Chronic stress left unaddressed puts your health at risk
Chronic stress can wreak havoc on your mind and body.
You can take steps to manage and over ride the damaging affects.
Understanding our Body Helps Us to Cope Better with Life:
Your body is hard-wired to react to stress in ways meant to protect you against threats from predators and other aggressors.
Such threats are rare today, but that doesn't mean that life is free of stress. On the contrary, you undoubtedly face multiple demands each day, such as:
#Dealing with daily workloads
#Finances
#Family
#Friends
Your body treats these so-called minor hassles as threats. As a result you may feel as if you're constantly under pressure.
But you can take charge and learn processes to help not only deal with these stresses but help to minimize the harmful effect on your body.
You don't have to let stress control your life.
Understanding the natural stress response
When you encounter a perceived threat — a large dog barks at you during your morning walk, for instance — your hypothalamus, a tiny region at the base of your brain, sets off an alarm system in your body. Through a combination of nerve and hormonal signals, this system prompts your adrenal glands, located atop your kidneys, to release a surge of hormones, including adrenaline and cortisol.
Adrenaline increases your heart rate, elevates your blood pressure and boosts energy supplies. Cortisol, the primary stress hormone, increases sugars (glucose) in the bloodstream, enhances your brain's use of glucose and increases the availability of substances that repair tissues.
Cortisol also curbs functions that would be nonessential or detrimental in a fight-or-flight situation. It alters immune system responses and suppresses the digestive system, the reproductive system and growth processes. This complex natural alarm system also communicates with regions of your brain that control mood, motivation and fear.
When the natural stress response goes haywire
The body's stress-response system is usually self-limiting. Once a perceived threat has passed, hormone levels return to normal. As adrenaline and cortisol levels drop, your heart rate and blood pressure return to baseline levels, and other systems resume their regular activities.
But when stressors are always present and you constantly feel under attack, that fight-or-flight reaction stays turned on.
The long-term activation of the stress-response system — and the subsequent overexposure to cortisol and other stress hormones — can disrupt almost all your body's processes. This puts you at increased risk of numerous health problems, including:
#Anxiety
#Depression
#Digestive problems
#Heart disease
#Sleep problems
#Weight gain
#Memory and concentration impairment
This is why it's so important to learn healthy ways to cope with the stressors in your life.
Why you react to life stressors the way you do
Your reaction to a potentially stressful event is different from anyone else's.
How you react to stressors in your life is affected by such factors as:
#Genetics: The genes that control the stress response keep most people on a fairly even keel, only occasionally priming the body for fight or flight.
Overactive or underactive stress responses may stem from slight differences in these genes.
#Life experiences: Strong stress reactions sometimes can be traced to traumatic events.
People who suffered neglect or abuse as children tend to be particularly vulnerable to stress.
The same is true of victims of violent crime, airplane crash survivors, military personnel, police officers and fire-fighters.
You may well find that some of your friends seem laid-back about almost everything and others who react strongly at the slightest stress.
This is because with the stresses we experience in life can be dealt with either:
Learning to react to life stressors in a healthy way can allow us to have a positive response to the stressor whereas if these stressful events are handled either by the use of drugs, not paying attention to eating whole foods rather than processed or junk foods, alcohol or by reacting to an event rather than stepping back and acting upon it when we are feeling less anxious.
Stressful events are a fact of life. And you may not be able to change your current situation. But you can take steps to manage the impact these events have on you.
Self-Help techniques to bring about Happy Thoughts and Feelings:
#Eating a Well balanced Diet
#Getting Adequate Sleep 6 - 8 hours per night
#Developing habits such as relaxation techniques or learning to meditate
#Choosing healthy friendships, friendships that support you in a healthy, balanced lifestyle
#Develop a sense of humour, seeing the funny side - There is always a funny side, most of the time unless it is a terrible tragedy.
#Do not compare or measure yourself or your life to others; by all means find mentors who are living a healthy balanced life to engage their techniques into your life.
#Embrace your own individuality and find pleasure in what you have managed to achieve, no matter how small.
#Develop happiness within you, without relying on external sources of happiness.
#Action: Be prepared to do whatever it takes that is honest, ethical, and reliable that will do no harm to you or others to achieve your life goals.
#Set Goals: Setting Goals is a very important thing to do when it comes to making the changes that we want to make, no matter how small the goal is, IT IS IMPORTANT to YOU!
#Understanding: By understanding why you are feeling angry, anxious and stressed will help you to solve the problem.
#Communicate: None of us, no matter what we may think are mind readers. Communicate and explain what you mean or what is troubling you.
#Empathy: Remembering we may not be the only one having a bad day. Plus we are not the only ones who have ever gone through this.
Remembering that this is a lifetime journey and nothing happens overnight.
There are Other Stresses that can have significant long term detrimental occurrences such as:
#Loss of a loved one
# Physical or Emotional abuse
# Moving away from family or friends
#Physical or environmental tragedies
# Seek Professional support with therapies that are going support in a way to cause NO HARM, GIVE YOU STRATEGIES TO TAKE CONTROL: THAT WILL BENEFIT YOU LONG TERM
Massage - is just the best way of floating away or even talking through your issues or concerns. It works to support every area of your body.
Massage supports a healthy nervous system and brain function whilst Empowering You by You Feeling Better
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Empowering You to Optimal Health Julie Doherty N.D
Julie Doherty is a Fully Accredited Naturopathic & Massage Practitioner with the Australian Traditional Medicine Society Ltd.
Having completed Professional Qualifications in Naturopathic Medicine: Herbal Medicine: Homoeopathic, Nutritional Medicine: Holistic Massage Therapy: Body Work: & Natural Beauty Therapy. This has enabled Julie to follow her dream of supporting people to overcome their health issues & heal their body with the use of a combination of Naturopathic, Herbal, and Homoeopathic & Nutritional Medicines & Therapies to become well without causing further harm or complications
Julie is involved in supporting other health care professionals with treatment protocols for people who are on prescription medication, chemo therapy and other related health care procedures
Julie’s vision and passion has been & still is to assist each person to become well with the least invasive & most effective treatments. Whilst working with likeminded people.
Over the past 25 years, Julie Doherty has successfully treated & assisted people with various areas of ill health and disease from the common cold, skin ailments through to cancer.
Julie’s approach is to enable each person to have the best “Quality of life possible” whilst making your treatments effective, affordable and manageable incorporating these strategies into each person's everyday living. Respecting each person's culture and individual characteristics
Julie is a sought-after public speaker, lecturer & author providing community talks, facilitated & implementing professional related courses.
Julie is a published blogger and author who is recognized for her expert knowledge with Self Growth, Hay House Affiliated program, supporting & providing assistance with healthy life protocols.
Julie has been recognized by the Stanford Who's Who and the Continental Who's Who for her dedication and recognition of excellence as a Health Care Practitioner, Executive, Entrepreneur and Professional standards of ethics.
What makes the work of Julie Doherty stand out? The successful testimonials of her clients becoming well both-young and old, from a wide range of disease and signs of ill health: It has been commented about her humanness, her humour, her willingness to reveal so much of herself, her belief and commitment to her industry and clients, and the easy-to-understand style of her communicating and her simplistic way of explaining treatments and programs to become well. Her understanding of the interconnectedness when there is a problem with health and it is out of balance that it is never just one thing, so addressing all related causes of the health problem/problems that she addresses with you.
To complement healthy treatment programs Julie has formulated a Skin, Hair & Body Care Range that is good for you “Just For You”, not only will it have your skin looking great, healthy & vibrant. To nourish the skin from the outside/in.