Be aware of consequences of stress and do not lose control over it!

It is well-known that stress is destructive; it might cause many kinds of disorders (e.g. anxiety disorders), weaken your immune system and make you amenable to diseases and even lead to death. A wide range of potential stress consequences and unclear links between the environment and man have highlighted a need for multidisciplinary research in medicine, genetics, psychology, neuroscience, etc.

Around 1930s the first insights were gained into stress-health relations and a term “stress” was coined by Hans Selye who discovered that cortisol, a stress hormone, had a long-term effect on the health of rodents.Since then it has been revealed that this hormone, generated in adrenal glands of kidney, has both positive and negative effects on human beings’ health. When we are in danger it might help mobilize our internal recourses and increase our adaptability to the changes in the external setting. It might increase heart rate and respiration as well as improve availability of glucose in our blood. When there is no need to “fight”, the levels of cortisol decrease to a normal condition in about an hour after the irritation.

However, such responses require a lot of energy and bring about deterioration of the physical processes in the organisms from problems with reproduction and immune system to slowing down physical growth and digestion. The chance of getting such problems is high if stresses occur frequently or when the brain constantly perceives something as a stress (might be a danger, mental pressure, etc.). Cortisol also restrains neuron growth in the hippocampus which is an essential part of the brain for forming new memories. Thus, stress can result in memory impairments. Another consequence is that it can impair the brain’s ability to reconstruct the emotional contextual of memories.

The changes occurring to the brain are deemed to be at the core of the linkage between stress and its most devastating results, such as for example depression or posttraumatic stress disorder. We should be aware that not only significant things, e.g. divorces, abuses, etc. are reasons for getting stressed. On the contrary, stressor can be some minor things like loud and talkative neighbors, traffic jams or bad weather. The bad thing is that stress can “accumulate”: any consequences of stress, e.g. heart diseases or depressions are at the same time cause of new stresses and threats to our well-being and health. It is necessary to get control over such kind of reactions as it might hasten aging and physical decline.