I've just had a bit of a shock. I opened my front door at exactly the same time as the postman was about to knock. In that moment, the startled look that passed across his face reflected his alarm while mine was a gasp and a step back followed by a tingling sensation in my hands. We both laughed it off. No harm done.
But what happens if you find yourself in that state of alarm for days, weeks or even months at a time?
Our bodies are primed for survival and that instinct has evolved over centuries. The most primitive part of the brain is where the fight/flight response sits and its job is to detect danger. It's alert to any threat to our safety and will take over the instant it picks that up by shutting down anything that it doesn't need to survive in that precise moment. It does that by flooding the body with adrenaline - to give us more energy to fight or flee - while cortisol, commonly referred to as the stress hormone - peaks.
We need both adrenaline and cortisol to survive and, while the body can adapt effectively to short periods of stress, if levels remain too high for too long, it causes an imbalance in the body, impairs the nervous system and can show up as shaking, tingling sensations in the arms and legs, nausea, digestive issues or a shallow rapid heart beat that can lead to panic attacks.
We all have different tolerances to stress and our job is work out what a healthy level feels like for us.
If you think that your stress levels are too high, please seek medical advice in the first instance.
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