How Stress Can Impact Your Body Health

Stress is a body’s natural response to a challenging event that puts pressure on your physical or Psychological state.

On hormonal level stress is associated with a catabolic hormone labeled cortisol. This catabolic hormone originates from the adrenal glands located above the kidneys. The adrenals release adrenaline and then cortisol as a natural response to a stimulus or what is normally called a stressor.

But this hormone though it associated with a negative image, is essential in many biological functions in our body. for instance, when you are sleeping your body is completely dormant and needs a stimulant to get you out from an unconscious to a conscious state. And in general, we do need a steady dose of cortisol in our bloodstream.

When you live in a stressful environment, cortisol that is supposed to help you function becomes destructive and can potentially hurt you and hurt your immune system. And so having too much stress can predispose you to get sick. and the reason is too high levels of cortisol overpower the white blood cells. It also suppresses the T-cells that train the immune system on how to fight infections. it diminishes the cells barrier and enables viruses to invade it. This is the reason behind people getting virus infection when they get stressed.

Now that you have gained more perspective, let’s see what you can do to lower your cortisol level and eventually your stress level as well. For starter you can sleep more; by sleeping more you allow your body to rest and recover and more importantly, you release Growth hormone which helps reduce the cortisol level and as a bonus, you lower your levels of moodiness and you enhance your energy. Secondly, you can also lessen your level of stress by exercising and breaking some sweat. And last but not least, stay away from negative people that bring you down.

This content was written by : Adnane Mansour & Maha Saied