For millions of years,
the threats that the body faced were physical or material
in nature. Man had to fight or flee for safety, and both these
activities needed strength and energy.
Over thousands
of years, the human body has countered external threats by
generating adrenaline.
This is, again, a paradigm of the body mechanism.
The body knows that generating adrenaline is the best way
to overcome a threat to survival.
Adrenaline has the
following effects on your system:
- Heart rate and
blood pressure in crease.
- Blood is redirected to the large
muscle groups to give you extra strength and energy.
- Blood supply to other systems
is reduced. Consequently, the other system (like the digestive
and immune systems) becomes inactive in order to
conserve energy.
- The mind becomes hyperactive
and searches for areas of danger.
- Emotions like fear, anger, aggression,
nervousness and anxiety grip you.
The
rush of adrenaline also leads to the following adverse effects:
- Burning up of
your body resources leads to fatigue.
- Inactivity of other systems
leads to their disorder.
- The immune cells are no longer
able to pass through the capillary walls of the blood vessels.
This inhibits their ability to destroy and remove harmful
bacteria from the body. The immune system is thereby adversely
affected.
- Fatigue of the mind due to
constant alertness leads to loss of concentration and temporary
forgetfulness.
- You suffer sleep disorders.
- Emotions become negative. You
feel unhappy, and tend to become asocial.
Stress
Erodes the Immune System :
Hormonal imbalance
caused by stress seriously affects the regulating mechanism
of the system of the body. Excess release of adrenaline puts
the entire system of the body into overdrive. Some organs
become hyperactive at the cost of other systems. For example,
excess secretion of gastric juices can cause ulcers. Similarly,
unnecessary pumping of extra blood causing a higher pulse
rate leads to circulatory disorders like high blood pressure.
The problem is that in modern
society the natural process in not taking place to burn up
the excess adrenaline and remove the extra toxins from the
system. Over a period of time, the worst effect the hormonal
imbalance does is to our immune system.
“This is why stress has
been called a silent killer.”
Stress is not something exclusively
mental in nature. It is perhaps this dimension that distinguishes
stress from tension, which is attributed mainly to the state
of mind. Stress can be of the body also, or it can be of both.
In fact, it works both ways. If our mind is in trouble, it
affects the body and if the body is in any physical stress,
it gives distress signals to the mind looking for rescue and
generates stress in the mind also.
