What is Stress?

Stress is an inevitable part of life. We are born with the response to stress to protect ourselves from danger and stay alive. It is a natural and normal reaction for our body experiencing through any positive and negative changes. A built-in response to protect ourselves from danger, stimulating different hormones in our system associated with the fight or flight response. 

It is unlikely to have a life completely free of stress, but we are not designed to deal with chronic and constant stressors from our modern society. Naturally, we are wired to handle short episodes of stress, and then return to a normal state, until the next surge; but nowadays, with the modern lifestyle we are living in it is important to be familiar with the concept of Chronic Stress and Chronic Stressors, and understand the mechanism. 

You may be familiar with the concept of acute and chronic stress: where acute stress is caused by a short-term event and goes away quickly; whereas chronic stress is experienced for a longer period of time, lasting for weeks, months, and even sometimes for years. 

In a normal acute stress, our body function is put on hold for survival, and our regular maintenance function, digestive system, reproductive system, and immune activity are slowed down. Specific hormones are secreted in higher quantities temporarily into the bloodstream to escape and cope with the danger, along with other hormones to compensate, repair, and build faster the body’s function after the event happened.

With chronic stress (and repeated action of stressors), the body’s system becomes stuck on high stress levels ending secreting stress hormones and oxidative stress for a too long period of time, depleting our body system, and creating an imbalance between particles attacking our cells (like free radicals) and the molecules helping reconstruct and detoxify our cells (like antioxidants) leading over time to mal-function in the body with a chronic stress cascade of overwhelming symptoms, cells damage, aging, and diseases.  

As a result, Chronic Stress and Stressors symptoms could be:

• Weight issues,
• Digestive problems,
• Gut issues,
• Chronic Inflammation,
• Brain fog,
• Skin issues,
• High blood pressure,
• Weak immune system,
• Chronic health and wellness concerns,
• Thyroid and hormonal problems,
• Adrenal issues,
• Immunodeficiency,
• Autoimmune disease,
• Heart issue,
• Insulin resistance,
• Anxiety,
• Emotional burden,
• And many many more since symptoms may be far removed from the actual cause. 

By definition, overall symptoms are not the problem, they are the results of the problem; and when one function in the body is not working correctly, the whole system cannot properly function in the long run. 

As a consequence, our overall body is impacted by chronic stress and chronic stressors and our mindset, our emotions, our behaviors, our actions, and our reactions are affected even more as a reflection of how we experience life! 

What are Chronic Stress and Chronic Stressors, you may ask? 

To go in-depth on the topic I invite you to join the workshop waiting list "Chronic Stress & Stressors Introductory Workshop". We will talk about how our overall body and mind are impacted by the different factors of stress resulting in various health and wellness concerns, and in correlation with behavior patterns and lifestyle habits we might have. We will also talk about natural and holistic solutions by understanding :

• How to recognize what Stress is?
• What are the different forms of stressors and the possible root causes? 
• What triggers them and their potential correlations with health & wellness concerns and symptoms?
• And how to reduce the overflow of stressors as much as possible to maintain our health as whole: physically, mentally, emotionally, and energetically?

Contact me to enroll in the workshop and if you have any questions.

Stephanie