Stress-and why it's so dangerous when it becomes out of control

Stress is often associated with primarily emotional and psychological effects, however it has a significant affect on your physical wellness and health.

According to the American Psychological Association long term/chronic stress can physically alter the way your organ systems are intended to operate.

How does stress become out of control?

Your nervous system can be broken down into two major parts with different responsibilities:

-Sympathetic Nervous System

-activated with stressful events

-increases heart rate

-increase blood flow to muscles

-secretes adrenaline *HEY HEY big key here*

-Parasympathetic Nervous System

-calms the heart

-sends blood to organs and central structures

-opposes the sympathetic nervous system

These two divisions need to be equal/balanced for the wellness of your body and mind.

What tends to happen in our world today is the Sympathetic Nervous System (SNS) is winning out over the Parasympathetic Nervous System (PNS) for long periods of time causing excess adrenaline and your body feeling like it's in life or death situations all the time.

This leads to:

-digestive problems (because the PNS can't send blood to the GI tract as it should)

-muscle tension and pain (because the SNS keeps the muscles activated ALL the time without rest)

-heart disease (SNS elevating HR all the time causes increased wear and tear to the heart)

-impaired ability to maintain homeostasis leading to:

-sleep problems

-weight gain

-memory and concentration problems

-headaches

How do you reduce your chronic SNS activity?

-exercise

-deep breathing

-time in nature

-reduced screen time

-dancing

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