Is it true that all diseases are caused by nerves?
Editor: Timur Zarudny
Source: Just ask
A third of Russians blame work and stress for their health problems. Just under half of Britons believe stress is a cause of cancer.
I decided to check whether so many people could be wrong, and why chronic stress is dangerous from a medical point of view.
Now let’s talk about what exactly chronic stress leads to.
Changes the body
Acute stress is short-term. After it, the body quickly returns to normal levels.
Chronic can last for years. You cannot adapt to it, you cannot avoid it: you can only grit your teeth, endure and suffer. As a result, the body changes.
It is more important for him to be saved than to learn new things. Therefore, he focuses on vital functions: breathing, the work of the heart and blood vessels, anxiety. And it turns off brain activities like learning, concentration and decision-making.
Here are some examples.
For acute stress
Cortisol levels temporarily rise - this helps us react to danger.
The amygdala is activated. This is the part of the brain that helps you react to a flying ball or a sudden car on a turn.
For chronic
Cortisol is constantly at high levels. Man is always “ready for war.”
The amygdala is always on. This creates a feeling of constant and causeless anxiety. The person seems to be walking on a tightrope all the time.
Acute stress - a movie in the cinema, chronic - a series for several seasons
Stress is rapidly making you look younger: how to protect yourself from its harmful effects
Olga Shuppo, scientific director of the Grand Clinic, gave a comment to the online magazine “Foodika”
Link to original source Over the past 10-15 years, humanity has been completely immersed in the world of information technology and gadgets.
In the first minutes after waking up, people grab their smartphones to check the news. On the way to the office or to study, we browse social networks, respond to messages in email and instant messengers, and so on until the evening. Even 15 years is too short a time for the human brain to have time to adapt to such loads. Adaptation processes take centuries to develop, and some body functions took millennia to adapt to a new level of stress.
As a result, rapidly advancing technological advances threaten health by increasing stress levels. Doctors associate a surge in the development of autoimmune diseases and oncology with high levels of one of the stress hormones, cortisol.
Stress makes you look younger
Young people and middle-aged people are at risk; they are the ones most susceptible to the influence of technology, gadgets and “information noise” in general.
Now 25-30 year old people may have a more exhausted body than, for example, 50-60 year old people who managed to develop the adaptive resources of their body in their youth.
Good and bad stress
The scientist Hans Selye was the first to introduce the term “stress” into physiology. He also developed a biological explanation of how the body reacts and adapts to stress.
According to Selye, stress is a normal state of the body, since stress is associated with an increase in adaptive mechanisms. Stress reactions help a person cope with difficulties. Stress begins to cause harm to health if it persists for a long time.
Selye deduced three phases of the body's response to stress.
- Alarm stage
Stress at this stage contributes to the activation of the body's adaptive resources.
The alarm signal is sent to the hypothalamus, then the pituitary gland and then to the adrenal glands, which ensure the release of certain hormones - the release of adrenaline and cortisol. Adrenaline gives a person a boost of energy: heart rate increases, blood pressure rises, cortisol also increases blood sugar levels
- Resistance stage
If the stress factor persists, the body begins to fight its manifestations and balances the expenditure of adaptation resources.
- Exhaustion stage
The body begins to lose the ability to fight the stressor and reduce its harmful effects, as all adaptive capacity is depleted. The exhaustion stage can lead to health problems if they are not addressed immediately.
Thus, with constant “digital noise,” the brain spends all its resources on the thought process in order to effectively navigate the digital space. In such a situation, the body no longer has any resources left for physiological regulation and exhaustion occurs.
Treatment without the use of drugs
You can avoid nervous exhaustion if you follow simple rules.
- Give yourself a digital detox throughout the day. Rest for about the same amount of time you worked hard.
- Align your sleep pattern. From 10 pm to 3 am, melatonin is produced, which is responsible for the balance of cortisol, a hormone of the adrenal cortex, which is called the “stress hormone”. If we sleep enough and at the right time, cells are regenerated, the body rests, and our immune defense is able to cope with viruses and stress.
- Avoid abuse of simple carbohydrates (sugar, baked goods, sweets). Excess carbohydrates lead to acidification around the cells, they become “sluggish and incapacitated”, premature aging develops, and the immune defense of the entire body decreases.
- Add moderate physical activity in the fresh air to your list of mandatory tasks for the day. Oxygen entering mitochondria during respiration is necessary for the addition of hydrogen protons. In its absence, the entire process in mitochondria stops. Namely, mitochondria are responsible for producing the energy in cells necessary to perform all body functions.
- The immune system can also be trained through the development of the body's adaptive resources. True, already in medical conditions. A cryocapsule with short-term exposure to ultra-low temperatures (-130 -160°C), saturation of the body and brain with oxygen in a pressure chamber, training of mitochondria and endothelial vascular function during interval hypoxic therapy - all these procedures stimulate a person’s adaptive reserves, normalize metabolic processes and trigger self-healing mechanisms. the body itself. By the way, the effectiveness of such procedures is based on the short-term impact of a stress factor on the body.
Causes illness. But only those to which a particular person is predisposed
It is incorrect to believe that all diseases are caused by nerves and blame stress for this. That's why.
Men with cardiovascular disease who were stressed at work were more likely to die than men with the same disease but without stress, according to a new study. Based on the results of this observation, scientists recognized chronic stress as a significant “aggravating” factor for heart disease, as are smoking, obesity, hypertension, high levels of low-density lipoproteins, insufficient physical activity and alcohol abuse.
It seems that chronic stress is a serious risk factor that can cause health problems. However, it is important to understand two things here.
- Health problems arise based on the weak link principle. But everyone has their own, determined by genetics. For one it is the cardiovascular system, for another it is the digestive system, for the third it is the nervous system.
- There are several intermediate steps along the path between stress and health problems. Stress does not cause illness, but only increases the risk that protective systems will not cover the vulnerability to which we are predisposed.
This explains why people get sick differently from chronic stress. And some don’t get sick at all.
The problem is that you can't tell exactly where your weak link is. But you can make a list of health problems that are definitely affected by chronic stress. We have evidence that it increases the risk of:
- coronary heart disease,
- stomach ulcer,
- diabetes mellitus type 2,
- autoimmune diseases: psoriasis, rheumatoid arthritis,
- sleep problems,
- headache,
- problems with weight gain and loss,
- problems with the functioning of the immune system,
- irritable bowel syndrome.
Chronic stress increases the risk of developing serious diseases. But everyone has their own predisposition, and it’s not exactly clear what will break for whom.
How to deal with chronic stress: the surest way
If the first step in the fight against chronic stress has been taken, then it is necessary to move on to the process of treating it.
How to cure chronic stress and not waste time?
Of course, the most correct decision is to turn to specialists. The human psyche is such a complex mechanism that self-medicating it can be very dangerous.
In most cases, treating chronic stress requires a comprehensive approach. Drug treatment is aimed at relieving the symptoms of this condition. Psychotherapy sessions can help you understand the causes of chronic stress.
Since stress affects not only the psyche, but also all other systems of the body, it would not be a bad idea to visit a therapist, cardiologist, or endocrinologist.
But a person himself can help himself in the fight against stress. Physical exercise, proper nutrition, good sleep, and relaxation can speed up the process of overcoming chronic stress.
Causes depression and anxiety
Long-term stress is usually accompanied by anxiety and depression. Even if this does not directly lead to physical illness, it definitely makes life worse. In this state, a person’s behavior, emotions, self-perception changes, the will and taste for life disappear. There is pain, decay, suffering all around.
Alternatively, this can lead to emotional burnout - exhaustion and a detached attitude towards your work. Some psychiatrists add to this a manic obsession with work with a lack of strength.
Even if stress does not lead to illness, it will definitely trigger anxiety.
1st signal. Musculoskeletal system
When a person is excited, scared, angry, his muscles tense. Muscle tension is a reflex response to stress, the body's natural way of protecting itself from injury and pain.
With sudden intense stress, the skeletal muscles tense at the same time, and then, when the stressful state has passed, the muscles relax.
Chronic stress causes muscles to be in a more or less constant state of “alert.” When muscles are tense for a long period of time, it provokes the development of other reactions in the body, which gives rise to many diseases.
For example, tension headaches or migraines are associated with chronic muscle spasms in the shoulders, neck and head. Pain in the lower back and upper extremities is also associated with stress, especially caused by exhausting monotonous work.
Millions of people suffer from chronic painful conditions secondary to pathologies of the musculoskeletal system. A common cause of chronic pain is how a person reacts to injury.
People who fear re-injury and pain, and seek only a physical cause and cure for their injury, generally have a worse prognosis for recovery than those who are free from fear and maintain a certain level of moderate, medically supervised activity.
Triggers psychosomatic pain
Roughly speaking, this is when something hurts, but the organs are fine.
It's all about a phenomenon called somatosensory amplification: a person listens to his bodily sensations and after a while feels them clearly and more strongly.
This is absolutely normal. But when chronic stress includes excessive anxiety, the person sees everything in a negative light and explains his sensitivity as an illness. This only increases anxiety and adds to suffering.
In this case, illness usually does not occur - it is just vivid sensations plus anxiety. Proven by studies in which somatic symptoms resolved during psychological therapy.
Chronic stress treatment
If you have been diagnosed with chronic stress, treatment is best done in a specialized medical facility such as Rehab Family. After consulting a psychotherapist, you may have to undergo diagnostics from other specialists to clarify the patient’s condition. Blood and urine tests, as well as cardiograms, are mandatory examination items. Sometimes, to rule out diseases such as epilepsy and panic disorder, it is necessary to be examined by a psychologist and have an encephalogram. This can be done directly from Rehab Family. Rehab Family pays special attention to the inadmissibility of drinking alcoholic beverages during treatment, as well as other stimulants.
