Chronic Stress In America

Did you know that nearly one-third of Americans are living with extreme stress. Because of chronic stress, 77 percent of Americans have experienced physical symptoms and changes and 73 percent has been affected psychologically. Stress can affect you physically, mentally, and emotionally.
Stress can affect us physically in many ways. When a person is stressed, their body produces more of the so-called “fight or flight” chemicals to get your body ready for an emergency. (5)Your brain tells your adrenal glands to release adrenaline and cortisol. (2)Adrenaline and noradrenaline can raise your blood pressure, increase your heart rate, and also increase the rate at which you do things. (5)Adrenaline and noradrenaline also reduce your blood flow to your skin and reduce your stomach activity. All of these changes help make it easier for your body to fight or run
away.(5) Although these changes can help you defend yourself, they can be less helpful if you were stuck in a busy office or on an overcrowded bus. (5)You would not be able to use these chemicals your body has produced for you because you can not fight or run away in a busy place. (5)Over an amount of time these chemicals can cause changes and damage your health. (5) Chronic stress can make your heart work too hard for too long, which can raise the risk of hypertension and problems with your blood vessels and heart. (2)That also increases your risk of having a stroke or heart attack.(2) Stress hormones cause your blood vessels to constrict and cause your blood pressure to rise. (2)Chronic stress can also cause changes such as breathing more quickly or having palpitations. (5) People who have chronic stress are more likely to get viral illnesses such as influenza and the common cold.(2) Stress increases the risk of other diseases and infections. It can also increase the time it takes to recover or heal from an injury or illness. (2)Chronic stress can cause headaches, muscle tension, chest pain, fatigue, stomach upset, and sleep problems.(4) It can cause diarrhea, constipation, nausea, and dizziness.(6) Stress can have many effects on your cognitive abilities. Chronic stress can change the “Flight or Fight” process in your brain. The “Fight or Flight” process is a sequence of internal processes that prepares an organism to fight or run away.(3) This happens when an organism interprets a situation as threatening.(3) The response depends on how the organism has learned to deal with the danger. (3)Your central nervous system (CNS) is in charge of your “Flight or Fight” response, according to Ann Pietrangelo, who wrote an article on stress affecting the body.(2) When we think of a situation as dangerous, this judgement causes our brain to send messages to our autonomic nervous system to put many body reactions to stress in motion. (3)This type of response is helpful if you would have to confront an enemy or escape from a hungry animal. (3)When the so-called fear is gone, our central nervous system should tell all systems to go back to normal.(2) If the fear or stressor does not go away, it can damage your body. (2)Staying on guard all of the time against a threat eventually wears down your body’s defenses.(2) It can create serious health risk and healthy stress can turn into distress.(2) Neuroscientists at the university of California, Berkeley, have found that stress can cause long-term changes in the structure of your brain and how it works. (1)According the neuroscientists, chronic stress can decrease the number of stem cells that mature into neurons and might give an explanation for how stress affects learning and memory. (1)One way stress can affect you mentally is poor judgement.(6) An example of a poor judgement due to stress would be telling yourself that you’re gonna fail a test, so you don’t think there is a point or a reason to study. Chronic stress can cause people to forget things more easily than usual. (6)It can cause constant worrying. (6)Stress can also give someone anxious or racing thoughts. (6)Anxious or racing thoughts can make a person to distracted to the point of confusion. Distraction can also lead to that person not doing their job or getting their responsibilities done. Chronic stress can affect you emotionally by causing you to feel anger, fear, or frustration.
(5)It could also cause anxiety and irritability, which would make you more sensitive to things that happen. (2)Stress could put you into a state of depression, which could lead to behavioral changes. (6)Some behavioral changes would be eating more or less, sleeping too much or too little, staying away from others, and procrastination of responsibilities. (6)You could end up feeling the need to use alcohol or drugs to relax from the depression that stress causes. (6)Stress might cause you to have nervous habits, such as biting your nails. (6)Stress could put you on a roller coaster of emotions, such as sadness, being overwhelmed, agitation, and a sense of loneliness or isolation. (6)These emotions could cause mood swings. These mood swings could cause a person to change their mind or be set on a wrong decision. If someone was to do something little to the person, they might feel like everyone is against them and push people away. It could turn a person to be restless and have a lack of motivation or focus.
(4) Stress can cause you to have physical changes, it can change the way your brain works, and it can even change how you feel. Stress affects you physically, mentally, and emotionally. Eustress is good stress but without stress management, it can turn into chronic stress, which can be very unhealthy for your body, mind, and mood.