Stress
According to Wikipedia:
“In psychology, stress is a feeling of strain and pressure. Stress is a type of psychological pain. Small amounts of stress may be desired, beneficial, and even healthy. Positive stress helps improve athletic performance. It also plays a factor in motivation, adaptation, and reaction to the environment. Excessive amounts of stress, however, may lead to bodily harm. Stress can increase the risk of strokes, heart attacks, ulcers, and mental illnesses such as depression.”
Stress is unavoidable. He we react and adapt to stress is a complex interaction between our genetics, upbringing, previous trauma, nutrition, support system and personal beliefs. What is a mild stressor to one person may be more intense for another person depending on all of these factors.
Many people talk about the adrenal gland being our stress gland and it is true the adrenal gland is activated in response to stress and releases hormones, but what you don’t often here is how these hormones and stress in general affects so many other hormones and functions in our body.
We evaluate your stress response in multiple different ways including Blood Pressure, Pulse, Labs (including thyroid, insulin, glucose, Cholesterol, B vitamins etc). We can also use Brain Mapping to assess the stress response in your brain. Patients especially prone to depression and anxiety may benefit from Neurofeedback as well as nutritional support.