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The Effects Of Stress
By: Zinn Jeremiah

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The stress reaction is something that's familiar to all people. Stress is a biological reaction that's inherent to all human beings, and it serves a purpose. The problem is that stress often kicks in during inappropriate times, or much of the time, and a response that's ideally supposed to serve humans ends up causing them significant harm.

A frequent cause of a stress reaction is anxiety. Generally speaking, anxiety is an apprehension or worry about an event, frequently something set to happen in the future. Anxiety isn't the only cause of stress, to be sure: stress can result from anger, sadness, loss, and various other emotional outlooks. There's also the stress that comes from eager anticipation, sometimes referred to as good stress.

When a person experiences stress, the body typically releases cortisol into the bloodstream. Cortisol is a hormone that causes physical changes in the body's response. Specifically, cortisol increases blood pressure and blood sugar. Cortisol is such a regular aspect of the human stress experience that it's come to be called the stress hormone. From a biological standpoint, cortisol's function is to prepare the body to physically respond to an imminent danger. The increasing of blood pressure and blood sugar provides the body an energy solution that can be used in defense or to flee. Cortisol's origins likely go back to the times when our human ancestors faced regular predatory threats.

What makes cortisol an asset to the human body equally makes it a detriment. Elevated rates of blood pressure and blood sugar degenerate vital organs, especially when the elevations are chronic. When blood pressure increases, vital organs such as the kidneys, the heart, the arteries, the brain and others are put under strain. High levels of sugar in the blood can literally destroy bodily tissue. From a health standpoint then, we want cortisol to kick in when we absolutely need it, but not otherwise: the effects are potentially too damaging to the body, especially where they occur consistently over time.

Western medicine now appreciates how damaging stress can be, and whole medical programs have been established just for stress reduction. The reality is that most modern human beings very rarely if ever face predatory threat, but the stress reaction remains in place just the same. Turning this stress reaction off in all but the rarest of cases would be a big boost to any person's health.

Article Source: http://www.depositarticles.com

Zinn Jeremiah is a freelance author. For help with stress anxiety, visit anxiety help or anxiety treatment.

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