I am a fan of Matt Damon and the Bourne series.Both the books and the movie series are gripping , edge of the seat thrilling.
Unfortunately just like Bourne suffers amnesia you are at risk of every disease under the sun related to lifestyle if you have work or personal stress.
Stress is a silent killer and it not painless.Chronic and acute stress both are equally bad.While acute stress can help you adapt or get you killed.Chronic stress can cause all lifestyle diseases including obesity, diabetes, hypertension, insomnia, depression and more.I am a doctor and I started blogging in 2014 .Stress was one of the reasons I took to writing.
During acute stress, the flight or fight response helps us survive.It kick starts the Sympathetic pathways in our body.Your cortisol hormone level stays high.It helps you cope .
While peaceful conditions stimulate parasympathetic pathway.
A little excitement feels good.This is momentary stimulation of your sympathetic response.That’s how you feel when fall in love!
But when this response is chronic (as in chronic stress at work or home)you suffer palpitations and anxiety attacks.Stress hormones are released during stressful situations and these are responsible for the long term and short term ill effects of high level of stress
What are these stress hormones?
Cortisol : The effects of high levels of cortisol is many folds. Cortisol influences a lot of the other endocrine glands too.Circulating cortisol and psychological stress have a direct correlation with childhood obesity, adult obesity, and metabolic syndrome.
Catecholamines increase makes your heart overworked.
Insulin decreases: This causes there to be a hyperglycaemic state and there is a high risk of Diabetes Mellitus.
TSH or thyroid stimulating hormone decreases.This can precipitate hyperthyroidism(more thyroid hormones in the blood).This has an effect on the heart and almost all systems of our body.
How do they affect you?
Chronic stress is first in the brain.
It makes you eat more, smoke more chance of addictive behavior, poor quality of sleep and low happiness quotient.Altogether these affect your lifestyle an long-term personal and professional life.
What should you do?
I wrote about 32 ways to beat chronic stress a long time back .but every day I try to do the following 5 things to feel good and relax.
- I cuddle my baby a lot
- I water my plants and stare at them.
- I walk every day on the treadmill at least for 60 minutes.
- I read
- I write
At the end of the day a life well lived should make you happy .If your health is not your best friend ,you cant be happy!What are you doing to be healthy, happy and stress-free?
Comment below to let me know.