How Does Stress Affect Health?

How does stress affect health? When you feel threatened, your nervous system responds by releasing stress hormones, including adrenaline and cortisol. These hormones get the body ready for emergency action. This response is your body’s way of protecting you and when it works properly, it helps you stay focused and ready for action.

Acute stressors affect you over the short term and chronic stressors over the longer term. It is the relatively long term stressors that cause disease in your body and can have lasting effects.

The first stage of stress happens when you get a fright or come under attack and the “fight or flight” response kicks. Adrenaline will be produced by the body and at the same time a certain amount of cortisol will be activated so that you can leap into action.

If the stressor persists, you will need to employ some kind of coping mechanism to handle the stress. Although your body begins to adapt, it cannot keep this up indefinitely and its resources are gradually depleted.

Exhaustion will gradually begin to set in as your body's resources are eventually completely depleted and you are unable to maintain normal function. Because of the damage that stress can cause to your body it is important to know your limit and the signs of chronic stress.

How does stress affect health?

When the symptoms that you initially experienced, such as sweating and raised heart rate reappear, long-term damage may result if the situation does not improve and your body's immune system becomes exhausted.

The most dangerous thing about chronic stress is how easily it creeps up on you and affects your mind, your body and your behaviour.

There are a number of methods to control chronic stress:

Exercise:

Relaxation techniques

Magnesium supplements

Sufficient rest

Healthy diet

A relaxing hobby

Natural health products

Yawn-I bet you did!

Yawning is considered to be a rather rude thing to do especially in public, but it is actually a very good for you and helps you to manage stress.

Have you ever noticed that when you see someone yawn you want to do the same? This is because yawning is a natural reflex action and should not be suppressed. Yawning is used in Yoga to achieve certain postures, and is a way of lowering your defenses and relaxing body and mind.

Zen-Not a philosophy and not a religion

Zen is just Zen. There is nothing comparable to it. It is unique-unique in the sense that it is the most ordinary and yet the most extraordinary phenomenon that has ever happened to human consciousness. It is the most ordinary because it does not believe in knowledge, it does not believe in the mind. It is not a philosophy, not a religion either. It is the total acceptance of ordinary existence. It has no interest in any esoteric nonsense, no interest in metaphysics at all. It does not hanker for the other shore; this shore is more than enough. Its acceptance of this shore is so tremendous that through the very acceptance it transforms the shore-and this very shore becomes the other shore. This very body the Buddha. This very earth the lotus paradise.~Osho ABC of enlightenment