How does stress affect the body?

Medium to long term effects of Sympathetic Nervous System activation

• Stress Catabolism (breakdown)

• Blood sugar dysregulation

• Hormone dysregulation

• Immune dysregulation

• Speeds up aging process

• Lowering of digestion,libido,memory,and drive/ambition

• Increases anxiety, overwhelm, irritability and worry

Weight gain

Not only to poor food choices such as processed foods cause weight gain but when we are stressed our blood sugar rises. If the blood sugar isn’t used in movement, the sugar is stored in our adipose tissue resulting in some water retention and increased body fat.

Sleep

We require a drop in cortisol to make way for production of Melatonin which aids sleep.  If cortisol levels stay elevated then sleeping is going to be a challenge. On the other side of the coin, If we’re not sleeping well this leads to disregulated menstruation, blood sugar, inflammation which in turn cause more cortisol resulting in poor sleep setting us in to a loop.

Digestive system

When our body is stressed, we cannot enter the parasympathetic state that sends messages of calmness and security to our body. Without these necessary messages, we either expel our food or hold on to it, resulting in symptoms such as diarrhea and constipation

Stress also disrupts gut microbiome (some microbes are good for you, while others can make you sick) which hinders the extraction of nutrients from our food. Over time, our bodies become chronically deprived of the nutrients they need and no matter how 'healthy' or plentiful our diet is, we can often end up undernourished and hungry.

Our intestinal lining can become inflamed if there is an imbalance in microbiome.  This  lays the groundwork for gut dysbiosis, in which the balance of your inner ecosystem favours the 'bad' bugs.

When dysbiosis occurs, a condition called leaky gut typically follows. Leaky gut is just what it sounds like a gut lining that instead of acting as a barrier has become permeable, allowing bacteria to leak out of it and into our body's circulatory systems.

Immune stress

When bad bacteria leaks into the bloodstream, our immune system responds, recognising those bacteria as a foreign invader and ratcheting up our immune response.This, as we learned, spreads inflammatory chemicals all over our body. A chronically inflamed gut often leads to larger, systemic inflammation, in which inflammation runs rampant throughout the body. This can make us feel sick, lethargic, and even, in some cases, psychologically ill.

Blood Sugar

Our body's response to a stressor is to mobilise glucose from the liver and release it in to the blood stream (blood sugar)for insulin to step in and send to cells to be used as energy for dealing with whatever threat we are encountering. Chronic longterm stress means a constant leaky tap effect of heightened blood sugar levels. Insulin cannot keep up with the long term demands resulting in insulin  resistance, inflammation, hormone disruption, thyroid or Diabetes.

Muscle tension and pain

Whilst stressed our muscles are tensed and primed fight/flight. Blood sugar also goes up to release energy. Overtime we begin to get muscles tension including headaches and inflammation in our bodies due to our immune system response to the elevated levels of blood sugar.

Lowered hormones

Stress interrupts the production of hormones and shuttles them to use for the production of cortisol and adrenaline. Mainly leading low levels of progesterone, DHEA and androgens (male sex hormones) such as testosterone, resulting in elevated estrogen. This can wreak havoc on all hormones required for ovulation, conception & libido.

Thyroid stress

When you're producing stress hormones your thyroid begins to get blocked at certain chemical producing points. You're body is not messing up, the slowing of your thyroid allows you to conserve calories, gain weight in times of low food supply and puts you in to essentially a protective hibernation. This helped thousands of years ago but no longer serves us in the same way now.  Hypoglycemia (low blood sugar aka STRESS) will impair thyroid function. EVEN if you’re on thyroid medication. When our liver runs out of sugar (glycogen aka stored sugar), the conversion of thyroid hormones can’t take place. The liver becomes sluggish and so does thyroid conversion.