| Stress
Impacts Irrespective of what you do, you have and will experience stress at some time in your life. In a recent survey 89% of respondents described experiencing "high levels of stress". Every week, 75% of us suffer some kind of stress related symptom. In women, stress has been linked to fatigue, hair loss, bad complexion, insomnia, disruption of the menstrual cycle, low libido and lack of orgasm, among others. There's even evidence that it can increase your risk of more serious problems such as high blood pressure and heart disease. Stress speeds up your entire system and produces conditions in younger people that are more commonly associated with growing old. Virtually no part of your body can escape the ravages of stress. Studies show that stress can reduce the power of our immune systems. A study in the U.K. exposed 266 people to a common cold virus and then tracked who became sick. 28.6 percent of those with few signs of stress caught the cold. However, the figure jumped to 42.4 percent for those who were under high stress. Stress increases heart rate and blood pressure. It changes the inner lining of our blood vessels, making our blood more likely to clot. Stress may change the way cholesterol is handled by our blood vessels and, in doing so, may increase plaque formation. A study of 5,872 pregnant women in Denmark showed that women who are under moderate to high stress in the last trimester are 1.2 to 1.75 times more likely to give birth prematurely. Learn more about how stress specifically can affect you in our "Early Warning Signs" Section |
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