All about stress management

Stress is a concept with blurred at what point can we say we're stressed?
We all have a different susceptibility to external actions according to our own experience. Stress, a term that comes from the English "distress", that is to say, distress, finally learning how to react to a particular situation. For example, the first time you will have a MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging), you will have all the symptoms of stress: the heart that accelerates, the stomach is tied, sweating. However, the person who is in his fifth MRI remain calm. This is what in English is called "coping" literally "face" that can be translated as "adaptation." It's a bit like a plant that changes its physiology depending on the climate. Stress is a phenomenon so necessary and even essential to our survival.

All about stress management

Do you feel that stress increases?
First it is necessary, it is normal that it increases. The problem lies in the negative perception of stress. When he became only do so if the body's response is inadequate.

The pressure of our work environment, our neighborhood is important. The International Labour Office (ILO) estimated at the beginning of this 21st century the number of people "stressed" in industrialized countries has doubled in 10 years. Women are more affected than men. The European Community estimated that between 3 and 4% of GDP burden due to these problems. In Quebec, in 15 years, the share of stress in the causes of absenteeism increased from 2% to 33%. All this obviously costs billions, not least by the lack of productivity. 

What are the mechanisms of stress in the body?
When we see a danger, a signal is transmitted in the brain cortex. It is then directed to the limbic system, which is where our primary brain responses arise as basic needs (food, protection, reproduction, desire), but also learning and memory phenomena. The information then goes down lower in the brain to the hypothalamus which, in particular, manufactures hormonal messengers. These hormones, released into the blood, act on the pituitary, and activate acetylcholine (ACTH). This hormone, in turn released into the bloodstream, acts on the adrenal glands, which has the effect of release of corticosteroids and epinephrine. This is what is called the axis of the stress or HPA axis.
While corticosteroids are going to have an anti-inflammatory role, adrenaline helps bring such sugar which muscles need to allow us to run when there is a such aggression.  

Stress can be a stimulant or lead to anxiety; what is the difference between good and bad stress?
I often give the following example: a mother cross the street with her young child, a car suddenly occurs. As an adult, the mother "stressed" back on the sidewalk or short get away to the other side of the road.

Stress and the internal mechanisms that are linked allowed it to respond quickly. However, the child is not stressed: he does not perceive the danger for want of having experienced. It is this experience that allows us to react in the most appropriate way to a given situation. In general stress is good if we can return to balance. As said Claude Bernard, our system like homeostasis, that is to say the ability of an individual or an organization to keep or regain his balance through regulatory systems mechanism.  

But our body is it still up? 
If the system is overworked, some people can string stress, anxiety (anxiety) and depression. Using a drug is required. This will allow to better regulate a number of small molecules of the brain called neurotransmitters. And mood disorders such as anxiety or depression are underpinned by malfunctioning of these neurotransmitters. Such deregulation of these neurotransmitters serotonin appears to play an important role.
Schematically, anxiety may be associated with hyperactivity of serotonergic systems while depression seems to be related to a decrease in the activity. Antidepressants such as Prozac © act to prevent this decrease of serotonin. However, they are not necessarily the best cure for stress because instead of increasing adaptive capacity, they make it less sensitive to the environment resulting in greater difficulty adapting. An original idea seems to make its way and suggests that the primary cause of these diseases mood would not be in our brain itself, but due to the excessive activity of the stress axis. And serotonergic hypoactivity observed in depressed people may be the result of hyperactivity of the HPA axis. 

What are the elements that promote stress?
Stress and infection are sometimes linked. Our body responds to an attack by a virus or bacteria by increasing the temperature by activating our immune system. That the causal agent is internal or external, the reaction is the same.
If our system is overworked, it will gradually desensitize. This is true for all physiological systems, such as when taking the drug. Addicts remember what situation or the circumstances in which they took the drug and feel that it has afforded them. They want to start over. As well as cocaine and amphetamines, which are psychostimulants, possible to have many more dopamine (a neurotransmitter other brain) in the nerve endings. Now we are all in search of dopamine, which is the essence of fun, especially in a state of stress.
The work of a group of French INSERM in Bordeaux for example, have clearly shown the relationship between the stress axis and taking psychostimulants. I remember a sketch of the Puppets of info that expressed this perfectly. Aimé Jacquet puppet It showed questioned ½ hour before a match. As and when we saw the interview stress win him to quiet ordinary. He finally exploded: "Give me women, cigarettes, alcohol and drugs !!!".

 So how to effectively fight against stress? What about the "weapons" anti-stress such as chocolate and tobacco?
Chocolate contains magnesium which acts on nerve transmission by activating and contains tryptophan, an amino acid that helps make serotonin that we talked about. But maybe he should eat a lot!

Nicotine is itself a stimulating cholinergic systems. It works by activating nerve pathways; it is for this reason that some feel better with a cigarette in a condition of "stress".

Actually good "cure" depends on each character. One will sport the other prefer going to the movies or travel. As seen, stress is a good selling point!