Stress seems to be at an all-time high for so many folks right now.  The uncertainty of schools, jobs and our health has caused people’s stress levels to go into overdrive.  It is important to take a few minutes to think about your mental and emotional health.  

When you hear the words “stressed out”, what images pop into your mind? Do you imagine your blood pressure going up? Or do you start to feel really agitated and angry? Anxious? Perhaps feeling emotional is a better description? Are you exhausted yet you can’t go to sleep or stay asleep?

Any or all of these symptoms could be a sign of being stressed out! The release of cortisol, your stress hormone, impacts your body in many ways and, over time, depletes it of nutrients.

What we call stress is a normal part of our body’s processing. When we encounter a stressful situation, our body immediately releases chemicals and hormones to help us handle the situation.

In response to these ‘life-threatening’ situations, our body releases our primary stress hormone, cortisol, which increases our blood pressure and our heart rate, increases the amount of glucose in our body, and increases our mental alertness.

Our stress hormones are designed to be released quickly, act quickly, and then dissipate. This release of cortisol also reduces other hormones and chemicals that ordinarily would help keep us calm and able to rest or sleep.

In our current society, we are more likely to find ourselves getting stressed about things that we do not have control over. 

Feeling out of control can emotionally affect us in the same way as a life-threatening event. Our bodies react in the same way, releasing cortisol and stress hormones.

This creates overuse of the stress response, which over time begins to rob our body of nutrients, minerals and the building blocks for our hormones.

We begin to have symptoms like constant fatigue, exhaustion, sleep deprivation, weight gain, high blood pressure and pre-diabetes.

Emotionally we may feel depressed or anxious. We may be constantly quick to anger or frustration.

How do we treat the cause? Quit our jobs and move to the countryside? While that might be nice, we aren’t even able to do that during this time.

We treat the cause by getting the right testing to uncover our hormonal imbalances and nutritional deficiencies.  Contact us to learn more about our testing options and regain true control of your mental, emotional and physical health.