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  Cramming for a test? Trying to get more done than you have time to do? Stress is a feeling we all experience when we are challenged or overwhelmed. But more than just an emotion, stress is a hardwired physical response that travels throughout your entire body. In the short term, stress can be advantageous, but when activated too often or too long, your primitive fight or flight stress response not only changes your brain but also damages many of the other organs and cells throughout your body.   Your adrenal gland releases the stress hormones cortisol, epinephrine, also known as adrenaline, and norepinephrine. As these hormones travel through your bloodstream, they easily reach your blood vessels and heart. Adrenaline causes your heart to beat faster and raises your blood pressure, over time causing hypertension. Cortisol can also cause the endothelium, or inner lining of blood vessels, to not function normally. Scientists now know that this is an early step in triggering the process of atherosclerosis or cholesterol plaque build-up in your arteries. Together, these changes increase your chances of a heart attack or stroke.   When your brain senses stress, it activates your autonomic nervous system. Through this network of nerve connections, your big brain communicates stress to your enteric, or intestinal nervous system. Besides causing butterflies in your stomach, this brain-gut connection can disturb the natural rhythmic contractions that move food through your gut, leading to irritable bowel syndrome, and can increase your gut sensitivity to acid, making you more likely to feel heartburn. Via the gut’s nervous system, stress can also change the composition and function of your gut bacteria, which may affect your digestive and overall health. Speaking of digestion, does chronic stress affect your waistline? Well, yes. Cortisol can increase your appetite. It tells your body to replenish your energy stores with energy-dense foods and carbs, causing you to crave comfort foods. High levels of cortisol can also cause you to put on those extra calories as visceral or deep belly fat. This type of fat doesn’t just make it harder to button your pants.     It is an organ that actively releases hormones and immune system chemicals called cytokines that can increase your risk of developing chronic diseases, such as heart disease and insulin resistance. Meanwhile, stress hormones affect immune cells in a variety of ways. Initially, they help prepare to fight invaders and heal after injury, but chronic stress can dampen function of some immune cells, make you more susceptible to infections, and slow the rate you heal.   Want to live a long life? You may have to curb your chronic stress. That’s because it has even been associated with shortened telomeres, the shoelace tip ends of chromosomes that measure a cell’s age. Telomeres cap chromosomes to allow DNA to get copied every time a cell divides without damaging the cell’s genetic code, and they shorten with each cell division. When telomeres become too short, a cell can no longer divide and it dies. As if all that weren’t enough, chronic stress has even more ways it can sabotage your health, including acne, hair loss, sexual dysfunction, headaches, muscle tension, difficulty concentrating, fatigue, and irritability. So, what does all this mean for you? Your life will always be filled with stressful situations. But what matters to your brain and entire body is how you respond to that stress. If you can view those situations as challenges you can control and master, rather than as insurmountable threats, you will perform better in the short run and stay healthy in the long run. As found on YouTube AnimationStudio ꆛ☣ꐕ Be The “Middle Man” And Profit With AnimationStudio Agency License. Here’s How You Can Earn $100, $200, or even $300 For Every Video You Create With AnimationStudio… Activate Your Profit Machine With The Agency License … $197/month For Just $67 One Time Payment

  Many of us will experience some kind of trauma during our lifetime. Sometimes, we escape with no long-term effects. But for millions of us, those experiences linger, causing symptoms like flashbacks, nightmares, and negative thoughts that interfere with everyday life. This phenomenon, called post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, isn’t a personal failing; rather, it’s a treatable malfunction of certain biological mechanisms that allow us to cope with dangerous experiences. To understand PTSD, we first need to understand how the brain processes a wide range of ordeals, including the death of a loved one, domestic violence, injury or illness, abuse, rape, war, car accidents, and natural disasters. These events can bring on feelings of anger and helplessness, which activate the brain’s alarm system, known as the “fight-flight-freeze” response. When this alarm sounds, the hypothalamic, pituitary, and adrenal systems, known as the HPA axis, work together to send signals to the autonomic nervous system. That’s the network that communicates with adrenal glands and internal organs to help regulate functions like heart rate, digestion, and respiration. These signals start a chemical cascade that floods the body with several different stress hormones, causing physiological changes that prepare the body to defend itself.   Our heart rate speeds up, breathing quickens, and muscles tense. Even after a crisis is over, escalated levels of stress hormones may last for days, contributing to jittery feelings, nightmares, and other symptoms. For most people, these experiences disappear within a few days to two weeks as their hormone levels stabilize. But a small percentage of those who experience trauma have persistent problems —sometimes vanishing temporarily only to resurface months later. We don’t completely understand what’s happening in the brain, but one theory is that the stress hormone cortisol may be continuously activating the “fight-flight-freeze” response while reducing overall brain functioning, leading to several negative symptoms. These symptoms often fall into four categories: intrusive thoughts, like dreams and flashbacks, avoiding reminders of the trauma, negative thoughts and feelings, like fear, anger, and guilt, and “reactive” symptoms like irritability and difficulty sleeping.   Not everyone has all these symptoms or experiences them to the same extent and intensity. When problems last more than a month, PTSD is often diagnosed. Genetics, ongoing overwhelming stress, and many risk factors like preexisting mental illnesses or lack of emotional support, likely play a role in determining who will experience PTSD. But the underlying cause is still a medical mystery. A major challenge of coping with PTSD is sensitivity to triggers and physical and emotional stimuli that the brain associates with the original trauma. These can be everyday sensations that aren’t inherently dangerous but prompt powerful physical and emotional reactions.     For example, the smell of a campfire could evoke the memory of being trapped in a burning house. For someone with PTSD, that memory activates the same neurochemical cascade as the original event. That then stirs up the same feelings of panic and helplessness as if they’re experiencing the trauma all over again. Trying to avoid these triggers, which are sometimes unpredictable, can lead to isolation. That can leave people feeling invalidated, ignored, or misunderstood like a pause button has been pushed on their lives while the rest of the world continues around them. But, there are options.   If you think you might be suffering from PTSD, the first step is an evaluation with a mental health professional who can direct you toward the many resources available. Psychotherapy can be very effective for PTSD, helping patients better understand their triggers. And certain medications can make symptoms more manageable, as can self-care practices, like mindfulness and regular exercise. What if you notice signs of PTSD in a friend or family member? Social support, acceptance, and empathy are key to helping and recovery. Let them know you believe their account of what they’re experiencing, and that you don’t blame them for their reactions. If they’re open to it, encourage them to seek evaluation and treatment. PTSD has been called “the hidden wound” because it comes without outward physical signs. But even if it’s an invisible disorder, it doesn’t have to be a silent one. As found on YouTube AnimationStudio ꆛ☣ꐕ Be The “Middle Man” And Profit With AnimationStudio Agency License. Here’s How You Can Earn $100, $200, or even $300 For Every Video You Create With AnimationStudio… Activate Your Profit Machine With The Agency License … $197/month For Just $67 One Time Payment

  [Music] and now we’re going to talk about feelings physical feelings and emotional feelings that we may experience when we’re feeling stressed so the physical feelings can vary from anything to having headaches or tension in her head even dizziness we can have a drying month anything that you are having tension and tightness in any of our muscles even sometimes pain but even or a jaw our shoulders are still like any any part of our body can experience physical tension we can feel that our heart is racing more we can fit in our breath is shallower or faster you can feel that we’re sweating more you can also have problems with indigestion possibly even going to toilet more often these are all really normal physical symptoms of when we’re feeling stressed the difficulties that may be there happening more often or maybe when you don’t feel that there is an actual stress at the moment the other thing with feelings is emotional feelings so some of the symptoms of emotional feeling that we have when we’re feeling stressed would be feeling apprehensive or feeling of dread even the feeling of fear we might be looking and watching for signs of danger like looking to see what what do we see may be more vigilant in what we’re looking for in a supermarket when right in the street who’s touched water who’s close to me things that we hear people talking and on the news and you know even if there’s lots of noise going on maybe were more sensitive to noise and what we’re hearing we could be anticipating the worst we could be having difficulty with feeling temps and feeling we’re jumpy maybe feeling more irritable this can impact on our emotions hugely we can also have difficulty concentrating and also feeling like our mind has gone blank it’s just really hard to think about things there’s just some examples of how we might feel physically and emotionally so try to keep track of those and write them in your diary as we talked about before and it might be difficult to have a pinpoint what exactly I’m feeling right now or emotionally or physically but just you will get used to that maybe over time with practice so try to keep it up and the more you are where you are how you’re physically and emotionally and morally be able to address them later so coping with some of the physical and emotional symptoms one of the first things we can do is exercise you know that exercise is really good for us and it’s really important for our mental health and if you’re walking the Lots people are walking now which is fantastic if you can walk if you have an exercise routine that you’ve been doing and you can keep up that’s brilliant or if you’ve been looking to start a new one online or calling some of the programs have been on TV that’s fantastic other ways that we can get exercise or even just around the house so things like doing hoovering are if you have two twenties in your house maybe instead of go to do quick under stairs toilet to go up and down the stairs more disability tips like that can help you to do more exercise around the house if it’s difficult to get out it’s also important to not feel like you have you know under stress that because you’re not exercising it’s a lot of surfing like oh I’m just motivated I’m just not feeling like doing it today nothing like doing I would normally do so it’s really important there to just think like where are you at today how are you feeling today and what would be helpful today so even if you have a routine where you’re doing a little bit of exercise every day and then you wake up this morning from what I just don’t feel like doing any of that figure out where what would be best for you so even if you don’t feel like doing your whole routine doesn’t necessarily mean you don’t have to any exercise today you can even just like I was saying like do a bit of coopering or do a little bit extra rent a house or you can just walk a little bit more around the house even just to sit out so I can get the fresh air that you would have got when you’re going on a walk that will all still be really beneficial rather than doing that doing nothing and then feeling bad that you haven’t so diet at the moment it can be difficult to keep with our normal diet what we were doing before and how we were eating regular meals and at the moment we’re spending more time at home and we’re more likely to snack to comfort each to have some more chocolate than we normally do to have more alcohol than we normally do to have more indulgent in our food or the opposite you could be feeling anxious and not want to eat or eating less and you we do so our diocese is a bit off and you know what if we’re all waiting or having those extra bits of chocolate that’s fine comfort eating is okay we have to just see where we’re at a way of what’s gonna help us and what’s not as things come back to normal we’re gonna be able to collect our diet and things will naturally come back and our routines will naturally come back and it’ll be easier than to say no to those different things you have to remember I suppose as well that there’s a fine line between what’s helping us if we’re going to have that extra snack or those extra bits of food or those extra drinks that is how far is that going to be good and help us and then where’s the line that oh it’s actually not great because it’s it’s too much it’s making us feel bad or feeling more sluggish or more tired or worse for it the next day so it’s really good to just figure out you know what where is my limit at and how can I be at my best one my diet the other thing is that there is research to say that food definitely can have a calming effect on us so for example and complex carbs can be really good and have a calming effect so I think we know that brown breads and brown passes are much better for us to eat and they actually have that a calming effect compared to deploy pasta and bread obviously avoiding things like caffeine is really important because I can lead to more anxiety and it can also affect your sleep and keeping hydrated is really really important and being dehydrated can actually affect your mood and how you’re feeling so if you can change any of your diet it to help with your anxiety that would be really great sleep it’s really important for us all to get good sleep sleep is a time where our brains ever take process all the information that we get during the day and help us to get through that and understand it and be ready and prepared for the following day sometimes and with everything that’s going on there the minute your head hits the pillow is the time that all the thoughts come on the worries calm your thinking about what happened today what will happen tomorrow what could happen in the future and that’s normal at the moment we’ve given what’s going on but it can be really hard and then it can affect your sleep and have them knock-on effects so one thing that can be helpful for that is to use a worry period or a worry journal so what that can be and it can be different for everybody but even that’s before bed or if there’s another time during the day where you find it useful to sit down and write down every worry every thought that you have in this diary just get it all out get it onto some paper and write everything down every worry every thought everything that’s really getting to you and then once you’ve even at that time so people do it as a 3-minute thing whether it’s like to spend a little bit more time but see what works for you but just getting it down to paper and getting it out of your head is such a go-to process and at that point then you close your book you say that is my time for doing that worry and period and now that I would do that again tomorrow at that same time and I will not think about it after – and even if does go all water it’s know I’ve talked about that already and I can think about it again tomorrow but for now I’m gonna just relax so that can be really really helpful there are things in terms of sleeping what can be really helpful is just having good habits and trying to keep a good awake and sleep pattern well I know we can all be go to bed a bit later or getting up later at the moment sleeping err stainer pajamas for longer different things but it’s really good to try and just keep a good routine try and get up in the morning at a certain time make your bed then get your clothes on have your shower do all those rituals and habits that you already have because that will help you feel better so relaxation meditation mindfulness these are all really really good practices to help us manage our stress and anxiety so relaxation can be anything you find to be relaxing to help you calm down and chill out I mean for some people it can be reading it could be playing some music it could be drawing what is it that you feel that you do and before you know it the time has passed and you just feel so much more relaxed and better off or it can be just very very simple things that you can do around your heads but just to be mindful of what are those things that you enjoy is it that showering first thing in the morning that just wakes you open it’s really relaxing and helps you sets you up for the day so there are other and in terms of relaxation there’s letter a very purposeful relaxation techniques such as deep breathing the body scan progressive muscular relaxation and visualizations in terms of meditation this is something where you’re not trying to think about things but you’re trying to transcend your thinking and there’s lots of really great meditation techniques out there and relaxation techniques so even though Beaumont Hospital have a really great resource on their website if you want to check that out or anywhere else you feel has a good and something that works for you might wellness then it’s mindfulness we can do in our everyday life so even if you you can do mindful walking mindful eating I’m mindful drawing anything that you’re doing can be mindful so if you are making a cup of tea for example you can display I’m okay so I thought into getting a cup where the teabags where it’s my kettle love to wait for the caffeine okay then we pour a tea to stirring it around and how it’s the house feeling and just being aware of the different sensations like what am I seeing what am i hearing what sounds even if you’re walking in on your daily walk to kilometres or even if you’re sitting in your garden or sitting on a balcony what can you see what can you hear what can you smell can you taste anything what can you feed on your skin there’s even taking those senses and being aware of what they are it can be really really helpful just to be present in the moment and not to worry about all of the different things so it can be really helpful for managing stress so managing your emotional symptoms around stress so everything before it’s really good to identify what emotions you’re feeling if are you feeling stressed sad worried fearful dread anticipating what is it that you’re feeling and then once you can identify them it’s really good to try and figure out a way to just let the mountain some emotional outlet so so for example if you’re feeling worried about something or worried about any of the things that are happening it’s really good to talk to somebody to share your worries as they say problem sharing is upon so some somebody that you can talk to and get those worries off your chest can be really helpful if your feelings that maybe is something like washing a really sad movie or listen to some math sad music and just letting out those emotions letting them be it’s okay to be sad it’s okay to be worries you know these things are normal in this situation just to be able to let them out if you’re angry how about flipping some pillows are making a bed something that lets you be quite physical and get that anger out or if you’re feeling just anxious or jittery and in your body maybe just dance and come on shake your hands and shake your hips and just have fun and just let that anxiety out it’s really good to have an emotional outlet and to be able to address those feelings to help you cope with anxiety and stress [Music] you   As found on YouTube AnimationStudio ꆛ☣ꐕ Be The “Middle Man” And Profit With AnimationStudio Agency License. Here’s How You Can Earn $100, $200, or even $300 For Every Video You Create With AnimationStudio… Activate Your Profit Machine With The Agency License … $197/month For Just $67 One Time Payment