Stress can have a profound effect on your immune system and is a major contributing factor in its break down. Everyone has stress. It’s unavoidable. How you deal with your stress could have a good deal to do with how healthy you are overall and how often you get colds and flus.
In our daily lives, we have both good and bad stressors. Good stress motivates us to get things done. Bad stress makes us feel isolated, tense and sometimes like we are crawling out of our skin. Like we, no matter how good the intent, just don’t have enough time, intelligence, drive or whatever is called for to get everything we feel that we have to accomplish done. In the end it makes us feel inadequate and often depressed. This leads to even more physical stress and strain on the body causing a further emotional and physical break down.
In a world where everyone is striving to get ahead and keep up with the Joneses, is it any wonder why so many turn to prescription pills looking for a quick answer? After all, all you need to do is watch the television and you are bombarded with drug manufacturer ads filled with smiling people who seem to have the world at their feet now that they have discovered the new magical (fill in the blank drug).
In the past four years alone the number of prescriptions written for antidepressants has risen 43%. All of these drugs, self admittedly by the pharmaceutical companies themselves, have side effects that range from mild to possibly life-threatening with some even permanent. The FDA has become notorious for approving a drug only to see it within a very short amount of time on commercials for Law Firms with headlines like “If you have taken this drug and suffered injury or death, (like you can call them if you happen to be in the unlucky few that have suffered death) please call us and join the class action suit”. With drugs being pulled off the market as fast as they are approved is it any wonder people are looking for a more natural form of healthcare?
*Dr. Ronald Dworkin tells the story of a woman who didn’t like the way her husband was handling the family finances. She wanted to start keeping the books herself but didn’t want to insult her husband. The doctor suggested she try an antidepressant to make herself feel better. She got the antidepressant, and she did feel better, said Dr. Dworkin, a Maryland anesthesiologist and senior fellow at Washington’s Hudson Institute, who told the story in his book “Artificial Unhappiness: The Dark Side of the New Happy Class.” But in the meantime, Dworkin says, the woman’s husband led the family into financial ruin. “Doctors are now medicating unhappiness,” said Dworkin. “Too many people take drugs when they really need to be making changes in their lives.”
There have been numerous studies done on this connection even giving it a scientific term “psychoneuroimmunology”. In laymen’s terms, psychoneuroimmunology means the study of the mind-body connection giving credence to the idea that thoughts are indeed things (vibrational frequencies), which can translate into physical symptoms based on emotionally stressful conditions.
It has been shown that repressed immune response due to depression can actually intensify the growth and even begin the onset of cancer cells in lab animals and human patients.
So, now that we know and understand this, what do we do? The stress has not magically disappeared due to knowledge and understanding. But it is a great place to start!
Sometimes the human body does need some outside support. For these times a more holistic approach is suggested. There are many herbs and supplements, grown naturally, that have a mood-elevating effect and help to support the immune system – St. John’s Wort, CoQ10, 5HTP, DHEA, Inositol, Antioxidants and so on.
It has been said that the definition of insanity is to do the same things over and over expecting a different result. We fully agree. If you want things in your life to change, you have to change things in your life! In an upcoming blog, we will discuss stress reduction and some simple things you can do to simplify and make your life more enjoyable.
Chiropractor in Ft Myers, FL, and Naples, FL
Chiropractic care is a safe, alternative treatment when applied appropriately. Chiropractic treatments help in dealing with the symptoms of many conditions. Are you going to wait for your symptoms to be felt, or are you going to prevent it as soon as possible?
Dr. Jason B. Kaster, a chiropractor in Fort Myers and Naples, can help you and your family achieve their optimal health.