Stress: it’s something that we all experience at one point or another. In fact, in this day and age, it can sometimes feel like our default mode when we’re juggling things like a stressful job, financial issues, relationships, and just being constantly exposed to stimuli from the daily grind.   But this stress reaction, which is part of your normal human “fight or flight” response to danger, can actually go haywire when it becomes chronic. What’s worse, it isn’t just inside your head: stress can impact your hormones, particularly the “stress hormone” cortisol, and this can go on to have very real consequences on your physical health as well as your mental health.

The problem is that your body can’t tell the difference between an actual, acute threat and an extremely urgent deadline at work or a pressing financial issue — it reacts with the same stress response. When you’re stressed out, your endocrine system reacts by releasing various hormones that help you respond quickly to that perceived danger, including cortisol. Obviously, stress doesn’t feel good and can impact your quality of life if you’re constantly on edge. But what’s more, high cortisol levels are also linked to serious issues like anxiety and depression [1]. Those high cortisol levels can keep you awake, leading to problems sleeping. It’s even a potential contributor to “brain fog,” a collection of frustrating cognitive symptoms like impaired memory, learning, and difficulty concentrating that make it harder to focus on all of your daily tasks [2].

In addition to the impacts on your mental health, high stress levels can also have very real consequences on your physical health. For example, one of the most well-known responses that your body has to stress is that it can increase your blood pressure. But cortisol can also literally change the way that your body metabolizes foods, releasing blood sugar into your bloodstream to be used as quickly accessible energy in case you need to make a quick getaway. This reaction is helpful during actually dangerous situations, but when you’re constantly on high alert, this can mean that chronic stress is linked to metabolic issues like unexpected weight changes and even type 2 diabetes [3]. It can mess with your gut microbiome, the collection of bacteria and other microbes that live in your intestines. It can weaken your immune system, leaving you at a higher risk of becoming sick. At worst, constant stress can also eventually lead to major health issues like heart disease and metabolic diseases due to the elevated risks of high blood sugar and high blood pressure [4].

Beneficial ways to improve and manage your stress include exercising daily, eating a low-carb diet, increasing your water intake (half your weight in ounces), meditation, practicing mindfulness, and practicing breathing techniques, to name a few. Additionally, we’d also recommend IV therapy, such as high dose Vitamin C and Enhanced Chelation to reduce inflammation along with taking an hour to relax after each treatment.

While stress is one of our base survival instincts, many of us are experiencing stress at much higher and more consistent levels. Even though it isn’t always possible to control the circumstances that stress us out, we do have the means to manage our own responses to them in order to minimize the damage that they can have on our bodies and minds over the long run. By taking care of our mental health with healthy lifestyle choices, as well as taking endocrine-supporting supplements like CopaCalm when necessary, we can give our bodies the support they need to handle all the stressful issues we encounter without impacting our physical or mental health in the long run.

By taking care of our mental health with healthy lifestyle choices, as well as taking endocrine-supporting supplements like CopaCalm when necessary, we can give our bodies the support they need to handle all the stressful issues we encounter without impacting our physical or mental health in the long run.

Research / Support Links:

• [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5976254/
• [2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5619133/
• [3] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30623794/
• [4] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36224493/