George Best: Are you under stress? If so, you are not alone. Many people today suffer from the effects of stress. This is not surprising because of the numerous potential causes of stress we live with every single day. For many people their stress levels are high just because of their normal day to day lives and dealing with mundane problems like driving in traffic, dealing with their kids, interacting with the government and the business bureaucracies and red tape, handling work responsibility, dealing with inconsiderate people, and feeling like you are always racing through life.
Because just the normal day to day stress is so great, any unusual stress can really overtax the body in a hurry, a car accident, running short on money, showing up for an event wearing the wrong clothing, finding out you are the father or are not the father depending on the nature of your relationship or getting an extended visit from your mother-in-law can be enough to completely overwhelm you. Even happy events or at least events that some people are happy about can create enough additional stress to recap with the body stress handling mechanisms.
The body's primary stress handling glands are the Adrenals. If you are not familiar with the Adrenal glands you probably are familiar with problems of the major hormones they produce called Adrenaline also known as Epinephrine. When you are under stress the Adrenals release Adrenaline into the blood stream to activate the body for what's commonly called the fight or flight response. Adrenaline causes your heart to beat faster, it speeds up your breathing and increases your blood pressure, and it shifts circulation away from most of the organs with the exception of the heart, the lungs, and the brain and it increases circulation to the muscles.
This is all fine if the stress you are responding to is something that can be dealt with relatively quickly, but continuous stress over a long period of time eventually begins to exhaust the Adrenal's ability to pump out Adrenaline. When this happens you get very fatigued, your muscles feel weak, and your mind becomes foggy. This brain fog effect can be quite disturbing for a lot of people and can make it very difficult for them to concentrate and handle simple tasks, remember things, and even to just think straight. This can lead to costly mistakes and/or sometimes quite embarrassing moments.
Many people at this point try to wake themselves up with Caffeine and other stimulants, and for a time this strategy of using stimulants will work as Caffeine and similar drugs essentially force the Adrenals to keep pumping out Adrenaline. In the long run though, the Adrenals will often become so burned out that no amount of coffee or even stronger stimulant drugs are enough to keep the Adrenaline pumping and chronic severe fatigue and a host of stress related illnesses are the end result.
But there is more to the story as the Adrenals produce another major hormone called Cortisol. Cortisol has a couple of important functions in the body. One of the things it does is it controls the body's inflammatory response. But of more importance to most people though is Cortisol's function in causing an accumulation of fat around the abdominal area. This fully fat storage effect is actually beneficial in certain circumstances when food scares and or you are under considerable amount of physical stress. But for people who live in a modern industrialized country, Cortisol is a big part of why so many people are overweight.
When stress is properly managed, the fat storing effects of course are balanced pretty well by fat burning effects of the Adrenaline. But because the Adrenals can sustain a high Cortisol production for much longer than they can sustain high Adrenaline production, chronic stress often results in significant weight gain, particularly around the mid-section. It is this effect that many natural weight loss products manufactures use to market their products. You may have heard about various pills used to beat belly fat or burn off the belly fat, get rid of that stomach pooch and alike.
The problem is most of these products actually work by using stimulants to artificially kick the Adrenals into the gear. As we have already discussed, using stimulants will only work for a while and eventually it leads to a total Adrenal burnout and even more problems including faster weight gain. Total Adrenal burnout, whether from stress or from the overuse of stimulant, eventually results in decreased Cortisol output as well. Without adequate Cortisol, inflammation is not properly controlled and this can play a major role in any number of health problems ranging from arthritis to cardiovascular disease.
Ultimately to deal with stress and help the Adrenals recover, we need to do a couple of things to manage stress better. This includes things such as meditation; although I wouldn't recommend you do it front of an escalator in a busy shopping mall. It also includes low intensity exercise for at least 30 minutes, 3 times per week. Low intensity is key especially for the more severe cases of Adrenal fatigue because heavy exercise produces additional strain on the Adrenals. Ironically working out more often or at too high of an intensity can actually cause you to gain more weight, because it's overtaxing the Adrenals, and that weight gain is in the form of fat not muscle in the cases where the Adrenals are already in or nearing burnout.
So you want to choose activity such as walking, swimming and bicycling at an easy to moderate pace. In addition to exercise, it's good to take time to enjoy yourself doing things that you like. Sometimes, just getting out in nature can be very refreshing and can be very stress reducing. You may want to take the walk out in the woods or take a trip to the mountains or perhaps take a trip out onto the lake in your boat, but you might want to check the weather forecast before you go. As we have said before, as much as possible you want to avoid situations that increase your stress levels.
And the second part of helping your body to handle stress is to take care to eat a healthy diet. A healthy diet provides the nutrients your body needs to effectively handle stress. In particular, fresh vegetables and fruits and a high quality protein are important to supporting normal Adrenal function. For those who are under constant stress an Adrenal support supplement is usually very beneficial. Most people I have worked with are shocked that how much better they feel within just a few days of beginning a good quality Adrenal support supplement.
Stress can't always be avoided, but there is quiet a bit you can do to manage stress more effectively and to prevent stress from adversely affecting your health. For more information please visit my blog at www.besthealthandwellnessinfo.com and thank you for watching.
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