How Stress Affects Your Body
If your mind is a car, when you have stress your thoughts are the driver and you are the passenger; hold on because there are no seat belts and no speed limits!
What happens is that your mind creates what we call a “mini-movie” in your mind; “Well if __ happens then I am going to __, and that’s gonna make her say ___, so then I’m gonna say ___, and you know that he will then do ___, which will make me __ and then….and then…. (Cue loud explosion here).”
When we have stress, no matter what kind, the end of your “mini-movie” will consistently be negative (that’s putting it lightly).
The reason stress impacts your body is because your mind convinces you body that the horribly graphic finale of your stressful “mini-movie” is happening right now. Your mind is powerful enough to tell your body that it needs to prepare for that horrible scene this very instant, which leads to heart racing, chest pain, nausea, sleeplessness, hypertension, etc. Furthermore, your mind doesn’t take into consideration where you are, so these physical symptoms can begin to happen at work, at home, at school, or even as you’re driving. That’s how powerful your mind is!
According to The American Institute of Stress, 3 out of 4 doctor visits are stress-related ailments (“Stress is Killing is You” www.stress.org).
If you look at your own health and/or people around you, it may not take you too long to believe it. With the high academic standards at school, relentless quotas or numbers required from work, or bottomless items aimed to help you stay current on social media, stress impacts us all. Our body is literally designed to handle what is realistically expected of a human being in a 24 hour period; this gets overloaded when we are thinking about yesterday, today, tomorrow, next week, him, her, that, me, and them! No wonder our bodies are screaming for help.
We understand all this, as we too live through this and do our best to live a balanced life. A good marker to see how far you are pushing your body is to take a boldly transparent assessment of your body.
How do you treat your body every day?
- Do you feed your body food that produces energy?
- Do you listen to your bodily cues for water, food, safety, or decisions that align with your core values?
If you are struggling with medical issues, can stress help you better explain some of the symptoms you are fighting against?
If this is tugging at your heart, here are even more important questions:
- What are you going to do about it?
- How much is your own health worth to you, really?
We hope you consider Alcántara Wellness as you evaluate what you are willing to do to give your mind and body the relief and balance it’s screaming for.