What is Stress? If I asked everyone to define STRESS I think that I would get a different answer from every single person, and that is ok because stress comes in all shapes and sizes to everyone. Often we can single out the common stressors in our life our job, Relationships, Financial struggles, theses are huge stressors that our body has to adapt to but often times there are hidden stressors hidden in life that can be even more detrimental to our health.

Stress is a major cause of chronic disease in this day and age. Chronic diseases cause heartache and illness to millions of people each year often times brought on in large part do to unrecognized stress. Our country spends upwards of 6 million dollars a minute on chronic illnesses. In the current mainstream medical model, life style and stress go unresolved when diagnosing and coming up with treatment for individuals. For example, if a struggling father with a stressful job is diagnosed with high blood pressure do you really thing that it is his heart that is failing him or his environment in which he finds himself in? Do you think that whatever pills he receives from the Doctor is the only thing he needs for his heart to function properly? I hope you can see the major disconnect here and it’s a big part in why people are getting sicker. If you don’t change what is causing the sickness it will never go away. We all have stressors in our life that are unavoidable but its what we do with the stress that is important and how we make sure it doesn’t cause us disease. I hope to share some insight on healthy choices to cope with stress.

Physiology review of how stress affects the body: Its is natural and healthy that our body reacts to stress for example have you ever be frightened and felt that instant surge rush through your body? That is the effect of our body adapting to stress, our adrenal glands which sit a top our kidneys react to the fear and release adrenaline to give us enough energy to remove ourselves from the “dangerous environment” we find ourselves in. This is carried out in large part by our Sympathetic nervous system that reacts to stress by triggering our pituitary gland to release adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH) to release stress related hormones into our bodies. This is wonderful and it is absolutely nessicary for a healthy life be grateful that this happens it is the classical Fight or Flight mechanism. Where we find the problem with this system is when it is happening on a constant basis giving our body no rest to adapt and replenish the adrenal glans. When adrenaline and cortisol are released into the body there are many physiological steps that take place which again is great for SHORT TERM. Blood is shunted away from the skin and internal organs except the heart and lungs, heart rate and breathing increases instantly to supply the brain and muscles with oxygen, digestive capability is all but shut down completely because your body is focusing on running away or fighting so there is no way important blood could be used in the digestive tract in this time of stress, blood glucose (sugar) levels sky rocket because the liver that was holding important “food storage” glycogen gets dumped into the system to give yourself instant energy for this moment. Again this is all good, until this is happening on a daily basis 24 hours a day, can you see the problem and the damage constant stress puts on the body. The adrenal glands are designed for short term help and if over used they will atrophy and become exhausted and inefficient. The same physiological response happens weather we are being chased by a bear or have a crucial deadline to meet in the offices physiology will happen one way or another so we must learn to give our body the essential nutrients and rest it needs to function properly.

Effects of Stress:

Increase blood pressure
Decrease blood flow to vital organ
High blood sugar levels
Decrease in the bodies ability to digest food
Insomnia
Depression
Increase risk of chronic illness such as diabetes, heart disease, and cancer
Adrenal fatigue
The most common and most noticeable side effect of stress is EXHAUSTION

Bodies fight against stress: We just learned that in large part it is the Sympathetic nervous system that takes over in times of stress, but as we know it the life all things have their opposite. In the body, the “Good Guy” is the Parasympathetic nervous system that promotes health and regeneration to the body. The parasympathetic nervous system controls bodily functions such as digestion, breathing, heart rate, repair, and healing. True health is found when there is parasympathetic dominance within the body, the parasympathetic nervous system is related to rest and digest which are extremely important to maintain proper health. We need to find ways to make sure our bodies’ parasympathetic nervous system gets its fair share of time to work on our body as opposed to its more aggressive counter part the sympathetic nervous system. It is key to remember the stress and sympathetic without moderation lead to disease.

Ways to trigger the Parasympathetic nervous system and cope with stress:

Identify stress and develop a plan to cope with it
Diaphragmatic breathing
Proper nutrition
Chiropractic care

Identify stress and develop a plan to cope with it: This is where you have to sit down with yourself and be really honest with yourself. You have to ask yourself honest and hard questions, what is causing you to be stressed out, what are the main stressor in my life? Once you’ve identified these you need to write them down along with some ideas as to how you can reduce the stress that comes from the items you have listed. For example, if you are feeling overwhelmed with work plan ahead and organize your workload as best you can. Address hard tasks first thing in the morning so by the end of the day when you're tired you have less intense tasks to perform. Perhaps you’re perfections and need to take a deep breath and understand you are only one person and cant be perfect all the time, you are going to make mistakes take the opportunity to grow from the failure rather than make yourself sick by stressing about flaws. Perhaps you have relationship issues take this time to evaluate the relationships that you have in life recognize if they are healthy or not then come up with a plan to either work on these relationships or perhaps distance yourself from them. Work on your Marriage if it isn’t where you’d like it to identify why it isn’t and have the courage to correct it. There is no better way to relieve your self from stress than doing it with the support and help of the ones that mean the most to you.

Diaphragmatic breathing: A recent professor of mine would frequently ask us the question is breathing important? At first, it seems like a sarcastic question of course breathing is important right, but what do we do to improve our breathing ability? What do we do to maintain proper respiratory rate so that our brain, muscles, and organs receive the proper oxygen necessary? In order to perform something properly, we must first have proper functioning parts, then practice what it is we wish to accomplish. Good and fresh oxygen is essential for good health. Here are a few ways that can help you practice breathing and therefore be healthier. Deep conscious breathing has been found to be one of the best ways to de-stress, which is our goal.

Find a quiet comfortable place to sit or lie down play some relaxing music
Place one hand on your abdomen one on your chest
Inhale deep through your nose, and out your mouth
Concentrate on your breathing slow and controlled
As you exhale imagine breathing out all the stress with each new breath.

Another great technique to do during our breathing exercise to ensure that our body is relaxing is to flex a certain muscle group as hard as you can the release and feel how relaxed and lose the muscle feels as you relax more and more. Perform this with each muscle group and, by the end will relax your entire body and your breathing will be slow and controlled. Perform this a minimum of once a day for five minutes your body will thank you.

Proper Nutrition: Proper nutrition is Nessie Cary to help resolve the effects of prolonged stress on the body like we stated before the adrenal glands weather away and are in need of support once they are over worked. One way we can ensure our body is getting the Nutrition it needs is to plan out and prepare our meals better, we run into trouble when we are caught unprepared, it makes it all to simple to settle for fast food or snack food which has little nutritional value. Here is a list of foods to avoid and a list of foods and supplements that help maintain good adrenal health.

Foods to avoid

Eliminate caffeine
Eliminate alcohol
Refined carbohydrates
Fast food
Processed foods

Proper stress food and supplementation

Increase fruit and vegetable consumption
Increase a number of home cooks meals
Increase vitamin C, Pantothenic acid, Vitamin B6, Zinc, and Magnesium
Ginseng

Vitamin C is key into immune health and the level of detoxification. Pantothenic acid deficiencies result in adrenal atrophy (decay) so of course, we would like to have sufficient levels of pantothenic acid available for use. Low levels of pantothenic acid also result in fatigue, headache, which of course could lead to more stress. Pantothenic acid is found in foods such as whole grains, cauliflower, broccoli, salmon, sweet potatoes, and tomatoes so strive to eat more of these foods. Ginseng has been clinically proven to help strengthen adrenal function. Ginseng also helps battle off the other unwanted effects such as stress and anxiety which is also a plus, supplementation of Ginseng is of huge benefit to stressed out individuals. Of course it's better to get sufficient vitamins and minerals from our diet but if we aren’t quiet there we can also supplement until out diet is where it needs to be. Here are some recommendations.

Supplemental Guidance:

Pantothenic acid 100-500mg daily
Vitamin B6 50-100 mg daily
Zinc and magnesium 50-100 mg daily
Ginseng

Chiropractic Care:

Chiropractic care can help reduce stress in your life in many ways. Chiropractors are trained to detecting Thoughts, Traumas, and Toxins, in people’s life that causes them to get sick. Your Chiropractors will work together with you to address all these aspects of your life to ensure you that you will have the best chances of a speedy and healthy recovery. Your chiropractor will also take the time to educate you on the physiology so that you can take care of yourself and make the best choice for yourself. Chiropractors believe that the body has an Innate ability to heal itself but sometimes through life, this ability is restricted we call this a subluxation. Subluxations can occur in the spine and therefore inhibiting the bodies’ ability to properly heal itself, this is where a chiropractic adjustment has benefit to you. Sometimes subluxation occurs when we stress too much cause the body to tire and not function properly; this is where chiropractors, nutritional and life style coaching will be of benefit to you. Whatever your goal is for you and your families Health are your chiropractor can help you achieve them while avoiding and preventing chronic disease.

I hope this has helped you realize how dangerous stress can be to you and your health please use this as an aide in putting your health first.