Stress: love it or loathe it, it's here to stay but yoga can help
We've all felt it. Stress can boost performance or lead to chronic conditions such as fatigue, depression and poor health.
Scientific studies show, time again, that stressors have a major influence on our mood, sense of well being, health and behaviour.
The young and healthy, think Olympic athletes, may adapt better to everyday stressors, but for the older and less healthy population, the long-term effects of stress, if unremitting, can damage health.
“The relationship between psychosocial stressors and chronic disease is complex. It is affected, for example, by the nature, number, and persistence of the stressors as well as by the individual’s biological vulnerability,” a recent study on stress and health shows.
Your nervous system is key to all you do. It is composed of your brain, spinal cord and nerves. It contains the central nervous system (CNS) and the peripheral nervous system (PNS).
For the purpose of stress and stress relief it is the PNS system that bears a closer look.
Within the PNS you have the somatic nervous system, which guides voluntary movements and the autonomic nervous system, regulating activities you do without thinking about - think heart, lungs and gut.
The autonomic nervous system is divided into the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems. Pay attention to the former.
The sympathetic nervous system generates the “fight or flight” response through the release of norepinephrine.
The parasympathetic system balances the sympathetic by activating the “rest and digest” physiological processes.
These two systems work together to maintain homeostasis within the PNS.
The key for maintaining homeostasis, however, is work.
This is because as humans it is the flight or flight system that is easy to rouse BUT harder to calm.
