It’s not the fact you got knocked down 100 times. It’s the fact you’ve chosen to get back up 101 times. “Our greatest glory is not in never failing, but in rising every time we fall.” – Confucius

6 Ways Your Body Feels the Impact

July 21, 2023

It’s no secret that being proactive is the best way to stay healthy. Experts recommend a dental cleaning every six months, a yearly check-up with your doctor and regular screenings for certain cancers. But when did you last assess your mental health or take steps to improve it?

Meelie Bordoloi, MD

It’s easy to think of mental health as separate from physical health. But mental health significantly impacts your physical health, says MU Health care psychiatrist Dr. Meelie Bordoloi. You may be feeling the effects without realizing that stress, anxiety or depression is to blame.

Physical Reactions to Mental Health Issues

Over time, poor mental health can take a toll on your body and increase your risk for chronic conditions:

• Anxiety increases the risk of arthritis, COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease) and high blood pressure.
• Depression heightens the risk of diabetes, heart disease and stroke.
• Stress raises your risk for obesity, diabetes and heart disease.

But mental health doesn’t just affect your physical health “someday.” Mental health issues can immediately affect how you feel and how your body functions in many ways:

1. Increased cortisol levels

Cortisol is a hormone that regulates how your body reacts to stress — when you’re under stress, your adrenal glands release cortisol. But managing stress isn’t the only function of cortisol. It also helps to regulate:

• Blood pressure
• Blood sugar
• Inflammation
• Metabolism
• Sleep

Chronic stress increases cortisol levels and impacts all these bodily functions. “High cortisol levels can lead to weight gain, increased blood sugar, skin changes, and various medical issues,” Dr. Bordoloi says, “especially if you’re not managing your stress well.”

2. Impaired executive function

People with depression often have unusually low activity in their prefrontal cortex — the area of the brain responsible for decision-making, problem-solving and working memory. These skills are collectively known as executive functions. You use these skills daily to work and learn.

Anxiety also impacts your executive function skills. It can cause you to overthink, making it hard to focus.

“These mental health issues may lead to poor work performance or failure to finish tasks,” Dr. Bordoloi says. “In children, it can manifest as defiance and not wanting to do schoolwork.”

3. Digestive distress

If you live with stress or anxiety, you might feel it in your gut. “Your gut health and mental health are closely connected,” Dr. Bordoloi says. “You need to pay attention to both.”

Your mental health influences your gut health by impacting your diet, causing inflammation and altering your hormone levels. These changes may impact the balance of bacteria in your gut, ultimately affecting how it functions.

4. Reduced energy and motivation

Chemical imbalances associated with depression can lower your desire to be active and productive. Dopamine and serotonin are “feel good” neurotransmitters that send signals throughout your body.

“When your levels of dopamine and serotonin are low, as happens with depression, you don’t have a feeling of well-being,” Dr. Bordoloi says. “That can lead to a lack of energy and interest in activities you previously enjoyed.”

Dopamine and serotonin also play an essential role in regulating your sleep. An imbalance can affect how much rest you get and how much energy you have the next day.

5. Pseudo symptoms

Stress and anxiety can cause physical symptoms that mimic the signs of severe physical disorders. These may include:

• Heart palpitations that feel like a heart attack
• Muscle spasms or paralysis when mental health issues disrupt signals from your brain
• Psychogenic non-epileptic seizures (PNES) that look like an epileptic seizure
• Sensory disruption resulting in trouble with vision, hearing, smell, touch or taste
• Trouble swallowing

“In many cases, we cannot know the true cause of the symptoms without testing,”

Dr. Bordoloi says. “These are all manifestations of stress and mental health disorders.

6. Sensitivity to future stressors

A period of chronic stress can impact your body forever. Your body’s normal stress reaction adapts to meet the needs of chronic stress. So even after you remove the stress from your life and improve your mental health, your body may remain sensitive to stress triggers.

“This change may not be noticeable until the next trigger pops up,” Dr. Bordoloi says.

“But when it does, your body may react strongly, even if it’s only a minor stressor.” 

Children and Mental Health

There is no physical difference in how children’s and adults’ bodies react to stress and mental health issues, Dr. Bordoloi says. But when adverse childhood experiences cause extreme stress, that child’s lifelong health can be impacted.

“When a child experiences stress like that at an early age, they may develop physical ailments, such as heart failure and high cholesterol, at a younger age than someone who hasn’t experienced extreme stress,” she says. “It can ultimately lead to a shortened lifespan.”

Even though the body’s physical reaction is the same, teens and children may not handle stress as well as adults.

“The frontal cortex is still not very developed, even in a teenager,” Dr. Bordoloi says. “When exposed to stress as an adult, you have more maturity and better decision-making capacity. You’ll react differently than a child without experience dealing with stress.”

Strategies for Managing Mental Health

Keeping yourself mentally healthy often involves proactively taking care of your mind and mood and knowing how to manage acute symptoms when they arise.

Stay mentally healthy

Making minor adjustments to your daily lifestyle can go a long way for mental health, according to Dr. Bordoloi. She recommends:

• Eating a healthy diet consisting of unprocessed, whole foods
• Exercising regularly to help regulate dopamine
• Exposing yourself to sunlight for at least five minutes a day
• Getting enough sleep (experts recommend seven to eight hours a night)
• Keeping a routine, which is especially important for children and teens
• Practicing mind-body exercises, including yoga, meditation, tai chi and Qigong

Manage acute stress or a panic attack

If you find yourself in a stressful situation or managing an anxiety attack, try:

• Deep breathing, which decreases your heart rate and calms your nervous system
• Engaging your senses by squeezing a ball, touching ice or showering in hot water
• Meditating and practicing mindfulness to bring your mind back to the present moment
• Relaxing muscles with progressive relaxation techniques to release tension associated with anxiety
• Removing yourself from the trigger that started the cascade if you can identify it
• 15 Intriguing Thoughts That Occupy The Mind of a Deep Thinker
• Health isn’t just physical its mental – Search – Google Search
• Health isn’t just physical its mental – Search

---

Next Steps and Useful Resources

Want more mental health tips and tricks?

• Learn about the gut-brain connection.
• Learn the difference between stress and anxiety.
• See if your weirdest symptoms may just be stress.
• AI Overview Health isn’t just physical it’s mental.

The impact of stress on the thyroid occurs by slowing your body’s metabolism. This is another way that stress and weight gain are linked. When thyroid function slows during stress, triiodothyronine (T3) and thyroxine (T4) hormone levels fall. Also, the conversion of T4 hormone to T3 may not occur, leading to higher level of reverse T3.

Case-control and population-based studies provide conflicting results regarding the association between thyroid hormones and cancer. However, a large body of evidence suggests that subclinical and clinical hyperthyroidism increase the risk of several solid malignancies while hypothyroidism may also reduce aggressiveness or delay the onset of cancer.

Thyroid Hormones and Cancer: A Comprehensive Review of Preclinical and Clinical Studies – PMC | Coping with Cancer | Surviving Cancer | Stanford Medicine

Patients respond in different ways to their diagnoses, the initial medical workup,
subsequent test results, and the implications of all that is happening to them.
Many patients respond by…LOVING LIFE AND NOT FEARING DEATH!!

Healing Mind, Body and Spirit – Search Videos

The University of Dayton (UD) community has shown incredible support for Ben Lavelle, a redshirt freshman punter who is battling Stage 2 testicular cancer¹. | PressReader.com – Digital Newspaper

Despite his diagnosis, Ben has remained connected with his team and studies, thanks to the extraordinary efforts of his professors and the UD community.  His professors have gone above and beyond, with some even providing remote classes and personal support¹.

Ben’s unexpected return to the practice field before a game against Davidson was met with a hero’s welcome from his teammates¹. His story is a testament to strength and solidarity of the UD community, which has rallied around him and his family during this challenging time¹.