Stress

STRESS AND BLOOD PRESSURE

That dreaded word stress, how does it affect us and what damage can it do ? Is stress related to high blood pressure. What can be done about it ? May be its time to investigate the highly popular word stress.

I say highly popular because stress is a big thing in our world today. People have time off from work due to stress, people get ill from stress and ultimately stress can probably kill you. So what is stress ? Stress is a reaction in our body that releases certain chemicals into our blood stream and is a response to us being under some kind of pressure.

There are many things that can cause stress such as the pressure of our jobs, worrying about something like finances or family, we can get stressed out from being in a dangerous situation or from being frightened from something.

We all get stressed out at some point and probably on a fairly regular basis, it is a part of life and our bodies deal with it. But it is when we are constantly getting stressed for long periods at a time and not getting any release from it that can start to cause us problems with our health.

Things happen in our bodies when we are under stress, our heart beats faster and blood flow speeds up, the tension in our muscles increases and our breathing gets faster to bring more oxygen to our muscles now this is fine if we have to deal with a situation that requires us to use these things. But if we are not using these things because we are stressed or worrying constantly about something then stress can cause things like headache, digestive problems, concentration problems and although there are many more, one  important one is the rise in our blood pressure.

So being under constant stress is going to affect our health for the worse over time. Identify what is causing stress in your life and if possible change it, if this is not possible then you need to find something that will help you relieve your stress. There are many techniques that can help with stress and I will be looking at some of these to include in some future posts.