How Stress Impacts Your Health
As soon as you feel stressed your sympathetic nervous system kicks into gear preparing your body to fight or flee from whatever is causing you stress… Soon after the HPA (Hypothalamus, Pituitary, Adrenal) Axis comes into play. As you can see in the diagram below the hypothalamus notifies the pituitary gland which then sends a hormone to the adrenals, which tells it to stimulate the production of the hormone cortisol. Cortisol has a number of effects on the body including: Increased heart and respiratory rates Slowing down digestion Putting immune system ‘on hold’ Causing blood to flow to large…Read more …