati
Neelambari Hamsadhwani
Ayurvedic Therapies and herbal supplements
In Ayurveda, certain therapies and medications are very effective in stress. Powerful therapies like Sirodhara, Sirovasthi, Siropichu, Abhyanga are very beneficial in stress management. Even a simple self massage with oil on head and foot helps to get relief from stress reactions. Foot massage is very relaxing and promotes sleep.
If you feel any difficulty to start falling asleep, it is advisable to apply oil on your feet before one hour or 30 minutes of your sleep.
Application of oils like Chandanadi oil, Ksheerabala oil or Balaswagandhadi oil on head is very effective to induce sleep since it is cold in potency. These oils can be used in many other diseased conditions with Pitha and Vata dosha dominance. Like self massage, Siropichu is a simple therapy that we can do by ourselves. You can put a small piece of sterile cotton pad on your bregma point of the head (place your thumb on the tip of the nose and middle finger on the head, so you will get the exact position where the cotton pad should be kept). Then you can pour a little warm oil (any of the above mentioned oils) on the cotton pad till it becomes fully moistened. Keep it there for up to a period of 20 minutes.
Certain Rasayanas mentioned in Ayurveda like Chyavanaprasam are beneficial to nourish your tissues and keep your body healthy by boosting natural immunity. You can consume 5gms daily with milk 1 hour before breakfast.
There are many herbal medicines mentioned in Ayurveda for stress relief. Aswagandha (Withania somnifera) is one of the best medicines among them. It acts as a nerve tonic and controls the endocrine system and acts as a rejuvenator. Aswagandha can be bought as a supplement for stress and associated symptoms.
Below is the list of all ayurvedic products mentioned in this blog. If you would like to shop for these products, you may click on the product name to get more information.
Food Supplements
Ashwagandha powder (by Avazera, Canada)
Ashwagandha choornam (by Kottakkal Ayurveda)
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