How Stress Affects the Brain and Body
Abstract:
In modern day human life we are affected by many things that shape our lives be it politics, social relations, sports, financial status of our bank accounts or our own personal health. In each and every aspect of human life stress plays a vital role into not only shaping our character but also our future health as well.
Stress in this paper is initially defined as the disruption of normal physical or psychological activity. Its medical aspects are then defined as to how stress builds up in the human brain and what are its physical outcomes in the form of fast breathing or high blood pressure etc. Its consequences too are also mentioned and references of a study by two leading cell biologists who have provided findings of their study are also mentioned. The psychological reasons of stress are also mentioned and how they build up to the physical reactions of the human body as well concluding with the fact that unless proper stress prevention techniques are adopted, the human body will not only suffer from physical pain but also can be at risk from dangerous mental attacks such as depression, alcoholism and others that can prove to be fatal as well.
What is Stress?
In medical terms, stress is the disruption of homeostasis through physical or psychological stimuli. According to a high school psychology textbook, stress is "a particular pattern of disturbing psychological and physiological reactions that occur when an environment event threatens important motives and taxes one's ability to cope."
Stress Buildup:
There are many reasons why a person experiences so much stress that its consequences are depression, high blood pressure, irritation, insomnia, eating disorders and even heart attacks. For young teens and adults in colleges it’s the competition in various forms that take place such as the areas of academics, sports, social relationships, career selections, young pregnancies, popularity ratings, financial successes and other areas of the human mind that we feel and sense that are the causes of stress.
To understand what stress does to us it is important to note that physical and psychological stresses, have different impacts on the human brain and psychology. Since physical stress often occurs during rigorous exercises or in case of high speed accidents etc, their recovery is more or less on the physical conditioning of the individual. Mental stresses however affect a person both physically and physiologically as well. This is what makes it so dangerous as there is no cure because mental stress more often than naught can come back again without warning and be a virus that never goes away. Deadlines, finances, relationship or marital problems, work or profession, school, existing ailment, and other emotional or psychological disturbances are the most common causes of mental or emotional stress. Lack of sleep, poor nutrition, sedentary lifestyle, and very tiring activities are on the other hand leading roots of physical stress. Doctors, however, claim that mental stress reduces a person's energy and vitality more than the physical stressors do.
Health Information Publications article “Stress and How to Manage It” states that under sudden stress, you will get a burst of exceptional strength and endurance, as your body pumps out stress hormones and activities such as heart beat speeding up, blood flow to the brain and muscles increases up to 400 percent, food digestion stops (so it doesn't use up energy that's needed elsewhere), muscle tension increases making one look angry, irritable or worse in a quarreling mood. (Health Information Publications, 2004 )
Medical study of stress on human body:
Once the brain has decided there’s a danger of some kind, it sends immediate nerve signals down the spinal cord to our adrenal glands telling them to release the hormone adrenaline. Once released, adrenaline increases the amount of sugar in the blood, increases the heart rate and raises our blood pressure (and has many other actions).
According to the National Association of Mental Health (MIND) in is article “Stress and the brain”, the human brain’s remarkable hypothalamus also sends signals to our pituitary gland at the bottom of your brain, telling it to release factors that within a few minutes have travelled through the blood stream and stimulated our adrenal cortex to produce a stress hormone – cortisol.
Cortisol has been shown to damage and kill cells in the hippocampus (the brain area responsible for your episodic memory) and there is robust evidence that chronic stress causes premature brain aging. It seems it makes your brain more vulnerable to damage such as strokes, ageing and stressful events. The cortisol released in stress travels into the brain and binds to the receptors inside many neurons (in the cytoplasm). Through a cascade of reactions, this causes neurons to admit more calcium through channels in their membrane. (National Association for Mental Health, 2007)
Dr. Elizabeth Blackburn and Dr. Elissa Epel two well known cell biologists, who have been listed in Time’s Magazine 100 Most Influential People in The World, designed a study to assess whether psychological stress aged our cells. They studied two groups of women, one with healthy children and one with chronically sick kids. "With the stressed group, we found that the longer the mothers had been caring for their chronically ill child, the less their telomerase and the shorter their telomeres. This was the first time you could clearly see cause and effect from a nongenetic influence. “ (Anne Kreamer, Jul 20, 2007 …)
Telomeres are DNA-protein complexes that cap the ends of chromosomes and promote genetic stability. Each time a cell divides, a portion of telomeric DNA dwindles away, and after many rounds of cell division, so much telomeric DNA has diminished that the aged cell stops dividing. Thus, telomeres play a critical role in determining the number of times a cell divides, its health, and its life span. These factors, in turn, affect the health of the tissues that cells form. Telomerase is an enzyme that replenishes a portion of telomeres with each round of cell division, and protects telomeres. Oxidative stress, which causes DNA damage, has been shown to hasten the shortening of telomeres in cell culture.
Telomeres are the protective caps at the ends of our chromosomes. They are like the tips of shoelaces. If you lose the tips, the ends start fraying. Telomerase is an enzyme. In cells, it restores the length of the telomeres when they get worn." (Anne Kreamer, Jul 20, 2007). This clearly states that physiological stress increases disruptive normal cell activity in the human brain thus allows a degenerating effect to take place on the entire human body. In a major study made by University of California at San Francisco medical team published in the November 30 issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that chronic stress, and the perception of life stress, each had a significant impact on three biological factors -- the length of telomeres, the activity of telomerase, and levels of oxidative stress -- in immune system cells known as peripheral blood mononucleocytes, in healthy premenopausal women (Randall Parker, November 2004…). Co-author Elizabeth Blackburn, PhD, Morris Herzstein Professor of Biology and Physiology in the Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics at UCSF said in an interview that the results of the study were enormous for human study into stress related diseases.
Avoid Mental Stress:
The primary step to avoid or mitigate the effects of stress is to know where it is coming from. Once the source is identified, it is necessary to deal with it and the sooner the better. But sometimes patients complain that even though they have looked at the problem they still feel worn out and are able to go about their daily lives. This is because they have not dealt with the problem correctly or are hesitant to finish off their troubles due to insecurity, ill advices taken or they were too rash and eager to solve their problem that they over looked certain things.
According to the article “Stress Runining Your Life!” by Jeffrey Gilbert overdoing your response to stress can yield to more damaging results. Excessive alcohol intake and even exercise can result to further negative implications. A person’s response should be something sustainable (can be regularly done and in right frequency) and basically safe and beneficial. Evaluating your lifestyle (eating habits, physical activities, etc.), having a positive outlook in life, excellent time management, and balancing your priorities are what most doctors would say some of the best ways to avoid stress and prevent surmountable loss of energy and vitality. (Jeffrey Gilbert, 31st May, 2006 …)
It is also helpful to learn the art of living consciously and being self-aware in the right way. Instead of constantly going over thoughts in again and again in one’s head and building up pressure in the brain cells, one should take some time out in a relaxing environment with preferably no alcohol or cigarettes and drugs present. During that time in a very cool and calm manner take notes as to how the problem arose, why was it allowed to affect the person under stress so badly, when did it all begin etc. This is the initial brain storming or rather problem searching time that a person tries to discover as to why he is in the condition which he was not previously. The next phase is one that should be allowed to take considerable time but it is imperative that the problem should not be a short term solution because then the person comes right back to where he started. The person should ask what could be the solutions, to whom could he turn to for advice, if in the past he was given ill advices or bad opinions then should he turn to professional help if his family and friends could not come up with a solution. Take one solution at a time is what is recommend by most doctors as though it may seem that having maximum alternative solutions is good but not healthy to follow as you can only do one thing at a time and its better to pursue a solution properly rather than having to find one stuck in the middle of two solutions. Learning how to relax as people so often feel that lying inert in front of the TV of an evening is relaxing. Thats not true as the mind and body need the benefits of regular relaxation techniques such as deep breathing, calm moments of mental space, and regular exercise, a fishing trip, a small camping trip, a beach visit etc are all important things that take the pressure off a person and allow his mental as well as physical side to recover. properly.
Unless a person takes important steps and seeks medical advice on how stress in his daily routine can cause medical disorders, he will find that not only does he suffer from physiological aftermaths but also his life can even be in danger if the brain is not allowed to relax.
Reference
- [03] Anne Kreamer, Jul 20, 2007, “How Is Stress Affecting Your Health? The Mind-Body Connection”,
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