How Does Stress Affect The Body Professor Ramos Blog

How Does Stress Affect The Body What is stress? Any intrinsic or extrinsic stimulus that evokes a biological response is known as stress. The compensatory responses to these stresses are known as stress responses. Based on the type, timing and severity of the applied stimulus, stress can exert various actions on the body ranging from alterations in homeostasis to life-threatening effects and death. In many cases, the pathophysiological complications of disease arise from stress and the subjects exposed to stress, those that work or live in stressful environments, have a higher likelihood of many disorders. Stress can be either a triggering or aggravating factor for many diseases and pathological conditions. In this study, we have reviewed some of the major effects of stress on the primary physiological systems of humans. A natural reaction Have you ever found yourself with sweaty hands on a first date or felt your heart pound during a scary movie? Then you know you can feel stress in both your mind and body.  This automatic response developed in our ancient ancestors as a way to protect them from predators and other threats. Faced with danger, the body kicks into gear, flooding the body with hormones that elevate your heart rate, increase your blood pressure, boost your energy and prepare you to deal with the problem.  These days, youre not likely to face the threat of being eaten. But you probably do confront multiple challenges every day, such as meeting deadlines, paying bills and juggling childcare that makes your body react the same way. As a result, your bodys natural alarm system the â€Å"fight or flight† response may be stuck in the on position. And that can have serious consequences for your health. Photo by rawpixel.com on Pexels.com How does stress affect the heart? people who are under intense stress often seem to dramatically keel over from a heart attack, but that’s extremely rare. The real danger is the accumulated impact of chronic stress, which contributes to each of the top five risk factors for developing heart disease: abnormal cholesterol levels, diabetes, high blood pressure, obesity, and smoking. How does stress affect the brain? Chronic stress can make your brain behave in an Alzheimer’s-like manner. Stress adversely affects a key structure in the brain, the hippocampus, leading to impaired memory and problems with orientation and sense of direction. These brain changes may have evolved to protect against the memory of traumatic and stressful events, like being attacked by a predator; but losing short-term memory hinders today’s brain-intensive lifestyle. We all recognize the frustration of forgetting where we put our keys, names of people we just met or other recent events.  Nor does stress help you function any better on brain-intensive tasks. In one study, scientists studied brain blood flow while subjects performed tasks that required sorting large amounts of data essentially stressful multitasking. They found that the prefrontal cortex, the â€Å"executive† part of the brain used for planning, execution, reasoning, and organization, was initially very active but then tired and sh ut down. That left the â€Å"reptilian† brain, the impulsive and emotional brain, in charge. Pay attention to how your emotions transform in the midst of multitasking, typically moving from initial clarity to confusion and frustration. How does stress disrupt sleep? When you’re continually stressed, your body constantly pulses out stress hormones, which make it harder to fall asleep and impair the deepest stages of sleep. That can lead to hyperarousal insomnia a state where your mind and body are easily woken by sounds or by your own stressful thoughts. No longer can you sleep as soundly as a baby.    Does stress make you age faster? One study compared a group of women caring for disabled children with a group of women whose children had no disabilities. In particular, the researchers compared their telomeres, protective sections of DNA that are known to be a genetic marker for aging. Telomeres routinely wither and get shorter with time, but external factors, including stress, can accelerate this process. The study found more prominent premature aging in the high-stress mothers caring for disabled children. In fact, it translated into that group being 10 years older at a cellular level than the other group, who were the same chronological age. The 35-year-old stressed mothers looked closer to 45. Pressure points Even short-lived, minor stress can have an impact. You might get a stomach-ache before you have to give a presentation, for example. More major acute stress, whether caused by a fight with your spouse or an event like an earthquake or terrorist attack, can have an even bigger impact.  Multiple studies have shown that these sudden emotional stresses especially anger can trigger heart attacks, arrhythmias, and even sudden death. Although this happens mostly in people who already have heart disease, some people dont know they have a problem until acute stress causes a heart attack or something worse. Chronic stress When stress starts interfering with your ability to live a normal life for an extended period, it becomes even more dangerous. The longer the stress lasts, the worse it is for both your mind and body. You might feel fatigued, unable to concentrate or irritable for no good reason, for example. But chronic stress causes wear and tear on your body, too.  Stress can make existing problems worse. In one study, for example, about half the participants saw improvements in chronic headaches after learning how to stop the stress-producing habit of â€Å"catastrophizing,† or constantly thinking negative thoughts about their pain. Chronic stress may also cause disease, either because of changes in your body or the overeating, smoking and other bad habits people use to cope with stress. Job strain high demands coupled with low decision-making latitude is associated with increased risk of coronary disease, for example. Other forms of chronic stress, such as depression and low levels of s ocial support, have also been implicated in increased cardiovascular risk. And once youre sick, stress can also make it harder to recover. One analysis of past studies, for instance, suggests that cardiac patients with so-called â€Å"Type D† personalities characterized by chronic distress face higher risks of bad outcomes. What you can do Reducing your stress levels can not only make you feel better right now but may also protect your health long-term.  In one study, researchers examined the association between â€Å"positive affect† feelings like happiness, joy, contentment and enthusiasm and the development of coronary heart disease over a decade. They found that for every one-point increase in positive effect on a five-point scale, the rate of heart disease dropped by 22 percent.  While the study doesnt prove that increasing positive affect decreases cardiovascular risks, the researchers recommend boosting your positive effect by making a little time for enjoyable activities every day. Conclusion Altogether, stress may induce both beneficial and harmful effects. The beneficial effects of stress involve preserving homeostasis of cells/species, which leads to continued survival. However, in many cases, the harmful effects of stress may receive more attention or recognition by an individual due to their role in various pathological conditions and diseases. As has been discussed in this review, various factors, for example, hormones, neuroendocrine mediators, peptides, and neurotransmitters are involved in the bodys response to stress. Many disorders originate from stress, especially if the stress is severe and prolonged. The medical community needs to have a greater appreciation for the significant role that stress may play in various diseases and then treat the patient accordingly using both pharmacological, medications and/or nutraceuticals, and non-pharmacological, change in lifestyle, daily exercise, healthy nutrition, and stress reduction programs, therapeutic interventions . Important for the physician providing treatment for stress is the fact that all individuals vary in their response to stress, so a particular treatment strategy or intervention appropriate for one patient may not be suitable or optimal for a different patient. work cited   American Psychological Association, American Psychological Association, www.apa.org/helpcenter/stress. Goldstein, Elisha. The Now Effect: How a Mindful Moment Can Change the Rest of Your Life. Simon amp; Schuster, 2013. â€Å"Lower Stress: How Does Stress Affect the Body?† About Heart Attacks,   www.heart.org/en/healthy-living/healthy-lifestyle/stress-management/lower-stress-how-does-stress-affect-the-body.   â€Å"Stress Symptoms: Physical Effects of Stress on the Body.† WebMD, WebMD, www.webmd.com/balance/stress-management/stress-symptoms-effects_of-stress-on-the-body#1.   Wilson, Donielle. Stress Remedy: Master Your Bodys Synergy and Optimize Your Health. Empowering Wellness Press, 2013.  

Meanings, Examples and Observations of the Word Lexicon

Meanings, Examples and Observations of the Word Lexicon A lexicon is the collection of words- or the internalized dictionary- that every speaker of a  language has. It is also called lexis. Lexicon may also refer to a  stock of terms used in a particular profession, subject or style. The word itself is the Anglicized version of the Greek word lexis (which means word in Greek). It basically means dictionary. Lexicology describes the study of lexis and lexicon. See Examples and Observations below. Also see: JargonLanguage AcquisitionLexemeLexical CompetenceLexical DiffusionLexical-Functional Grammar (LFG)Lexical IntegrityLexicalizationLexical SetLexicogrammarLexicographerLexicographicolatryLexicograpyLexicologyLexisListemeMental LexiconMorphologyVocabularyVocabulary Acquisition Examples and Observations The lexicon of soccer (called football outside of the United States) includes terms such as linesman, friendly match, yellow card, penalty shootout, pitch, result, and draw.The lexicon of a stock trader includes terms such as delayed quotes, futures contract, limit order, margin account, short selling, stop order, trend line and watch list. Words by the Numbers [T]here are currently about 600,000 words in the English language, with educated adults using about 2,000 words in daily conversation. For the 500 most-frequently used words, there are some 14,000 dictionary meanings. (Wallace V. Schmidt, et al., Communicating Globally. Sage, 2007)  The English lexicon grew by 70 percent from 1950 to 2000, with roughly 8,500 new words entering the language each year. Dictionaries dont reflect a lot of those words. (Marc Parry, Scholars Elicit a Cultural Genome From 5.2 Million Google-Digitized Books. The Chronicle of Higher Education. December 16, 2010) Myths of Word Learning If you attend a class on language acquisition, or read any good introductory chapter on the subject, you are likely to learn the following facts about word learning. Childrens first words are odd; they have funny meanings that violate certain semantic principles that hold for adult language and are learned in a slow and haphazard way. Then, at about 16 months, or after learning about fifty words, there is a sudden acceleration in the rate of word learning- a word spurt or vocabulary explosion. From this point on, children learn words at the rate of five, ten, or even fifteen new words a day. I will suggest here that none of these claims are true. They are myths of word learning. There is no reason to believe that childrens first words are learned and understood in an immature fashion- and there is considerable evidence to the contrary. There is no such thing as word spurt, and two-year-olds are not learning anywhere near five words per day. (Paul Bloom, Myths of Word Learning. Weavin g a Lexicon, ed. by D. Geoffrey Hall and Sandra R. Waxman. MIT Press, 2004) Language Acquisition: Grammar and Lexicon In a review of findings from language development, language breakdown and real-time processing, we conclude that the case for a modular distinction between grammar and the lexicon has been overstated, and that the evidence to date is compatible with a unified lexicalist account. Studies of normal children show that the emergence of grammar is highly dependent upon vocabulary size, a finding confirmed and extended in atypical populations. Studies of language breakdown in older children and adults provide no evidence for a modular dissociation between grammar and the lexicon; some structures are especially vulnerable to brain damage (e.g., function words, non-canonical word orders), but this vulnerability is also observed in neurologically intact individuals under perceptual degradation or cognitive overload. Finally, online studies provide evidence for early and intricate interactions between lexical and grammatical information in normal adults. (Elizabeth Bates and Judith C. Goodman, On the Inseparability of Grammar and the Lexicon: Evidence from Acquisition, Aphasia and Real-time Processing. Language and Cognitive Processes. The Chronicles of Higher Education. December 1997) Acquisition of the lexicon and acquisition of the grammar are ... parts of a single underlying process. (Jesse Snedeker and Lila R. Gleitman, Why It Is Hard to Label Our Concepts. Weaving a Lexicon, ed. by D. Geoffrey Hall and Sandra R. Waxman. MIT Press, 2004)