{"id":1102,"date":"2024-01-01T06:01:25","date_gmt":"2024-01-01T06:01:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/rajnidamboor.com\/?p=1102"},"modified":"2024-01-10T10:20:19","modified_gmt":"2024-01-10T10:20:19","slug":"under-the-pump","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rajnidamboor.com\/index.php\/2024\/01\/01\/under-the-pump\/","title":{"rendered":"Under The Pump"},"content":{"rendered":"

RAJGOPAL NIDAMBOOR<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

You are caught in a traffic jam. No big guess. You have an important meeting lined up. No real surprise. Welcome to the stress labyrinth \u2014 an inevitable part of our life and existence.<\/p>\n

Stress is more than just a warped logjam. It has biotic and functional nitty-gritties and psychosomatic outcomes. It changes the way we perceive the world, our senses, memory, judgment and behaviour.<\/p>\n

Most of the biological alterations that occur with the stress reaction are intended to jazz-up the body’s fuel depots \u2014 for instant use. This includes extra oxygen required for the organs most likely to need it \u2014 the brain and muscles.<\/p>\n

Act 1. Scene 1. Your pulse, blood pressure and breathing rate surge \u2014 to help increase the stream of available energy. Your heart, as you\u2019d know, beats faster under stress and pumps a greater quantity of blood with each beat. Your bronchial tubes dilate to assist the passage for more air with each breath. The blood vessels supplying the muscles expand just as well. Your palms and soles begin to naturally fill up with sweat, or perspiration, more so because a moist surface offers a much better \u2018grip\u2019 of things. In like manner, the pupils of your eyes dilate to let in more light and improve your vision. What next? Your cerebral awareness and response time are amplified.<\/p>\n

Act 2. Scene 1. When things go beyond one’s control, the whole effect impacts the parasympathetic nervous system. It leads to involuntary urination \u2014 like rushing to the washroom \u2014 and, also passing stools. This isn\u2019t all. During a stressful episode, long-term energy reserves, such as stored fat, are broken down into fatty acids and glycerol to be metabolised, pronto. Carbohydrates, \u2018stockpiled\u2019 in the liver, are, likewise, converted to glucose, as blood is thrust into the heart, muscles and brain.<\/p>\n

This, in effect, leads to the closing down of energy-consuming progressions, including salivation. The result is a dry mouth, loss of appetite and distressed bowels. It is chaos, all right. Yet, stress, to its core, is evidenced to provide the boost to your general level of arousal and awareness \u2014 to make you more responsive to signals from your sensory organs and less open to information that is of no instant concern. For example, in times of severe stress, an itch, or a runny nose, will not distract your attention.<\/p>\n

When your brain decides \u2014 consciously, or unconsciously \u2014 that all is not well, the hypothalamus is activated. The hypothalamus is the \u2018seat\u2019 of several electrical and chemical signals that trigger stress responses in our body. During the preliminary phase of a stress response the hypothalamus stimulates the nerve endings in the sympathetic nervous system and the adrenal glands \u2014 this causes them to release two hormones, noradrenaline and adrenaline. A slightly stressful activity, viz., public speaking may, by and large, bring forth a 50 per cent surplus in noradrenaline. People having chronic stress, or anxiety, tend to have a much higher, or persistently elevated, levels of adrenaline and noradrenaline, as also cortisol.<\/p>\n

Stress is our mariner\u2019s compass \u2014 it informs us of changes in our normal routine, or health. It also gives us the cautionary pointer before \u2018bad\u2019 things occur. Similarly, it indicates good and happy tidings. Picture this. The anticipation of getting a raise, or promotion, is stressful; so also being \u2018fired\u2019 from the job.<\/p>\n

Stress is evidenced to be one of the contributing factors for loss of emotional equilibrium, backache, sleeplessness, or insomnia, eating disorders, chronic fatigue syndrome [CFS], absence of menstruation [amenorrhoea], abnormal bleeding, fibroid tumours and cancer. Heart disease and diabetes are also stress-related. While some women experience changes in their sexuality and face certain sexual dysfunctions, such as loss of desire and vaginal dryness, because of stress, there are several others [men and women] who often feel the rebounding effects of stress \u2014 this includes headache and migraine, anxiety, depression and sleep issues, aside from lack of libido and fertility problems.<\/p>\n

Stress can trigger gastrointestinal disorders, including ulcers, abdominal cramps, colitis and irritable bowel syndrome [IBS]. What\u2019s more, it is not uncommon for people with severe stress to be subject to frequent colds, allergies, or infections, thanks to reduced immune system reaction time, or function. As a matter of fact, stress can set off certain skin problems, such as itching and rashes, as well as atopic dermatitis [eczema] and psoriasis.<\/p>\n

Not all stresses are stressful, or negative. If one deals with stress effectively, it can work and help us to reach our goals more quickly.\u00a0This is aptly called \u2018good\u2019 stress, or \u2018eustress\u2019 \u2014 it encourages and drives us to do well in life. Eustress can be defined as pleasant, also therapeutic stress. We can’t always circumvent stress, but we tend to, at times. It is such \u2018controlled\u2019 stress that gives us the big \u2018push\u2019 in performance-related activities, such as sports, job interview, public speaking, or acting. You\u2019d call them \u2018motivating\u2019 stress too \u2014 one that provides us with focus and \u2018pumps\u2019 us up with that famed competitive edge, while stirring us to think quickly, clearly and express our thoughts in ways that could amplify the whole process.<\/p>\n

In a study, a team of scientists found that our genetic make-up may be \u2018rewired,\u2019 courtesy of stress. The study found that a complex network of 160,000 genetic interactions in yeast cells, to highlight a fascinating corollary, or captivating paradigm, changed when subjected to stress. It also figured out that \u2018rewiring\u2019 was widespread. As a matter of fact, 70 per cent of the genetic interactions that happened when cells were under stress did not occur in normal cells. This could be a novel paradigm to \u2018swot\u2019 not only biological responses to stress, but also apply them to evaluating how cells deal with stress, illness and medical treatment. This isn\u2019t all. The \u2018information exchange\u2019 could shed new light on how our cells actually work under stress too.<\/p>\n

\u2014 First published in The Himalayan Times<\/em>, Nepal<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

RAJGOPAL NIDAMBOOR You are caught in a traffic jam. No big guess. You have an important meeting lined up. No real surprise. Welcome to the stress labyrinth \u2014 an inevitable part of our life and existence. Stress is more than just a warped logjam. It has biotic and functional nitty-gritties and psychosomatic outcomes. It changes […]\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1103,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[6],"class_list":["post-1102","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health-wellness","tag-featured"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rajnidamboor.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1102","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rajnidamboor.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rajnidamboor.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rajnidamboor.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rajnidamboor.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1102"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/rajnidamboor.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1102\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1134,"href":"https:\/\/rajnidamboor.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1102\/revisions\/1134"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rajnidamboor.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1103"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rajnidamboor.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1102"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rajnidamboor.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1102"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rajnidamboor.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1102"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}