Is stress contributing to your health problems?
By naturopath Margaret Jasinska
Stress is a normal physical and mental reaction to life experiences. Everybody experiences stress from time to time. Everyday responsibilities like work and family issues, relationships, health problems, death of a loved one, chronic pain and insomnia can all trigger extreme stress. If brief and infrequent, stress can be beneficial to your health. It can boost your energy, motivation and cognitive function. Your body responds to stress by releasing hormones that increase your heart and breathing rates and prepare your muscles to run or fight.
If the stress is extreme, or it continues for a long period of time, it can take a serious toll on your health. Chronic stress can cause a variety of symptoms and affect your overall well being.
Common symptoms of stress include
- irritability
- anxiety
- low motivation
- depression
- headaches
- digestive upset
- increased or reduced appetite
- insomnia
Research conducted on humans and animals has shown that stress hormones negatively affect the function of the immune system. Specifically, stress can increase cytokine production, which increases inflammation in the body. High levels of inflammation are associated with every autoimmune disease, and symptoms such as mental fog, poor motivation, pain, anxiety, depression and poor sleep quality. High levels of inflammation also impair the action of thyroid hormones, so you could have the symptoms of an under active thyroid while having normal TSH levels.
Also, studies have found that up to 80 percent of people reported uncommon emotional stress before their autoimmune disease began. The main stress hormones in your body are adrenalin and cortisol. We will focus on cortisol because it has greater effects on the immune system than adrenalin. Cortisol is made from cholesterol in your adrenal glands. Interestingly it shares a metabolic pathway with progesterone production, therefore chronic stress in women can cause cortisol excess and progesterone deficiency. Progesterone deficiency can cause menstrual problems and raises the risk of conditions such as endometriosis, heavy, painful menstrual bleeding and uterine fibroids.
Chronically elevated cortisol can have a negative effect on your blood sugar level; it may raise your blood sugar and promote abdominal weight gain. Cortisol’s effects on your blood sugar tend to encourage sugar and carbohydrate cravings. Therefore if you’ve been feeling stressed out, you’re more likely to crave sugar and high carb foods. Even when you eat well and exercise regularly, you may not be able to lose abdominal fat because your cortisol is chronically elevated. Chronically high cortisol also weakens the immune system and makes you more prone to coming down with infections. Cortisol has negative effects on the digestive tract. It opens up the tight junctions between intestinal cells and promotes leaky gut syndrome. This increases the risk of allergies, food intolerance and autoimmune disease.
Glutamine is the most well known nutrient for repairing the gut. Other beneficial substances include slippery elm, pectin, aloe vera and the good yeast probiotic Saccharomyces boulardii. These nutrients are all combined in Dr Cabot’s Ultimate Gut Health powder. A large percentage of our patients suffer with Small Intestinal Bacterial Overgrowth (SIBO). This can worsen brain fog, fatigue, anxiety, low mood and abdominal bloating. The herbs in BactoClear capsules may help with the symptoms of medically diagnosed irritable bowel syndrome.
If you are currently experiencing a lot of stress, I have found that magnesium improves sleep quality and has a calming, relaxing effect on the nervous system. Gentle exercise, massage, counselling and spending time with pets and loved ones is also highly therapeutic.
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