How to Reduce Stress

How to reduce Stress : How it can make your allergies even more miserable

Have you ever noticed that sometimes when you're having a really tough day, you sneeze a lot and your skin feels itchier?

It's not a coincidence, your emotions may have been the trigger.

Researchers are now finding that certain allergic disorders like hay fever, eczema and asthma are regulated, in part, by hormones and brain chemicals released into the bloodstream in response to stress.

When it rains, it really does pour.

The nervous system is the interpreter of which events are "stressful" and determines how the body responds to the stress.

Negative emotional responses disturb the carefully constructed equilibrium of the brain systems, putting some parts into overdrive and others into underdrive.

The body produces a number of factors including hormones (e.g., cortisol) and neurotransmitters (e.g., adrenalin) which, in turn, can influence other systems in the body such as the immune system.

If this imbalance goes on unchecked and becomes persistent, long-term damage, allergies and disease can result.

In other words, it is the wear-and-tear from chronic overactivity or underactivity that is potentially damaging

Most information about allergies discuss what the specific allergen is and how once found out what needs to be avoided.

Information about the emotions and the psychology of an allergy sufferer is often left out of the picture.

Allergic reactions occur when the immune system reacts to stress in an inappropriate way.

Instead of digesting properly or cleaning the air that has been inhaled it reacts in a different manner.

Alarm Reaction Adrenaline and a variety of hormones is released to combat the stress and to stay in control.

The muscles tense, the heart beats faster, the breathing and perspiration increases, the eyes dilate, the stomach may clench.

Once the cause of the stress is removed, the body will go back to normal.

Resistance or Adaptation occurs when the stress isn’t resolved.

Hormones that increase blood sugar levels to sustain energy and raise blood pressure are released.

The adrenal cortex produces hormones to continue battling the stress.

Should there be a prolonged period of time with no relief, sufferers become prone to fatigue, concentration lapses, irritability and lethargy as the effort to sustain arousal slides into negative stress.

Exhaustion, Finally, the body has run out of its reserve of body energy and immunity.

Mental, physical and emotional resources suffer heavily. The body experiences “adrenal exhaustion”.

The blood sugar levels decrease as the adrenals become depleted, leading to decreased stress tolerance, progressive mental and physical exhaustion, illness and collapse.


All of this can lead to many kinds of symptoms, here are a few for example :

Skin symptoms : Dermatitis, hives, eczema, burning lips, dry skin patches, itching, swelling and blisters, red weals, sores on face, ulcers, perspiration, dandruff.

Cardiovascular symptoms : Pain around heart, racing heart, palpitations and irregularities, flushes, erratic pulse.

When the total stress load is more than the body and the adrenal glands can cope with, that is when allergic symptoms appear.

If the stress load can be lightened, they will tend to disappear. In other words, if the total body load of stress is high, the threshold at which allergic symptoms appear will be low, and vice versa.

So one of the basic treatments for allergic disease is this one ; lower the total stress load.


Ways of Reducing the body's toxic load to reduce stress

Avoid Negative emotions : Hormones generated by negative emotions such as fear and resentment are very potent, and toxic in excess.

Eat clean foods : Buy as organically as possible and learn to cook in a healthy style. Avoid processed foods.

There are many ways you can reduce stress, you might want to consider some of the following : taking time to relax, following a healthy diet, exercising, distancing yourself from stressful people and stressful situations.

Hay fever and Energy

Sneezing?

Runny nose?

Itchy eyes?

Spring is the time of year for allergic rhinitis, also known as hay fever.

This is caused by an allergic reaction to pollen floating through the air.

The common understanding is that this is caused by a disorder in the immune system.

According to Chinese medicine :

“It's caused by the weakness of "defense qi," which is defense energy.”

There is a remarkable similarity in these two understandings, if the function of defense qi in Chinese medicine can be likened to the function of the immune system.

There are different kinds of qi.

In treating hay fever, a Chinese medicine practitioner will tonify the defense qi with herbal medicine and unblock the nose through acupuncture.

According to Chinese medicine what causes defense qi to be lower in the first place is firstly, it's improper diet because … the [source] of energy comes from nutrition.

This can be understood in the same way that power is needed to operate anything. Just like power, our power is from the food we eat—and sleeping.

Chinese medicine understands that different foods have different “temperatures”, which is different from the understanding of nutritional content in Western medicine.

Foods may range from hot to cold to neutral. Different foods have different effects on the body, depending on their “temperature.”

The idea is to restore balance to the body.

Thus, if an illness is said to be “cold” ,such as a cough or runny nose, “warmer” foods should be taken, such as ginger and shallot soup.

Conversely, if an illness is “hot”, such as a dry, sore throat and sweating, “cooler” food should be taken, such as a banana, cucumber, and tofu.

Impaired digestion can also lower defense qi.

People with absorption problems would find that their energy is lower because poor absorption of food means that food cannot be broken down adequately to provide energy.

Treatments are tailored to the patients, who are diagnosed by recording the symptoms, and every detail needed to be known, including the sweating conditions or energy level, tiredness or digestive function.

Herbs are thus prescribed according to multiple factors.

There are hundreds of different kinds of herbs, and any one prescription may be a combination of up to 10 different kinds.

Chinese herbal medicines, including bupleurum, Chinese skullcap, ginger, licorice, and ginseng, have a history of use in China and Japan for the treatment of hay fever. Other products may contain magnolia derivatives.

Chinese herbal remedies have been used to combat hay fever and other allergies for centuries.

Studies on the efficacy of herbal and acupuncture treatments of Chinese medicine in treating hay fever have been published in medical journals.

A German study published in the journal Allergy found that hay fever sufferers who received weekly acupuncture treatments and took three daily doses of Chinese medicinal herbs showed fewer symptoms and were less likely to say their hay fever was infringing on their daily activities than people who received placebo treatment.

After six weeks, it was found that 85 percent of patients showed overall improvements in their hay fever, compared with only 40 percent of the placebo group.

Usually, patients tend to see the difference, sometimes after one session, sometimes after a week.