Negative emotions are conjured up more by English words. Mental images of looming work deadlines, missed bills, the pressure of exams or tense family Christmases can be conjured up by mentioning those six letters.
I would like to tell you that stress can be positive. Forging connections in our brain that improve mental performance and building the resilience we need to navigate our way through life are all things that it can do.
The link between short-term stress and the immune system was discovered by Firdaus Dhabhar, a researcher at the Rockefeller University. Stress was seen as a bad thing for us, but to Dhabhar this was not logical. The survival instincts of our animal ancestors would have been developed through many brushes with danger.
He says that stress should not be a good thing. survival depends on the fight or flight stress response. A lion and a gazelle need the same response to escape the jaws and claws of one another. Mother Nature helped us survive and thrive by not killing us.
Dhabhar and others have shown that short-term stress can help us in the modern world. A Ted Talk by Dhabhar, a professor at the University of Miami, has been viewed 30,000 times.
The tension of an upcoming race helps prime the cardiovascular and musculoskeletal systems of athletes for optimum performance, while surveys have found that parents are more productive home workers than single people.
The production of chemicals in the blood called interleukins can be stimulated by both mild to moderate physical and mental stress. Babies born to mothers who experienced mild everyday stress during their pregnancies had more advanced skills by the time they were two years old.
Various ways to think about stress. Different forms of exercise can be seen as stress for the muscles, while cognitive challenges can be seen as stress for the mind.
Robert Marchand of France set a new age group world record at the velodrome in Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines. Marchand was the first centenarian to demonstrate improved cardiovascular health when he turned 105 a month later.
Marchand, who had begun serious competitive cycling in retirement at the age of 68, had an aerobic capacity for exercise that was comparable to men of his age group.
He is an indicator of what can be achieved if we continue to apply manageable stress to our muscles, blood vessels and heart as we get older. Most humans are not similar to Marchand. As the years go by, many of us become inactive, which makes for age related changes. If our muscles aren't being stressed, they will start to lose their strength. Our reaction times are slower and we are more vulnerable to falls when the nervous system and muscles are not used regularly.
A scientist who studies the human neuromuscular system says that a muscle that isn't activated quickly degrades. In order to maintain equilibrium, the muscles need to have some stimulation. If you don't have a strategy going into the last part of your life, when you reach 70 or 80, you're likely to have some limitations with daily living.
According to Andy Philp, head of the biology of aging programme at the Centenary Institute in Australia, if an adult male spends five to seven days lying in a hospital bed, they will lose half a kilogram of muscle mass. There is a difference between a 30-year-old and an 80 year-old when it comes to regenerating lost muscles.
A range of people between 100 and 118 showed similar cognitive abilities compared with the average 50- to 60-year-old
Some forms of exercise-related stress are better for preserving muscle mass than others. Marchand showed that age-related degradation can be kept under control. Resistance-based workouts involve training the muscles with weights or bands. Resistance training can be done with cycling. Sndenbroe says that it increases muscle size and strength.
Studies show that people who remain active through sports or moderate exercise are less vulnerable to muscle decline.
Sndenbroe wants people to do whatever type of exercise they like the most. He says that the best exercise is the one you actually do. You shouldn't run high-intensity intervals if you don't like it. You can find something that you like.
The central nervous system and even the mind are affected by exercise.
There is a relationship between the muscles and nerves in the spine. The motor neurons, long, spindly cells that control motion, keep them active and functioning. A chemical called brain-derived neurotrophic factor, which protects nearby brain cells, is stimulated by increased blood flow, which aids in the removal of Alzheimer's disease-causing Alzheimer's disease-causing Alzheimer's disease-causingAlzheimer's disease-causing Alzheimer's disease-
Our brain size decreases at a rate of 5% a decade after the age of 40, with the rate of decline increasing once we reach 70. Older people who do regular aerobic exercise, such as brisk walking, running, swimming and biking, have four fewer years of brain aging than people who don't do it.
Studies of centenarians and supercentenarians show that age- related cognitive decline is not always inevitable. A range of case studies between 100 and 118 showed similar or superior cognitive abilities compared to the average 50- to 60-year-old.
The importance of incorporating a significant amount of mental stimulation into your daily routine has been discovered. People who work a normal working week throughout their 50s and 60s are more likely to be resistant to cognitive decline than those who retire early. This kind of activity can keep your brain young if you continue to work, volunteer, or learn a new skill.
People who took piano lessons in their 80s saw improvements in their brain function. Staying on the job, or at least socially engaged in an activity, has a positive impact on function. In Baltimore, retired people went back into schools to tutor students from low-income families who didn't have much and they were able to improve their cognitive skills.
One of the reasons for this is thought to be that short-term, brief stressors cause stem cells in the brain to grow into new nerve cells, which in turn improves mental performance.
We’ve evolved to be active and respond to different stimuli and if that’s taken away it accelerates negative processes
The link between positive stress and health in later life is going to grow as the rate of dementia increases. Teams of scientists around the world are trying to find ways to use moderate stress in medicine to improve healing and recovery after surgery. A clinical trial conducted by Guy's & St Thomas' Charity found that exercise can help improve the efficacy of chemotherapy as well as negating some of the damaging impact it can have on the body.
There is a point between too little and too much stress. Chronic stress has been linked to a number of diseases, including diabetes, asthma, and Alzheimer's.
Moderate stress is similar to a pulse, where various pathways and tissues in the body get stimulated, before returning to normal. Chronic stress can cause pathways to get activated and stay activated for a long time. This can be seen in obese and diabetes. The inflammatory response is not as flexible as it used to be.
Regular bouts of mild to moderate stress are important for the body to function well. Philp says that if you think about it, all our systems are resting, and then a little bit of stress, changing the blood flow to the brain or contracting the muscles, will turn on different molecule pathways. If we take away the ability to respond to different stimuli, it will accelerate negative processes.
Understanding the benefits of various types of stress has become more and more important as a result of these realizations.
All Rights Reserved © 2024
