The Role Stress Hormones Play In Health And Illness
When man lived in caves, stress hormones were extremely important for to remain alive. They prepared early man to flee or fight if necessary. Today, stress hormones also play a role in good health, but they also play a major role in illness when left unattended. Blood pressure increases, the flow of blood to extremities and away from non-essential smooth muscles like the digestive system occurs. Returning the level of stress hormones back to normal would involve running or fighting, but today’s stresses don’t call for either, so they remain causing damage to the body.
Stress and the change caused by stress can affect your health dramatically.
Most doctors now recognize the symptoms of diseases and conditions caused by stress. In fact, it’s estimated that about three fourths of all doctor visits come from stress related ailments. If you had statistics on all the people in America, you’d find that about half of the adult population has a stress related disease. Some of those conditions or diseases would include high blood sugar levels and high blood pressure. It increases the risk of diabetes, obesity, Alzheimer’s, heart disease, asthma, headaches, backaches and gastrointestinal problems. It causes aging to accelerate and premature death.
The hormones of stress are necessary if you’re in real physical danger, but you need to burn them off if you have only mental stress.
You need the hormones of stress, but if you don’t run or fight, you also need to burn them off and get back to normal. If you don’t, it can shut down your immune system or damage it, leaving you open to all illness and disease. It can leave an opening for cancer and bacterial or viral disease, since the immune system plays a role in fighting it.
It’s not always easy to get rid of stress, but you can do something about burning off the hormones and getting back to normal.
When you workout hard, your body is often mimicking the things you might be doing if you were running or fleeing. The changes that were made by the hormones start to return to normal when the workout is near the end. Not only that, your body starts to produce hormones that make you feel good, adding another benefit to the list for exercising. You can learn ways to help control stress, like meditation and deep breathing exercises, but for most people working out regularly provides the biggest benefits.
- If you’re under stress, you may gain weight. Ancient stressful times often included food scarcity. We may be internally wired to eat as much as possible even when not hungry because of that. One study showed people who were under stress ate 40 percent more than normal.
- Stress shortens the telomeres that protect chromosomes. That means fewer replications and earlier cell death. It leads to premature aging and affects muscles, skin vision and all other parts of the body.
- Stress can trigger tension movements, like tooth grinding. That’s linked with broken or worn teeth and periodontal disease.
- Stress leaves you with a sickening feeling in the pit of your stomach. It can lead to anxiety and depression, beside putting you in a bad mood. Taking a walk or working out can break that cycle.
Are you pedaling for miles on that stationary bike riding to nowhere or running down the street each morning at the crack of dawn, but still find you can’t lose those excess pounds. It might be the type of workout your doing. Is that cardio making you fat? Is it sabotaging your efforts to lose weight, while teasing you into believing that it’s what’s going to work? Before you throw your running shoes in the garbage or change the stationary bike to a clothes rack, cardio workouts have a place in your fitness program. However, doing ONLY cardio won’t beef up your metabolism and may make it harder to shed weight.
The benefits of workout partners are easy to identify. In fact, one of them is the very reason people use personal trainers. Workout partners keep you accountable for your workout. If you have an appointment to meet a buddy at the gym, the odds of you going increase, just as they do when you workout with a trainer. Some studies show that even having someone check on you to see if you worked out that day can improve your chances of maintaining a regular workout schedule. +
In fitness, there are lots of different types of plateauing. You can have a plateau that puts a ceiling on the amount of weight you lift, a plateau where you’re stuck at the intensity of a workout and a plateau for weight loss. Most people hear plateauing and think of weight loss. That’s because it’s one of the biggest frustrations people who try to lose weight often face. There are ways to break a plateau, but first you need to identify why it occurred.
Does your workout gear matter? If you don’t have the funds for those “spectacular” workout clothes or don’t want to spend the money, since you’re planning on shedding lots of weight and will have to buy new clothes. It shouldn’t stop you from going to the gym. Here in Louisville, KY, my clients dress in a number of different ways, but what they all have in common is that the clothing allows them to move easily. Whether it’s made from the latest fabric or your gym shorts from high school and a T-shirt, dressing in clothing that allows easy movement is top priority.
During the holidays, did you feel like you could wrestle someone to the ground for the last Pomsies or Fingerlings HUGS? Maybe you even did! You had two months of holidays and that takes longer than just a quick workout to relieve stress from that kind of pressure. Even things that seem a bit inconsequential when you really stop to think about them, like the best dish to take to a holiday celebration or whether you’re wearing the perfect outfit for a celebration, can take its toll. Add to it the dreary cold weather and you have a mix that can get you down. Think of January and February as your cool-down period to eliminate that stress and get back to feeling great again.
Most people don’t start working out in our gym in Louisville, KY to improve their posture, it’s just one of those great side effects that comes with getting fit. That improved posture also has some benefits, besides making you look taller and thinner. However, looking taller and thinner is one of the things people notice most about my clients after a few weeks of working out. Standing taller pulls everything in and up, giving a thinner appearance almost instantly. It’s the same look people try to get by sucking in their stomach, which is extremely hard to maintain if you’re out of shape. .
Most people that workout regularly ensure they warm up so they get the best performance and reduce the potential for injury. However, some fail to cool down after exercise, which is just as important. Cooling down does many things for the body. Too often people are ready to get out of the gym and neglect this important part of their workout. There is a price to pay that’s often higher than you might think.
You might think of walking as a great way to see some of the beauty of Louisville or even something older people do in the mall for their fitness regimen. While both are true, walking should also be part of everyone’s workout program. It puts less stress on the knees, back and ankles and a good way for obese people to start working out. It’s good if you’re recovering from an injury and will help keep you in shape until you do.