Seventy-five to ninety percent of all doctors visits are due to stress-related ailments or disorders.
Stress is your body’s physical and psychological response to anything you perceive as overwhelming. This may be viewed as a result of life’s demands, pleasant or unpleasant, and your lack of resources to meet them.
Stress is a natural part of your life. Without some stress you would lose your energy for living.
Chronic acute stress leads to an out of balance biochemistry with elevated cortisol and suppressed serotonin. These biochemical markers of stress in turn lead to ill health and psychosocial disorders. Consequently, stress plays a major causative role in both physical and mental health.
Biochemical Responce to Stress
- increased catecholamines
- increased corticotropin
- increased cortisol
- return to baseline levels when the challenge disappears
Reference: McEwan BS. Protective and damaging effects of stress mediators. New England Journal of Medicine. 1998;338(3):171-179
Stress can affect the onset of, or susceptibility to disease. It can also affect the progression or course of disease, even when there is another cause of the disease; and stress can affect one’s recovery from disease.
Stress has been linked to:
- cancer
- diabetes
- breakdown in the immune system
- alcohol and substance abuse
- cardiovascular disease
Related Research findings:
Effects of Chronic Stress on the Brain
Chronic stress creates excessive levels of cortisol in the brain, impairing the function, short term and contextual memory …
Effects of Stress on the Immune System
Chronic stress affects the immune system by increasing sympathetic activity and decreasing cellular immunity …
Effects of Stress on the Cardio System
Chronic stress can create significant damage to the cardiovascular system by increasing the risk of coronary artery disease …
Normal and Abnormal Responses to Stress
When stressed, your body creates extra energy to protect itself, somehow the energy must be channeled into responses to regain a balance …
Our immune system weakens, we tend to be more reative (rather than responsive), more gaurded, defensive (crying over spilt milk), and most importantly – our quality of life, our life satisfaction is lowered.
Vedic Meditation is one of the most powerful techniques available for reducing stress and anxiety. That means that you no longer store as much stress and tension in your body and start responding to life with a positive attitude – relaxed, resliient and care free. It is also one of the easiest to learn and simplest to practice.
If you are in Auckland (NZ) call me on 09 419 5380, or email to to find our how Vedic Meditation could help you achieve better health.