How To Prevent Stress Related Ailments?

Take steps to prevent or reverse stress related health issues.

Chronic stress takes a toll on the body; it contributes to everything from high blood pressure and heart disease to anxiety, digestive disorders, and slow wound healing. On the flip side, managing stress helps control many chronic conditions or reduce the risk for developing them. Strategies include regular exercise, a healthy diet, and better sleep. And one strategy in particular – eliciting the relaxation response – may enable you to manage stress right down to your genes.

THE ANTI-STRESSOR

The relaxation response is the opposite of the body’s stress (fight or flight) response. It can help lower blood pressure, heart rate, breathing rate, and stress hormone levels.

“It does even more than that: When you elicit the relaxation response, you secrete beneficial hormones and reduce the activity of harmful genes,” says Dr Darshan Mehta, medical director of the Harvard-affiliated Benson-Henry Institute for Mind Body Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital.

RELAXATION RESPONSE AND GENES

In the past decade, several studies from the Benson-Henry Institute have suggested that the relaxation response is associated with changes in genes that influence health. Among the findings are effects on the following: