Well, Let’s elaborate how can stress weaken your immune system? Our brain feeds on its surrounding environment; it is sensitive to all kinds of responses; love, anger, hate, stress, excitement. The study shows that if a man lives in the dark-colored room for long hours, he will most likely be depressed or short-tempered, but a man held in a vibrant color room will show signs of happiness.
Stress can be both good and evil; when a man is in an unexpected situation, out of his comfort, he discovers his abilities just like in exercise; muscles are kept under stress to grow. But the extent of everything is terrible. If stress has overdosed, more than the body can resist; it may show signs of retaliation, that is, do the opposite of good, harm our body.
Stress can cause our immune system to weaken because when our body is under pressure, more than it can handle,
Cortisol, also known as the stress hormone, is the police patrolling in our body, visiting our organs from time to time to fix the damage. It is continuously released when under stress, a low dosage is right for the body’s immune system, but continuous supply may lead to dangerous effects. Since cortisol travels in the bloodstream throughout our body, it will reach our heart. When it enters the heart, the heart gets a signal to beat faster than usual. This increase in heart rate will cause our blood pressure to be high. When a high percentage of blood is pumping into the vessel, the traffic will jam, which will cause the build-up of cholesterol-fats in arteries or blood vessels. All of this is the root of causing a heart attack.
Our body is a system of a network, where the CPU is the brain and computer our body. When we are under stress, our brain’s autonomic nervous system communicates with the intestinal nervous system, the controller of the stomach, and intestines. When we eat our stomach digest the food by releasing several digestive juices, in stress, the stomach releases more than regular juices, which are acidic, this release in return causes our stomach to burn. The continuous secretion of stomach juices digests the food quickly than expected, to which our brain tells to eat more food of high calories and fats to gain more energy, which results in gaining weight.
When stress hormones are released unnecessarily, it over tires the immune system; hence, when we need the antibodies to fight off the bacteria or intruders entering our body, it is too tired to work — resulting in a weak immune system which makes our body system sensitive to sickness; flu, fever, diarrhoea, and other diseases. The best example of this is AIDS, also know as acquire immune deficiency syndrome, notice the words immune deficiency in it.
The overtired immune system affects our mood. When we are sensitive to allergies, always in fear of getting sick, depression and anxiety will knock on our door. It also affects our growing process.
Excess cortisol production affects the reproductive organs; in males, it affects the sex drive- production of testosterone, resulting in less, unhealthy production of male reproductive cells called sperms. In females, it causes the irregularity in menstruation- periods, difficulty in arousal, terrible mood swings, complications in pregnancy- affecting the fetus (unborn baby), and affects a mother-child bonding.
Stress can compromise our immune system, ability to comprehend or respond to certain situations. Find out the root of the problem; fix it before stress takes over you.