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Anxiety
Published in Carolyn Torkelson, Catherine Marienau, Beyond Menopause, 2023
Carolyn Torkelson, Catherine Marienau
Adrenaline and cortisol, which are released for a short period of time, rouse your body for emergency action. Your heart pounds, blood pressure rises, muscles tighten, breath quickens, and your senses become sharper. These are typical responses when your body is fighting off danger, facing a life-threatening or other traumatic event. However, many of us live is a state of chronic, low-level stress. Our lives are not being threatened, but we’re short on time and have too much to do, often worrying about ourselves and everyone else. In this case, cortisol is released over a long period of time, and the result is detrimental. This cycle is called stress hormone dysregulation, and it causes an array of negative effects, making you feel stressed physically, emotionally, and mentally.
What's Causing My Gut Symptoms?
Published in Melissa G. Hunt, Aaron T. Beck, Reclaim Your Life From IBS, 2022
Melissa G. Hunt, Aaron T. Beck
Not surprisingly, lots of research into IBS have shown that stress is very closely linked to IBS symptom severity. Again, this does not mean that your symptoms are “all in your head” or that you are just neurotic. Rather, we now understand a lot more about the physical effect psychological stress has on the digestive system, particularly in people with a predisposition to visceral hypersensitivity and abnormal intestinal motility. Chronic stress can lead to low-grade inflammatory processes throughout the body. For example, cortisol is one of the major stress hormones. There’s a complicated signaling system for cortisol that includes the release of corticotropin-releasing hormone (CRH). CRH is released in the brain in response to stressors and helps activate the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis, a crucial part of the stress response system. CRH itself can cause increases in anxiety and decreases in appetite, as well as mild inflammation in various parts of the body, including the gut. In fact, there are CRH receptors in the wall of the intestine. That’s part of the reason that psychological “stress” has such a direct, biological effect on GI symptoms and can make IBS worse. And it’s a big part of why learning effective stress management techniques can help improve IBS symptoms.
Work stress induced vision impairment in construction
Published in Imriyas Kamardeen, Work Stress Induced Chronic Diseases in Construction, 2021
When the pressure exerted by the stressors and the distress levels experienced exceed the resilience and coping capacities of the individual, this can manifest as psychological symptoms such as stress, burnout, anxiety or depression. Simultaneously, the body will trigger its natural acute stress response, also known as ‘fight or flight response’ which subsequently causes the body to secrete stress hormones into the blood stream to prepare the body and mind with the physiological, psychological and emotional changes to deal with the stress.
Recent developments in wearable & non-wearable point-of-care biosensors for cortisol detection
Published in Expert Review of Molecular Diagnostics, 2023
Simran Kaur, Niharika Gupta, Bansi D. Malhotra
Stress can be associated with many biomarkers in a body, out of which cortisol is the most prominent one. Prolonged stress is responsible for activation of brain routes that stimulate the adrenal cortex to release cortisol, hence cortisol is known as the stress hormone. Cortisol, also known as hydrocortisone ((11β)-11,17,21-trihydroxy pregn-4-ene-3,20-dione), is a lipophilic molecule and is transported throughout the body via blood circulation. Physiologically, its role includes the modulation of blood pressure in order to supplement fat and glucose in muscles and brain, which further assist in successfully managing stress. However, the prolonged increase in cortisol has the potential to cause serious ailments like depression, hypertension, etc. [8–10]. It is a glucocorticoid hormone that is significantly involved in the regulation of many physiological processes, including glucose levels, carbohydrate metabolism, blood pressure, etc. It also affects the cognitive abilities like memory, sleep, mood, fatigue, etc. [4]. Abnormalities in cortisol levels may indicate mental health concerns like depression and, hence, its regular monitoring can benefit at-risk individuals significantly.
Measuring stress: a review of the current cortisol and dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA) measurement techniques and considerations for the future of mental health monitoring
Published in Stress, 2023
Tashfia Ahmed, Meha Qassem, Panicos A. Kyriacou
Psychological stress is often associated with fluctuations of stress hormones, such as cortisol and adrenaline (Tsigos & Chrousos, 2002). Cortisol is the primary stress hormone that is involved in governing the stress response from the moment of stress elicitation to recovery from stressful events. Alternatively, DHEA is a steroid hormone that has proven to express anti-glucocorticoid properties (Gallagher & Young, 2002). As two steroid hormones with inverse actions, the relationship between cortisol and DHEA is of great interest. The antagonistic relationship between cortisol and DHEA has been discussed at length in regard to their opposing actions on immune function, however, the relationship between cortisol and DHEA in stress management is seldom discussed (Buford & Willoughby, 2008). DHEA is primarily implicated in aging research, whereby an increase in cortisol/DHEA ratio can be a contributing factor of age-related declination in immune function (Buford & Willoughby, 2008). Evidently the biochemical interactions between cortisol and DHEA have proven to be of great importance in the determination of declining functions of biological systems. Therefore, observing the changes in these biomarkers with respect to stress and mental health monitoring could unveil vital details regarding stress management and mental health.
Physiological behavior during stress anticipation across different chronic stress exposure adaptive models
Published in Stress, 2022
Dejana Popovic, Svetozar Damjanovic, Bojana Popovic, Aleksandar Kocijancic, Dragana Labudović, Stefan Seman, Stanimir Stojiljković, Milorad Tesic, Ross Arena, Ratko Lasica
The exposure to stress is highly variable in everyday life and includes a wide range of situations including stress at work, stress in family life, stress related to low socio-economic status as well as physical, metabolic and immunologic stress. The response to these stress situations is influenced by genetic factors, type of personality, exercise training and nutritional status (Grande et al., 2012; Herbison et al., 2016; Piepoli et al., 2016; Rutledge et al., 2016). A crucial role in the adaptation to stress is attributed to stress hormones, which allow the body to accommodate for the increased metabolic demands intrinsic to the stress condition (Lightman, 2008). Cortisol and adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH), released by activation of the HPA stress axis, are considered as primary stress hormones (Herman et al., 2016; Lightman, 2008). Moreover, hormones interact during stress, such as the interaction between alpha-melanocyte-stimulating hormone (alpha-MSH) and N-terminal-pro-B type natiuretic peptide (NT-pro-BNP) (Grimm et al., 2016; Popovic et al., 2013); these hormones plan a role in regulating carbohydrate, protein and lipid metabolism, energy homeostasis and body composition, inflammation and immune regulation, and autonomic system function, all of which are related to cardiopulmonary function (Cain & Cidlowski, 2017; Pivonello et al., 2016; Stimson et al., 2017; van Ockenburg et al., 2016).