Sigh – Stress

 

 

Image courtesy of diversifiedhealth.ca

Thanks to Dr. Oz, I’m now aware that stress causes inflammation in my body.  There are ways that your body shows you that it’s stressed and let me tell you, they are all unpleasant.  Here is what the good doctor highlighted in a recent episode of his show:

• Thinning hair – we aren’t talking male pattern baldness, we are speaking about women with thick heads of hair losing more than the usual 100-125 hairs a day.  You can tell by looking at the drain or your hairbrush.  Fortunately, if it isn’t because of a typical medical condition, it can be helped by coping with your stress.  If you continue to lose hair, you should see a doctor.  I thought my hair was getting thinner, but I think it had more to do with highlighting my hair.  I’m going to do highlights 6 months of the year and simply dye it the other six months to keep it healthy.  I also noticed a difference once I started taking iron – it helped too.
• Stomach Aches – your tummy is one of the first places that the body shows stress.  This is because of surging hormones that change how the stomach and small intestines work.  This can cause unpleasant side effects like diarrhea and cramps.  I personally get the odd tummy ache with stress, but I get nauseous and thoughts start racing through my head.  They kind of do that on a normal day too, but these thoughts are all about what I have to do and they don’t calm down until I feel like I have a handle on what needs to be done and sometimes this takes days.  Again, this is just your body’s way to telling you to cope with your stress.  
• Redness and rashes – this includes breakouts on the chin too – hello – were you talking about me Dr. Oz?  He spoke about the fact that stress brings on inflammation and more stress=more inflammation.  The inflammation damages your skin cells which is the perfect environment for your pores to clog up.  He recommends using moisturizer whether your skin is oily or not.  I do this – and believe me, it hasn’t helped.  I am going to a dermatologist to see what else I can do, I’ve been on antibiotics for years and they aren’t much of a help.  i refuse to take Accutane and the change in weather has caused another flare up – boo!

Stress is a killer – literally, and we all need to figure out ways to cope.  Normally, I can deal with it, but according to what my skin is telling me, I need to try harder.  I’ll put it on my to do list!  It’s a little full right now, but what’s one more item?

Today, I am grateful that I get to go to a party – I love socializing and seeing friends is supposed to lower your stress.  Until tomorrow, I am…

Gratefully yours,

Jill