With the last few years of wild circumstances behind us, many of us are just now getting to a point of feeling like we can breathe and relax again. We might feel like life has finally brought a new normal that we can live with, or we may just be thrilled to be out of the thick of the stress and unknown. But even if you feel at peace again, you may have years of stress to work through and process, and you may even still be facing a great deal of stress that hasn’t been resolved. Many people say they’re just as stressed now as ever before, and we’re all still learning how to cope with stress in a positive and productive way.
Causes of Stress
Our body deals with stress in a variety of ways depending on the type of stress we’re facing. There are three primary types of stress that impact our health: chemical stress, mental stress, and physical stress. Chemical stress relates to chemicals that we put into or onto our bodies, such as from food, drinks, lotions, perfumes, and so on. Mental stress is the emotions, feelings, trauma, and grief we face in life and how we cope with it. Physical stress is how our body physically holds and responds to stress, as in tense muscles and headaches, but it also deals with stress on our nervous system from spinal misalignments, injuries, and illnesses.
All these types of stress can lead to troubling issues, including impacting your overall wellbeing. Here are some of the most significant ways stress can affect your health.
Stress Leads to Physical Ailments
Have you ever gotten bad news in the middle of a meal and automatically gotten a stomachache? That’s one way your body responds to stress—with a fight or flight response that slows down your body’s automatic systems and prepares you to deal with an external issue. But stress can cause far more than just a stomachache. It can lead to headaches, muscle spasms, hair loss, poor sleep, fatigue, skin problems, mouth sores, and more. When it isn’t dealt with over a longer time period or when it gets more intense, stress can also bring about cardiovascular disease, hypertension, anxiety, and adrenal fatigue.
Stress Weakens Immune Health
Experiencing consistent stress over an extended period of time wreaks havoc on the immune system. Stress impedes your body’s ability to fight off sicknesses and heal from minor health issues, meaning that when you have excessive stress that’s not being dealt with appropriately, you will get sick more often and stay sick for longer.
Addressing Stress Proactively
As with anything, it’s best to get ahead of smaller issues before they get out of control, so do what you can to be proactive about managing your stress and dealing with it appropriately. One great way to address your stress levels is through neurologically-based chiropractic care. Dr. Thomas Keogh and his team at Bare Chiropractic will help your nervous system function optimally so that your body can more successfully handle the stresses of life and overcome anything that comes your way. Contact Dr. Thomas and his team in Billings to learn more about chiropractic and to schedule your consultation.
Sources
Hardy, K., Pollard, H. “The Organization of the Stress Response, and Its Relevance to Chiropractors: A Commentary.” Chiropractic and Osteopathy, 2006; 14: 25.
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1629015/.
Jamison, J. “Stress: The Chiropractic Patients’ Self-Perceptions.” Journal of Manipulative and Physiological Therapeutics, 1999 Jul-Aug; 22(6): 395-398.
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10478772.
Won, E., Kim, Y.K. “Stress, the Autonomic Nervous System, and the Immune-kynurenine Pathway in the Etiology of Depression.” Current Neuropharmacology, 2016; 14(7): 665-673.
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27640517.
