Fighting stress

               While most people associate the term stress with just mental stress, stress on the body can actually be caused by a variety of reasons, such as mental (stressful emotional situation), or physical (from an intense workout).  This incorrect understanding of what causes stress on the body can lead to bad consequences. For example an intensive workout in an attempt to remove stress from emotional reasons can even increase the stress on the body with additional physical impact.

         When the body is stressed, the pituitary gland becomes activated.  The pituitary gland is an important gland located at the base of the brain and it produces many hormones that travel throughout the body causing other glands to produce their hormones.  When the pituitary gland activated from stress it starts to produce adrenocorticotrophic hormone in large quantities. This hormone stimulates the activity of the adrenal cortex which in their turn start to produce a number of different hormones which go into blood including corticoids. Corticoids help the body adapt to stressful situations.

         However the impact of factors that caused stress can be so intensive that functional abilities of body can’t cope with the physiological consequences of stress. In this situation the destruction of the body happens.
Often stress (for example stress from conflict situations) can cause exhaustion of the functional abilities of adrenal glands and will significantly weaken the adaptive abilities of the body. Often stressful conditions can cause excessive activation of the autonomic nervous system. This can lead to the development of so called “diseases of adaptation”: hypertension, coronary disease , stomach ulcers or duodenum (intestinal ulcers).  Nervous and physical tension suppress the ability of a person's body to cope with stressful situations, affecting the immune system first. In stressful conditions people fall ill more often because the production of immune system cells is significantly reduced during a period of physical or psychological stress. It is not a coincidence that, for example, sportsmen are more predisposed to infections during periods of intense trainings.  Stress that occurs continuously , even if it is at low intensity, can lead to many diseases.

         However stress also plays positive impact in life. If the impact of the factors which cause stress is modest in relation to the adaptive abilities of the body then such levels of stress, if they occur for a short duration, can “train” the body and develops its adaptive abilities,  contributing to the overall improvement of health.

         The  way to fight stress is to increase the adaptive abilities of the body which is equivalent to the improvement of health. Moderate levels of stress are needed for the body to ensure an increase of its adaptive abilities. The best option to deal with stress better is moderate physical activity in conditions of the control of body’s functional state.  That’s why SäFitness is the most effective method to prevent negative outcomes from stress. And even better effect can be reached by combining SäFitness practicing with taking of “Evig Vår” and “Phoenix” products.