Stress and Emotions
Your chest hurts and all your cardiologist can tell you is that everything is normal. You have a normal ECG and nothing was seen in your 2D-Echo. Even your blood pressure is not something that you should be alarmed at.
After undergoing a series of examinations, your diagnosis is this: Stress.
Emotions and You
It may seem like a joking matter, the way doctors would tell you that it’s just stress when they can’t find anything wrong with you. But when you think about it, it does connect. The way you feel can adversely affect your body’s condition.
Stress for instance can do a lot of harm to your body. This is not just one negative emotion; it’s a constellation of negativity. When you are stressed, you experience a couple of these feelings, frustration, irritation anger, nervousness, fear, guilt, self-reproach, and a whole lot more. These feelings can well up inside, translating to body problems that you can’t explain. In addition, stress can also leave your body drained of energy and therefore, vulnerable to all kinds of sickness.
The Scientific Connection
The connections among stress, emotions and the body can also be explained through the role of hormones. Hormones in the body help smooth the way for all the systems in the body. Digestive systems, for instance, rely on these hormones to make sure that food is properly digested. The reproductive system as well as the nervous system also relies on hormones for their other functions. But what is really crucial is the effect of the hormone released by the adrenal glands on the brain and on the immune system.
Strong emotions that come from stress— anger, frustration, panic— can release higher amounts of adrenaline, which in turn can disrupt messages sent to the brain and inadvertently suppress the immune system of the body. Even emotions like depression, hatred, bitterness, prolonged grieving can also produce the same effects.
Another explanation is through the limbic system, which regulates fluid balance and endocrine activity. It is also responsible for linking emotions with the hormone system through the cerebral cortex. In fact, the limbic system has been known in the body as the “seat of emotions.”
When the cerebral cortex perceives an emotion, strong enough to be labeled as life-threatening, it will sound an internal alarm that will affect the limbic and the hormonal system. This can lead to constricted blood vessels, tense muscles and sometimes, even organ dysfunction.
Rushing to catch the next flight or worrying over your investments may not be life-threatening for you but the emotions that you feel because of these situations may prompt the body to think that it is; thereby making your body act accordingly.
In essence, it is not stress, per se, that is the problem. Neither are the stressors. It’s how you handle stressful situations and respond emotionally to them that matters. And everything gets distorted when depression is in the picture. The “problem” is that you are not aware of that fact.
Give Dr. Peterson a call at 630-674-9100 for your free 15 minutes personal goal setting consultation. It is time.
