How Does Emotional Stress Affect the Body?

Increasingly more people are affected by emotional stress. This condition triggers a series of reactions in your body that involve your sympathetic nervous system. It was scientifically proved that high levels of emotional stress could even be life threatening. However, the effects of emotional stress vary from individual to individual. But how does emotional stress affect the body?

Physical effects of stress usually occur through the neuro-endocrino-immunological pathways. One of the main signs of excessive stress is tension in the body muscles. I some extreme cases, people suffering from emotional stress could have an accelerated heart rate or even loss of some physical faculties. This condition alters the heart rhythms, causes blood to become stickier, and causes hypertension, which occurs when adrenalin is released by the adrenal glands under stress conditions.

Emotional stress also seems to reduce the immune system's response to infections. Other physical effects of stress could also include low back pain, spasm, increased heart beat, tremors, sweating, constipation, diarrhea, hair loss, increased frequency of urine, and much more. Stress response can also cause sleep disturbances, diabetes, and impotence, infertility in women, allergies, skin disorders, and memory loss. The fact is that people react differently to stress and some are more affected than others.

It is very important to know that every time when you are stressed, the body tries to fight against the potential danger by activating the main fighting organs like muscles, respiratory system, and heart. In addition, the intestine and the brain are strongly connected by many hormones and nervous system. For this reason, some of the effects of emotional stress usually include peptic ulcers, irritable bowel syndrome, inflammatory bowel disease, weight gain, weight loss, eating disorders, and other stress-related conditions.

Sources:

http://www.stress.org/Effects_of_stress.htm The American Institute of stresshttp://www.stressfocus.com/stress_focus_article/reduce-emotional-stress.htm

http://www.wrongdiagnosis.com/e/emotional_stress/basics.htm