Stress is everywhere. Our modern lives are inundated with waves of stress from all directions. But how often do we stop to look at the source and type of stress? Not often at all– we’re usually busy putting out fires, right?

I help my patients navigate these three stressors on a daily basis– physcial stress, emotional stress and chemical stress.

Now there are two different types or categories of stress– positive stress and negative stress. A positive stress would be something like getting married, birth of a child, a pay raise, or a similar mileston in your life. Your body is responding to those types of activities in a way that’s outside of the normal daily activities.

A negative stress would be losing your job, losing a love one, work deadlines or losing a promotion– any one of life’s setbacks could be a negative stressor to your body. Such negative stress could surface in one or more of the following physical symptoms:

• Persistent GI problems.
• Upset stomach or constipation.
• Nausea or vomiting.
• Light headedness that will probably cause headaches.

Physical stress would include things such as exercise. That’s stressing the body in a good way, that helps to build muscle, improves your metabolism and helps to keep bone density.

Finally we have the impacts of chemical stress. Bad chemical stress could occur from environmental toxins. Medications can sometimes create a bad chemical stressor to the body.

So what does stress do to us physiologically?

When stress occurs, we get a signal from the brain telling our body that we’re under stress. It sends a signal down to what’s called our adrenal glands.

Your adrenal glands are located at the top of your kidneys. And their primary job is to produce adrenaline or epinephrine. which causes the functions in your body to speed up.

Stress speeds up what’s called the Mesencephalon, that’s the upper part of the brain stem. As the Mesencephalon speeds up, it will cause other parts of your body to speed up as well.

When negative stress is present in your life, you want to make sure your body is in good condition. Be sure your immune system is up the snuff.

So how do we do that? Well, we do it with proper diet, we do it with exercise and with good nutritional support.

If you’re out there eating junk food all the time then obviously your system is not going to be as healthy as it should be and you won’t be able to handle the stress.

Emotional stresses are much easier to handle if we have a good overall physical well being.

If you start to catch colds very easily or stress upsets your stomach, your body is indicating that it’s just not working at 100% or optimal level and the stress is wearing you down.

Stress has a very detrimental effect on the immune system. So we want to make sure that you’re limiting the amount of negative stress in your life.

I know that’s easier said than done.

There’s things that happened that you just can’t avoid. It’s called life.

But if you have proper diet, exercise and plenty of rest, you will definitely be able to handle that stress much better.

I’d love to help you on the journey to strengthening your immune system– and your overall health– so that you an navigate whatever road blocks and detours life tosses in your way. Please reach out to me and let’s start the conversation about beating stress and maintaining optimal health.