Chronic Stress and Health: How Stress Affects Your Mind and Body

By Val Silver

The relationship between emotions, stress and health it is so clear that it is one of the few health keys experts agree on.

Chronic stress can damage уоur lоng-tеrm hеаlth and diminish your sense of well-being. While it is natural tо experience a measure of tension and worry whеn dеаlіng wіth every day life, work, and relationships, іt’ѕ when ѕtrеѕѕful feelings plague you day after day, week after week that it disrupts your body processes and increases your rіѕk оf dеvеlоріng сеrtаіn mental and physical illnesses.

The link between stress and health is so strong that researchers estimate that stress related illnesses account for upwards of 80% of non-genetic health problems. If you expand your view of stress to include the burden of chemical toxins, unhealthy lifestyles and fake foods on our minds and bodies, in addition to mental distress, the number gets pretty close to 100%.

Chronic, or long-term stress of any kind, not only contributes to your risk of contracting a disease, it can speed the progression of illnesses you already have and make them worse.

Mental, Physical, and Environmental Stress Factors

Humans experience stress from a variety of internal and external factors and your responses to them conscious and unconscious.

Mental, physical, and environmental stress factors play a role in cancer, heart disease, depression, anxiety, AIDS, aging and auto-immune disease. By depressing the immune system, chronic distress increases the likelihood of contracting a viral or bacterial infection.

When people use the word 'stress' they are usually referring to mental or emotional stress. We would do better health wise if we become more aware of all types of stress and take steps to minimize those that pose very real health threats.

Environmental and Chemical Stress

You likely live in an environment full of electro-magnetic fields. There are thousands of chemicals making their way into your body through your food, water and air supply. It is inescapable. You may have a mouth full of mercury fillings releasing vapors every time you brush, bite down and eat. This out gassing goes on for years and years.

Having to deal with these pollutants puts a demand on organs of elimination and cells that have to function in a less than optimal environment. What is especially damaging is that these health harmers may go unnoticed in the body until the damage is done.

Emotions Stress and Health

You have probably noticed that after a long stint of worrying or overwork, you come down with a cold or flu. You may also have noticed that it sometimes takes months for your energy level to get back to normal.

Dr. Hamer, developer of the German New Medicine, noted that the connection between mental stress and health is so strong that he could trace every cancer case he studied, including his own, to an emotional trauma that occurred up to three years before the diagnosis.

The relationship between emotions, stress and health is evident in animals as well as people. It is so common for animals and fish fed kept in cramped quarters to become ill that they often spend their lives on antibiotics.

Physical Stress Factors

Physically demanding exercise can also be taxing, even if you enjoy the activity. A moderate amount of physical stress is beneficial. It tones the cardiovascular system and the muscles. Too much exertion depletes your energy, strains your system, and may promote illness. Research shows that long distance running scars to the heart.

A while back I met a woman who gave up teaching aerobics even though she enjoyed it because she always felt tired and unwell. She began thriving when she switched to yoga. For her, aerobics was too physically stressful. Other people thrive on this kind of intense exercise.

Besides the chemicals in your food, eating lots of fake foods devoid of nutrients and full of sugar and trans-fats cause your body to cope by spiking insulin, using up nutrients and fighting free radical damage. That puts stress on your pancreas, digestive system and elimination system.

Stress and Health Related Pages

In this series of articles relating to stress and health you will explore how stress affects you in mind and body.

Learn what happens in your mind and body once a mental stress trigger is experienced and the stress response occurs.

Read about the main causes of stress. It is no surprise that challenging situations and people can cause you to react. So can new positive experiences. Your body can also go into distress because of physical challenges, which of course affect your mind.

Learn about acute symptoms and long-term hidden physical symptoms of stress that can wreak havoc in your body.

Many of the long-term health harming effects of stress on health are the result of chronically elevated levels of cortisol and diminished DHEA hormone. In the short term, your body can handle this natural response, but it is not designed to be triggered on a continual basis as is common in modern day living.

Over time, this strain can and often does cause physical and mental health conditions such as premature aging, anxiety, heart disease, obesity and more.

The Relationship between Heart Disease and Health

Mental and Physical Stress Related Illnesses

The Effects of Stress on Telomeres and Aging

Guide to Natural Stress Relief

Understanding how stress affects your well-being is the first step to alleviating it. Reducing your levels of distress is one of the very best things you can do for your health.

You will see this advice echoed across this site - to get well and stay well you must do all you can to relax and protect yourself from all kinds of damaging stress.

Do everything possible to detox your life of mental and physical toxins, which are major sources of stress and health conditions of many kinds. Your health will thank you.

Chronic Stress and Health page updated 10/2020