​ What is STRESS?

Stress is the rate of wear and tear in the body.

It is also defined as the general adaptation syndrome that has 3 stages, the alarm reaction, the stage of resistance, and the stage of exhaustion.

In other words, when we are under stress, we react immediately to what is causing the stress; we fight back to restore balance; and in the process, especially if we lose the battle, we feel burnout, exhausted, hopeless, depressed.

Every day we experience conflicts that destabilize us, so stress is the body's fight for health, to maintain the internal conditions of the body stable, to regain homeostasis.

When we can't resolve internal conflicts, we tolerate them, and we co-exist with them.

Conflicts that stay unresolved for a long time can lead to chronic anxiety and depression.

Diseases that result from stress include hypertension, heart disease, kidney disease, rheumatoid arthritis, gastrointestinal disease, autoimmune disorders, emotional illness, diabetes, cancer, backache, tendonitis, bursitis, allergies, and headache.

What is CORTICOSTEROID?

When we are under tension, the adrenal glands produce stress hormones called corticosteroids.

Prolonged exposure to high levels of corticosteroids can cause damage to many organs, including the heart, brain, and even arteries that carry blood through the body.

In fact, chronic corticosteroid exposure has been linked to both heart disease and Alzheimer's disease.

When we are young and corticosteroid levels rise, it is melatonin that cooperates with other hormones to quickly bring them back to normal.

But as we age and our melatonin level drops, its influence on corticosteroids also decreases.

As a result, the level of corticosteroids remains higher than normal for longer periods and so our exposure to these potentially harmful hormones increases.

By taking melatonin, we can bring corticosteroids back to the healthier levels of youth.

Many disorders of old age are the effect of the inability of our hormones to maintain physical balance as they once did.

In fact, diseases associated with normal aging like diabetes, heart disease and many types of cancer, are largely the result of what happens when the proper hormonal balance is upset.

By restoring that balance, melatonin can prevent many of these diseases and keep our body young.

Judy is 30 years old. She works in the bank as a teller.

She is constantly under stress as she has to deal with customer issues every day, and on top of that, her workplace is very competitive, so she needs to achieve the set targets if she wants to keep her job.

She is a single mum, and her daughter is still in primary school. She has many bills to pay and can't afford to lose her only income.

Her colleagues lost their job due to poor performance, so she feels even more pressured to do well.

She suffers from allergies and has to cope with terrible headaches every day. When that happens, she feels like banging her head against the wall to make it stop, to relieve the pain.

What causes Judy's allergies and headaches?

​References

Pierpaoli, Walter. La Chiave della Vita. Morlacchi Editore, 2007.

Lee, John R. Optimal Health Guidelines. BLL Publishing, 1999.

Selye, Hans. The Stress of Life. The McGraw-Hill Companies, 1978.