The Effects of Stress

The Effects of Stress

Stress is a serious condition that can affect any part of the body at any time.  In fact, stress-related conditions are not mutually exclusive.  In other words, just because you have an ulcer doesn’t mean that you can’t suffer from headaches or muscle pain as well.

What is more, you can also experience rotating symptoms.  One week you might have a stiff neck that disappears on Tuesday morning only to be replaced by stomach cramps in the afternoon.  On Thursday, your stomach feels fine, but you develop a headache, and so on.

What parts of my body can stress effect?

            Research does show that stress seems to have a preference for Gastrointestinal system, Masticatory, Musculature of the back, cardiovascular system and skin.

Gastrointestinal – If your emotions collect in this area, you’ll probably suffer from chronic indigestion, nervous stomach, spastic colon, peptic, ulcers, or duodenal ulcers, to name a few of the common disorders.

Masticatory – As we all know, real men and brave women grit their teeth and go through with whatever unpleasant task is assigned to them.  It’s too bad that teeth weren’t made to be gritted-or clenched or gnashed.  Nonetheless, many people use their teeth to work off daily frustrations.  If you’re one of them, you’ve probably managed to force the jaws out of balance.  Unbalanced jaws are a primary cause of chronic muscle pain in the head, neck, and shoulders, as well as in the rest of the body.  If you were place to this imbalance on the stress scale, it would be worth about 100 points.  But unlike life events that cause stress for a certain, defined period of time, a jaw imbalance is not temporary.  The strain it places on the body is a 24-hour-a-day load, which can last a lifetime.  Unbalanced jaws are a fairly recent discovery as a major cause of muscle-contraction pain.

Musculature of the back – Back muscles are often stiff and weak from too little exercise-a prime target for tension build-up.  Make one wrong move with a tense back and you could be in for a lifetime of low-back discomfort.

Cardiovascular – This category includes the heart and other muscles connected with the vascular system.  Hypertension is the most common expression of stress in this system.  Chest pains come in for a close second.

Skin – Psoriasis, eczema, and hives are debilitating skin problems that can be precipitated by stress.  Less severe skin reactions include flushing and blotching.   These symptoms are the total body’s reaction to stress and tension.  They act as an offshoot of the body’s adaptive capacity to withstand stress.

This is especially true of muscle-contraction pain.  Muscular discomforts are not just a result of tension.  An underlying skeletal imbalance often exists that causes the muscle to remain tense regardless of the emotional climate.  Many of us have skeletal structure that is a little to long or too short, but the muscle strain the structural imbalance causes doesn’t affect many for years.  Often, these tissues will become sore and painful only when they are further insulted by stress and tension.  Stress will always attack the weakest part of your body.  Muscles that are already strained because of a skeletal imbalance are a perfect target for further injury.

Because the effects of poor adaptive capacity are cumulative, it is important to call Unlimited Wellness Institute at 702-920-6556 to care for them as soon as they appear.