Stress

Nearly 70% of all healthcare visits are related to stress. Research clearly shows that chronic stress actually causes structural and functional damage to the brain. Stress hormone elevations disrupt other hormone levels and destroy brain neurons, leading to the mood disorders and fatigue commonly observed in those who experience great stress for long periods.

Long-term stress can increase the risk of suffering from a barrage of age-related diseases ranging from hardening of the arteries, high blood pressure, sexual dysfunction, anxiety, depression, dementia, chronic fatigue, obesity, and even cancer. There is much evidence that at the root of all disease is an element of stress in physical, chemical, or emotional forms. This is commonly referred to as the “Triad of Health.”

To make things very simple, the hypothalamus (in the brain) releases hormones that act upon the nearby pituitary gland that then releases hormones to act upon the adrenal glands (adjacent to the kidneys). This hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal circuit is known as the HPA axis and is the core of our very complex stress response. It governs the production of stress hormones like cortisol and epinephrine (aka adrenaline) and can easily be disrupted by toxins, nutritional deficiencies, and imbalances in the nervous system. Stress really can kill you, and it increases daily according to (and often because of) our media reports.

The Stress Response: The car in front of you unexpectedly brakes, and your attempt at avoiding a collision causes immediate action. You sweat, your heart races, and you may instantly develop that familiar rush associated with any emergency. Your body, without planning, efficiently redirects blood flow to major muscle groups, increases blood pressure, releases sugar into the bloodstream, dilates the pupils, and shuts down digestive processes to conserve energy and ready your body for impending emergency. Your brain coordinates and executes all of this within a fraction of a second.

You have often heard this referred to as the “fight or flight response” with which we are all familiar. A short-term stress response such as this is good, for it ensures our survival. A long-term response, on the other hand, can be devastating.

Our modern environment is filled with endless combinations of financial, social, emotional, and physical stressors. All of these modern worries chronically activate the stress response in a very unnatural way, leading to elevated stress hormone levels and accompanying changes in physiology.

Of special note is cortisol, a catabolic hormone that breaks down tissues. Very simply, too much cortisol suppresses the immune system, while too little causes an overactive immune system, leading to an endless array of common autoimmune conditions. Cortisol receptors are expressed all throughout the body including the brain; therefore, disruption of the synthesis and release of cortisol affects every system of the body.

Medical Treatment

Regrettably, conventional medicine often relies upon powerful psychoactive drugs to mask stress and its effects. This strategy often fails to address the biochemical causes that contribute to the various manifestations of stress. Also, cholesterol-lowering drugs have a profound effect on human physiology, since cholesterol is a building block of the cortisol hormone. By chemically tricking the body, drugs exacerbate the problem. Now, the patient must counteract the original issue as well as the additional prescription chemical.