Stress and Modern Women Part One

By Thomas K. Lo, MA, DC

Stress has been with us since the beginning of time. Every era has faced its share of threatening situations. Today, the stress of work, family, personal conflicts and the demands on our time and money, take a huge toll on our health.

How does stress affect you? For some, it is an upset stomach. For others, recurring headaches, back pain, or muscle stiffness. Still others respond with nervous twitches, allergic reactions, or sensitivities to chemicals. Regardless of your particular response, the function of your nervous system is involved. Especially the autonomous nervous system, which controls most of your body's internal functions such as your heart rate, blood pressure, respiration, hormonal changes, detoxification, digestion, elimination and immune response, just to name a few.

What are the stress factors that may affect a modern woman's health? Besides trauma and genetic inheritance, most conditions in woman suffering today can be attributed to one of the following stressors

Structure Poor posture, prolonged sitting, an accident or even an old injury can lead to spinal stress. Chronic pain and muscle tension can cause you to experience nervousness and irritability.

Scars Scars act like an energy capacitor, which stores nerve signals passing through. When it's full, it releases the nerve energy randomly and in an uncoordinated manner, creating havoc. Mind you, 80% of the autonomous nervous system is on the skin. Everybody is born with a scar, the umbilicus. Injuries, tattoo, skin piercing and surgery provide the rest. It can act individually or as a group and is highly unpredictable.

Toxins – Chlorine, food dyes, preservatives, pesticides, plastic mix, drugs, tobacco, cosmetics, cleaning supplies, synthetic vitamins are just a few that make up the endless list of chemical toxins.

Heavy Metal Poisoning – It is not as widespread but is not uncommon either. Mercury, aluminum, arsenic, lead and silver are the more common ones we see in our office. Copper is linked to Alzheimer's and mercury is credited with autism. Excess iron usually comes from cookware or vitamins.

Immune Challenge – Bacterial, fungal/yeast viral and parasitic infections cause inflammatory responses.

Emotion Name calling or cyber bulling sometimes hurt so much deep inside that will drive someone into suicidal or homicidal. Just look at the sharp increase on campus shootings both in colleges and high schools.

Next month's article will focus on other factors that may affect the life of modern women.