Why Is Stress So Detrimental To Your Health?

Why Is Stress So Detrimental To Your Health?

Stress is one of the leading reasons for chronic pain & many other nasty illnesses. It is one of the leading underlying contributors to heart disease & that leads to all diseases. It must be eliminated or at least suppressed to live a healthy life. Stress is a response to a perceived threat that affects every body system. Countless studies show how our daily experiences and stresses impact our immune systems. One, for instance, found that medical students’ immune systems were suppressed under the pressure of looming final exams. Additionally, the loneliest of these students suffered the greatest negative impact on their immune defenses. This all starts with emotional stimuli. Emotions are electrical, chemical, and hormonal discharges from the human nervous system. These influence, and are influenced by, the functioning of our major organs and immune defenses. Stress, in particular, works to disarm our immune systems. This is bound to have major effects and it can even cause chronic illness.

What would you do if a friend called to tell you she was in excruciating pain that left her unable to walk? Would you call her weak and tell her to just shrug it off? Or would you insist that she go to the hospital and perhaps even take her there yourself?

Most likely, you’d take the latter approach. But what if the tables were turned, and you were the one experiencing that same severe pain? Many of us like to maintain that we’re strong, even indestructible. We convince ourselves that we can handle any amount of physical or emotional pain, either by repressing it, ignoring it, or fussing over other people’s problems instead. But this approach simply doesn’t work. It endangers our health, and it masks our inner weaknesses. By denying our problems, we avoid addressing them. Our bodies repeatedly tell us, no, yet we refuse to listen until it’s too late. It’s high time we confronted the underlying causes of our illnesses and took back control of our health.

Most chronic diseases are formed from the body being in a state of "diss-ease." Chronic diseases share many of the same underlying biological mechanisms, such as gene expression, oxidative stress, and inflammation.

Chronic diseases are caused by stress which causes a lack of energy or mitochondria dysfunction. If you are suffering from an invisible illness your aim is to: reduce pain, get more energy. 

Fibromyalgia is one of the most complex and poorly understood conditions. There are many speculations on the causes but this invisible illness leaves more questions than answers. Fibromyalgia is a condition that causes widespread pain and extreme tiredness. Some believe that the root of chronic pain and invisible illness is a crippling of the electron transport chain, lack of energy, or mitochondria dysfunction. If you are suffering from an invisible illness your aim is to: reduce pain, get more energy. Causes of invisible illnesses are childhood trauma, chronic physical/psychological stress, unresolved viral diseases, mental and physical injury, depression, and childbirth.  Research is suggesting that mitochondria are involved in some forms of invisible illnesses. Research also suggests that a lot of Chronic pain can be suppressed & even cured by simply making lifestyle and diet changes.

When it comes to lifestyle changes, slow and steady does not win the race. It's best to make radical changes.

When making a big change to your lifestyle, you might think that it’s a good idea to take a gradual approach tackling one area at a time and changing habits slowly. But it’s easier to make a radical, comprehensive shift in all areas at once.

Let’s say you make a small change to your diet. You tell yourself, “OK, I’m just going to eliminate dessert and remove meat from one meal per week.” Now you’re denying yourself habits you enjoy, which is difficult but you’re not going to experience a major improvement in your health just from cutting out chocolate ice cream at night or the steak from your Thursday dinner. That’s a problem because it’s hard to stay motivated and stick with new habits when you’re making sacrifices and not seeing results.

But what if something truly scary, like a heart attack, has jolted you into attention? In the authors’ experiences, patients often follow a doctor’s advice right after they’ve had a heart attack but only for about a month. Then their lifestyle changes peter out. Why is that? Well, fear is a weak motivator. It can spur you into action, but in the long term, it can’t be sustained. A heart attack is a pretty palpable reminder of the prospect of death. It’s scary and hard to ignore, and so you follow the doctor’s advice after having one. But by the same token, death is so frightening that it’s equally difficult to contemplate it for too long. So, eventually, you push it out of your mind, and thus the motivator disappears.

Fortunately, there’s a much more effective, sustainable motivator: feeling good! If your lifestyle improves your well-being, you don’t need to motivate yourself through fear. The results speak for themselves, and since feeling good, well, feels good, they also motivate you to continue seeking them out. That’s why a radical shift is better than a gradual one. When you make a bunch of big changes at once you will quickly experience major, self-motivating improvements in your health often within just a few days or weeks of implementing them. These improvements can be seen in both general and specific aspects of your health, ranging from a boost in your overall sense of well-being to a decrease in chest pains. So don’t hold back and inch your way into making lifestyle changes; take the plunge and dive right in!