How Stress Affects Your Body

In this talk, hear from Sherrell Moore-Tucker, meditation teacher and wellness educator, as she explains how unmanaged stress affects your body. In particular how it affects your cardiovascular, respiratory, and muscular system.

Transcript

Hello,

My name is Shirelle Moore Tucker and I'm a community and corporate wellness educator based right here in the Washington,

D.

C.

Metro area.

And today I want to share some signs that you may be stressed out.

You know,

Many of us can identify with stress,

Especially in the workplace.

Stress is very commonplace in the workplace and it can seem very normalized at times.

But stress is something that impacts us.

Not only mentally,

But also physically.

So let's talk about some of the ways that stress can impact you that you may or may not be aware of.

Stress can impact our muscular system.

So what happens is our muscles begin to tense up to protect themselves from injury or whatever that stressor is.

And they tend to release again once you relax.

But if you're constantly under stress,

Your muscles may not get the chance to relax.

Tight muscles can cause headaches,

Back and shoulder pain,

As well as body aches.

Have you ever been in a situation where you may go to the doctor and they run a series of tests and nothing?

They find absolutely nothing.

And sometimes your doctor will say,

Well,

What is your stress level like?

And so what essentially they're saying is that there's nothing structurally wrong that may come up on an X-ray or an MRI,

But it's how your body is responding to these particular stressors.

Your muscles begin to tense and tight muscles can cause a lot of pain.

Now let's talk about our respiratory and our cardiovascular systems.

Stress hormones affect our respiratory and our cardiovascular systems.

During the stress response,

You breathe faster in an effort to quickly distribute oxygen-rich blood to your body.

So if you already have a breathing problem like asthma,

Stress can make it even harder to breathe.

Did you know that when you are under stress,

Your heart also pumps faster?

Stress hormones cause your blood vessels to constrict.

Divert more oxygen to your muscles so that you'll have more strength to take action,

But this also raises your blood pressure.

And also as a result,

Frequent and chronic stress can make your heart work too hard for too long.

So when your blood pressure rises,

So does your risk for stroke and heart attack.

And this is not to be doom and gloom,

But this is really just to educate us that stress is not just commonplace in work and something that we need to just chalk up as the norm.

This is something that we want to become more aware of and we want to get ahead of.

So what are some other symptoms of stress that many of us may discount?

Fatigue,

Headaches,

Skin inflammation,

And muscle tension.

Sometimes when you're really stressed out,

You can experience chest pains or rise in blood pressure.

I can identify with this one.

When I'm stressed,

I have issues with digestion.

IBS is on the rise as well as GERD and other gastro issues.

When many of us are stressed,

We have difficulty sleeping.

Insomnia is on the rise,

Not only with adults,

But also with children.

And another common symptom of stress that many of us may not be aware of is brain fog.

And the best way that I like to define brain fog is you don't feel fully present.

You don't feel clear.

There's no clarity in your thought.

You literally feel like you're walking through a fog.

So what do the experts have to say about all this?

So according to the American Psychological Association,

Experiencing stressors over a long or a prolonged period of time can result in long-term drain on the body.

When we think about the automatic nervous system,

It continues to trigger physical reactions,

And it can cause a wear and tear on the body.

Inasmuch what chronic stress does to the nervous system is it really wreaks havoc on the nervous system and all of the processes of the nervous system.

This is something that we may not necessarily be aware of,

But when we take a moment to pause to listen to what the experts say and what the data says,

We definitely can do a better job with being aware of our stress and some things to help us better manage stress in our lives.

So my question to you is where do you hold stress in your body?

You'd be surprised to know that you can hold stress in your head.

You can hold stress in your jaw.

It's very common to hold stress in your neck,

Your shoulders,

And your back.

You can hold stress in your stomach as well as your hips.

Now when it comes to the physical pain associated with stress,

Sometimes we can look at what are some external factors that play a part in this.

So some causes of muscle tension can be social conditioning and trauma,

Psychological tension,

And environmental stressors and habits.

So if you sit at a desk all day,

How frequently are you getting up and walking around,

Moving your arms,

Moving your legs?

Neck stretches.

Those are very,

Very important.

It's very important for us to consider how we move and not just how we work throughout the day.

Work should include movement,

Not just working all in the head and analyzing data and speaking and having meetings and typing.

But there is a beauty to the fullness of your body.

You're not just all head,

But you are head,

You are neck and shoulders,

You are torso,

You are hips and legs.

And unfortunately,

When we are working,

We forget about the other parts of ourselves that are so,

So important.

So remember this,

When you are working,

Be aware of how stress is affecting your mind and your body and all the systems that are working and flowing for you that day.