Stress is short for distress

Distress describes an unpleasant influence by forces outside or even inside your body trying to tear you apart. Distress can come from your environment, your body, and even your own thoughts. Your adrenal glands are chiefly responsible for regulating the stress response through the synthesis of corticosteroids and catecholamines, including cortisol and adrenaline.

The opposite of stress is the state of homeostasis, A greek word meaning equal standing or balance. Homeostasis is the process your body uses to balance itself against stress. So, while stress is constantly trying to pull you apart, homeostasis is constantly working to put you back together.

Rather than causing one time damage, stress accumulates over time. Homeostasis then, must be constant, relentless, and dynamic in working to return you to a normal, balanced state. It does this no matter the direction stress is pulling you, and your life depends upon it.

Homeostasis is essential to your health and should be supported. Maintaining Homeostasis involves your whole body, including:

• Your adrenal system
• Your brain and nervous system
• Your immune system
• Your hormonal system
• Every other body function

Stress triggers the fight or flight mechanism

Your body will prioritize resources to meet specific demands of stress. When faced with fight or flight, your body prepares to do battle or run away, two actions that require fuel right now!

When under extreme stress, your body first looks for excess nutrients, but if none are found, it gets fuel from organs that aren’t necessary for survival. If you were being chased by a lion, digestion wouldn’t be useful for your survival and the body would temporarily stop the digestion process and redirect those nutrients to be used as fuel for your muscles to run away. The same is true for other non-essential organs and systems (like the reproductive system, immune system, nervous system)—nutrients are literally stolen in an attempt to survive.

Assuming you survive the stress, homeostasis begins to send the nutrients back to those systems, but it doesn’t do it all at once. Although they are taken quickly, they are returned slowly, just in case there is another lion around.

This deficit accumulates over time. Gradually, you begin to show signs of chronic stress that we call premature aging:

• Your blood sugar becomes more difficult to control
• Your arteries begin to clog up with cholesterol
• Your muscle mass begins to melt away
• Enzymes in your cells begin to turn off
• Caremelized sugars begin to damage your brain and nerves
• You can't think and you have no energy

Your body cannot stand this kind of stress and it breaks down. This illustrates why you need nutrients from food and supplements to combat stress. The more nutrients you have “on board”, the less fuel your body will have to steal during a crisis. With the proper nutrients and nourishment, you will be able to resist the relentless killer that stress has become in our society.

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