Mind over Matter : Brain and Stress

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Hello!

The past few weeks has been uneasy to all steemit bloggers due to the upgrade of #hardfork20. For me, I used that opportunity to make more research while I wait for the stability of the system.

Here we are, #steemit working fine and better. All thanks to team steemit for putting heads together in making this a reality.

In this article, we will be dealing with three subjects, "the brain, body and stress". The mind controls virtually everything in the human body. From thoughts, actions and reactions.

Which is why, each time the brain is not at rest, it affects us and our daily activities.

Based on research, the human brain holds about 14 million cells, and we cannot say that any one bit of it makes us wise, happy or good.

But there are sites for controlling movement and for taking data from each of the senses: and others for analyzing this data, and making our basic judgment from it.

"Mind over matter" tells how much importance the brain gives to conscious control of different parts of the body. like movement of the hands, feet, mouth, and tongue.

If we look at it in the other hand, "thought over matter", it tells how much importance the brain gives to its different informants : eyesight, hearing, smell, taste, and different points of touch.

But then, I will be dealing more with the subject "stress" and its different type as well as how it affects us as humans.

So let's begin....

Stress and Health

Stress is a nervous tension. The person may know he feels tense or he may not. It may be due to psychological or environmental issues. i.e, the person may be reacting to a mental or physical threat.

The threat may be chronic or acute (an event or a continuing situation).

The fact is that, stress occurs in a person's reactions to certain situations which apparently threaten him/her or exert pressure on him/her.

So whatever is the cause, stress in the end depends on the person's reaction not on the outside event.

The distinction between types of stress is important, though it is common to talk vaguely about the impact of stress in the body.

For the purpose of clarity, it is important to distinguish between psychological and environmental stress, which could be either acute or chronic.

Acute Psychological and Environmental Stress

Image source: Pixabay ( License : Public Domain)

Acute Environmental Stress is a situation whereby someone is walking slowly across the street feeling tired and suddenly see a car bearing down on him or her, then leap to the sidewalk, the body begins to vibrate and start panting breathlessly.

This situation is said to be "The fight or flight reaction syndrome" that has taken over him or her.

When a threatening event happens in the environment, the body has a specific reaction. Signals from the brain from the brain stimulate the autonomic nervous system (over which we have no conscious control).

This causes the release of powerful hormones which key up the body for action.

When the "fight of flight syndrome" take place, it goes with increase in rate and strength of heartbeat, rise in blood pressure , increase in blood sugar, increased muscle tension, dilation of nostrils and retraction of the eyeballs.

These speed the person's reactions and make him more capable of any supreme physical effort that the danger may demand, whether it is fighting or running away.

In the case of "acute psychology", it has to do with the psychological effect of a particular incident of which the impact may last over a long period of time. This type of stress is of two kinds, "conflict and change ".

Acute conflict may be with a person, or with an abstract such as time. It produces emotions of either anger or anxiety, and both are often accompanied by physical changes of the fight or flight syndrome. The link is an automatic one, over which we can have little conscious control.

In the case of "change", here no fight or flight is involved. But being faced with change and having to adapt to it does create psychological stress and recent research has also shown that it consistently results in physical illness, even though the process is not understood.

Chronic Psychological and Environmental Stress

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Chronic psychological stress depends much more on the person than on what happens to him.

For instance, someone promoted above his abilities will probably be under such constant stress, but some personalities may not be aware of the pressure, or of not being up to the job.

On the other hand, someone in a position well within his abilities may carry it out with constant drive and tension.

Perhaps it is because he does not realize he can do it easily, or because he wants to win promotion or simply because that is his way of going about things.

Everyday a town bus driver may face several incidents of acute stress, when a traffic accident threatens. But he is also working under constant conditions of chronic environmental stress, even if no such incidents occur.

This is as a result of the physical conditions of his work setting ( unpleasantly cramped and noisy) and the need for constant alertness and readiness in case incidents of acute stress do occur.

In these circumstances the body reacts with what has been named the "General Adaptation Syndrome" which means a long term adaptation to the presence of stress.

One of the above cause alone is sufficient. For example, noise polluted work conditions tend to set up permanently high blood pressure (and maybe high blood cholesterol levels).

The person eventually feels exhausted, mentally and/or physically.

Stress Symptoms and Management

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Like I said before, stress can affect our thoughts, characters, emotions, and health.

Symptoms of stress could be emotional like, frustration, anger, loss of control, restiveness, depressed, low self esteem, staying far away from others and so on.

It could be physical like, having low energy, headaches, constipation, pains, tense muscles, increased heartbeat, inability to sleep, loss of sexual desire and so on.

It could be cognitive like, disorganisation, forgetfulness, being negative and so on.

Stress could be behavioral, like eating too much, taking excessive alcohol or cigarettes, being nervous, and so on.

We can manage stress by relaxing, taking deep breath, meditation, yoga, or even getting a massage, keeping a sense of humor, socializing with friends and family. Have a good sleep and eat good food.

Conclusion

Stress has been part of our lives, there is no human that doesn't experience stress. Stress can occur during work activities ,school activities, challenging relationship, finance management and so on.

The most important thing is how we handle stress . If we know the symptoms we will be able to avoid the consequences that is attached to stress. Knowing that stress could wear us down and eventually make us fall sick both mentally and physically.

Most people have perfected the art of drinking alcohol or smoking cigarettes when they are stressed out.

But this is wrong! We can actually get better if we know our stress symptoms and manage it properly or better still see the doctor for counseling.

Thank you for your time!

References

[1] Meaning and Examples of Mind Over Matter
[2] The Effects of Stress on Your Body
[3] Stress Symptoms
[4 ] Stress effects on the body
[5] What is body stress?
[6] The impact of stress on body function: A review
[7] Stress symptoms: Effects on your body and behavior