Abbie's health and fitness UK

Health and fitness, women over 30s fitness training

All Stressed Out?

Stressed Out?!

The modern world in which we live now is designed to draw you in, it stimulates your brain with advertising, it’s constantly receiving a barage of emails from work or spam, there’s always things to do and things to remember. While it can be said we are generally less physically active than we would have been 50 years ago, our brains feel constantly plugged in and wired.

We constantly feel under pressure to perform in our modern lives. This can often be from the moment we wake up to the moment we fall asleep exhausted. Stress can affect people in different ways some people cope better than others. This can be partly due to genetics and partly due to the individuals surroundings and perspective on life. Stress is not a bad thing in certain situations it can be good. It provides the body with a boost of hormones that help us get through the task or situation at hand in the distance distant past stress would’ve helped your body flea and attack from a predator or help you stand and defend your home from a warring tribe. Then your body would regulate itself and once safe switch off the adrenaline and other hormones caused by the stress placing the body into a parasympathetic state. However, some people now find themselves overwhelmed with stress and their bodies do not switch from the sympathetic state back to a parasympathetic state meaning their bodies are being flooded constantly with adrenaline and cortisol adding stress to the body itself. The world in which we now live may not have warring tribes or predators ready to tackles round every corner, but it does have micro stresses that buildup and have the same effect. One way we can help combat this is through exercise. This can help the body burn off excess energy and if you choose an exercise form such as yoga this can help the body reset and return to the rest and digest or parasympathetic state.

Breathing is another aspect to consider, if we are a mouth breather and our breath is shallow and rapid. Then this can put our body under stress, whereas if we are a nasal breather and breathe deeply and slowly then this helps the body relax.

Stress causes the fight or flight response this is primarily down to hormones called adrenaline and no adrenaline which increase the bodies blood pressure and heart rate and give you that panicky feel. Cortisol is another stress hormone that releases fat and sugar into your system providing your body with a boost of energy allowing you to escape from any perceived threat. However, it is often found that peoples fight or flight response is not switching off after the perceived threat has gone this results in an overstimulation of the body in the hormones produced. This can result in physical and mental issues such as headache, nausea, indigestion, dizziness, palpitations and can in the long-term even put you in a higher risk of heart attack or stroke.

Exercise is a natural combatant to stress as it produces endorphins which are the brains feel good neurotransmitters. This is often called the exercise high and can improve your mood and mental alertness with just a short burst of activity such as a 10 minute walk. exercise can also be beneficial for increasing chemicals in the brain that help you focus on important tasks and functions. It also can improve your cardiovascular system reducing your risk of heart attack or stroke it also helps reduce. Symptoms of depression and anxiety and can also help increase self-confidence and improve sleep quality .

 According to the website; Anxiety and Depression Association of America ADAA.org , scientists have found that regular participation in aerobic exercise has been shown to decrease overall levels of tension elevate and stabilise mood improve sleep and improve self-esteem even five minutes of aerobic exercise can stimulate the anti-anxiety effects. This could be dancing in your kitchen, doing a park run or going down to the gym for a spin class as long as you elevate your heart rate for a minimum of five minutes it will be beneficial in beating stress.