Physical Tolls of Stress: 5 Reasons to Grab Your Meditation Mat! Mindfulness Mental Health

It’s a well-known fact that stress is bad for our bodies. We can all recall a stressful situation that had our hearts racing, our muscles tensing and our palms sweating. But if your daily life stress levels are out of control, the effects can actually add up to something dangerous. So if a calm, peaceful mind wasn’t incentive enough to de-stress, the below symptoms from MindSail, a platform to discover on-demand programs from top thought leaders and experts across relationship, sleep, happiness, stress, career, anxiety and more, will give you another reason to reach for your meditation mat.

• Weight Gain: Emotional eating isn’t just in your head. Stress causes a hormone called cortisol to be released into our system, causing our bodies to crave sugar and fat. So the next time you’re feeling stressed, put down the donuts and opt for a healthy snack like fruits or veggies.

• Hair Loss: If you’re shedding more than your golden retriever, stress may be to blame. High levels of stress causes inflammation in our bodies, which could lead to excess hair loss. The good news is hair will generally grow back once stress levels are reduced.

• Insomnia: High stress equals less ZZZs. Times of intense stress can cause you to become restless, as your body pumps adrenaline and high-alert hormones through your system that make it difficult to unwind and relax.

• Memory Loss: If you have the short-term memory of a goldfish, stress could be the culprit. Recent studies have found that the brain's prolonged exposure to the stress hormone cortisol weakens the synapses in the brain's prefrontal cortex that help us to process, store and recall information. Over time, high cortisol levels shrink these synapses, making it more difficult to remember things.

• Lower Immunity: Do you often get stomach aches during times of high stress? If so, you’re not alone. Digestion is controlled by the central nervous system so when you’re stressed, that system shuts down, which wreaks havoc on your digestion. Stress also causes inflammation, which means more colds and flus in the short-term and higher risk of serious disease long-term.

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