If you haven't uttered those words at one point or another, please share your secret. It seems to me jobs, schedules, foods, cars, houses, and even spouses are changing more and more. Since stress can be simply defined as 'change', it is no surprise the prevalence of depression, anxiety, impulse control, and substance abuse disorders have doubled since 1945. Of course stress affects our health on a physical level as well.
I have wanted to write this blog for a while, but have struggled to put simply to words what stress looks like in your body. I believe in a holistic vision when it comes to taking care of myself, and that doesn't mean avoiding allopathic medical care. Holistic means to see the body as a whole and not as individual parts. It is as if I am looking out at an entire landscape trying to put into words what causes it to change over time. I want to just say "God only knows", but understand that many of us seek answers as to why we get sick.
Having studied a Western paradigm, I will start with what Western scientists refer to as our stress glands, the adrenals. I start here because it is quite rare to find an American with a completely normal adrenal hormone labwork. Often I see patients whose labwork consists of a single cortisol number, and tell me their doctor said their adrenals are completely normal. Well maybe they don't have adrenal cancer, but saying your adrenals are functioning normally with a single cortisol level, is like starving a diabetic then testing their blood sugar and then saying they no longer have diabetes because their blood sugar was normal. Adrenal stress causes abdominal weight gain, muscle aches, sensitivity to light, perimenopausal symptoms, fatigue, and so much more......
Regardless of whether you have high, low, or bloodsugar somewhere in between, the best thing you can do to help restore you health is ***eliminate all processed sugar, high fructose corn syrup, and MSG from your diet because all of these things can increase your cortisol levels. Increased cortisol levels will cause your blood sugar to elevate, and long term will cause diabetes, and hypothyroidsim.
Even children are under more stress today playing more sports, more homework, busier schedules, less family time, less spiritual growth, more sugar, more MSG and other food additives that cause their adrenal glands to become stressed at younger and younger ages. This causes their immune systems to become weaker, and their liver less capable of detoxifying the chemicals added into our foods (like dyes, aspartame, etc.). Both of these things cause a decrease in immunoglobin A which causes food allergies and leaky gut syndrome. So it is very important to **eliminate foods that cause allergies/sensitivities in anyone with stress for optimal health.
*Good sleep patterns are essential to maintain good cortisol levels, most people having trouble sleeping are struggling with an overworked adrenal gland. As your body struggles to make more hormones to keep everything in balance, your cholesterol levels will climb because your body needs cholesterol to make the hormones and also to respond to the inflammation indirectly caused by the increased blood sugar caused by the increased cortisol. Eventually adrenal stress will lead to altered neurotransmitter function which causes depression, anxiety and a number of emotional problems, as if you weren't stressed out enough now your stress is causing you to be more stressed.
Western and Eastern scientists alike recognize that stress effects our health. M. Emoto (a Japanese scientist) believes that when water is subjected to good or bad feelings it will change appearance; and since most of our body is composed of water, our feelings and the feelings of those we come in contact with can influence our health. During the past few weeks we have been in a time period Eastern scientists refer to as 'Mercury Retrograde' which is what us Western scientists would simply call a stressful time. I hope one day Eastern and Western scientists will be able to combine their knowledge, fitting pieces of the puzzle together so we can better see the entire landscape and not just a piece of it.
Life was a lot easier when I thought Western science had all the answers, but as my mind grows I have come to recognize life is not a small town, a country, a planet, and who knows maybe not even an entire universe. In the end, I still believe only God truly knows everything.
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