An overload of stress prevents the release of the ‘master’ hormone that signals a cascade of hormones that direct reproduction and sexual behavior. It also inhibits the testes and ovaries directly, hindering production of the male and female sex hormones testosterone, estrogen, and progesterone.

In men, long-term stress can reduce the number of sperm produced or cause impotence. In women, stress can cause absent or irregular menstrual cycles, and reduce sexual desire.

So what do you say? Let’s keep the human race alive, book a massage session and help relieve the stress in your life.

So how is this system involved with stress? When the body is stressed, the glands of our endocrine system start to produce stress hormones. These hormones are released into the body and in response, the liver produces glucose, raising our blood sugar and keeping us in our ‘fight or flight’ sympathetic nervous system response when we don’t need to be there. Basically, it inhibits our ability to relax and recover from stress.

The ability to recover from stress and to remove ourselves from stress is very important in overall healthy function of the body.  Our society lends to a life of sympathetic nervous system living and not parasympathetic healing.  As a whole, we need more time in the parasympathetic nervous system response and ‘down time’ is the way to get there.  I’m not talking about down time in front of the television while folding laundry.  I’m referring to meditation, massage, relaxation in nature, sleep – I’m referring to time spent nurturing your soul and rejuvenating your systems.  Time away from a hectic schedule: working, training/exercise (yes, exercise is a form of stress & in moderation can help relieve stress – find balance), giving & caring for others (again, has it’s benefits, but it may take it’s toll if you do not make time to care for yourself) – make time for your healing and recovery.

The Endocrine System

• Helps the body to restore and heal itself
• Develops of a restful sleep pattern
• Promotes appropriate levels of hormones (bringing the immune system back in balance)

Benefits of massage on the Endocrine System

• increases general circulation in endocrine system and thus helps in transport of hormones
• indirectly aids immune system, as some hormones produce lymphocytes to aid in immunization
• normalizes endocrine activity through balancing effect on ANS (autonomic nervous system)

The effects of stress on the immune system are many and include, but are not limited to: weakened defenses, lower resistance to infections and viral illnesses, as well as, increased susceptibility to allergies and malignant cell changes that encourage the growth and spread of cancer.

Unfortunately, we have come to live in a highly toxic environment, therefore it is as important as ever to support healthy function of your immune system. I recommend regular massage to reduce stress and strengthen your immunity, and in the short term, try a good laugh! Stress constricts blood vessels, weakening our immune system and ability to fight off disease. Studies have shown that laughter (& massage therapy) lowers levels of the stress hormones cortisol and epinephrine, and in effect, reverses the constriction of blood vessels, helping to support better immune function.

Massage Therapy & The Lymphatic System

• Cleanses the body of wastes and toxic debris in the body
• Increases the circulation of lymph
• Stimulates the immune system (strengthens resistance to disease)
• Reduces edema of the extremities (arms and legs)
• Removal of lactic acid from fatigued and sore muscles (promotes quick recovery)
• Increases kidney action to remove wastes of protein metabolism
• Increases retention of nitrogen, phosphorus, and sulfur to aid in bone repair
• Speeds recovery from illness

Cardiovascular disease is the general term for diseases of the circulatory system, commonly the heart, arteries and veins. It is believed that the stress hormones make blood thicker and thicker blood clots more easily. Chronic stress could cause blood clots to form within the bloodstream and impact blood getting to and from the heart. This specifically leads to strokes. It is well documented that stress has a substantial affect on the heart – physically, physiologically, and emotionally.

It has been shown that massage will act as a second heart, pumping blood 5 times as fast to the area being worked. Massage has nothing but positive effects on the circulatory system. So please, don’t let your stress go untreated. Massage Therapy can provide the following benefits to your Circulatory System:

• Increases blood flow (to tissues and organs), which can relieve much muscular and joint pain (especially associated with swelling)
• Increases the flow of oxygen and nutrients (to cells and tissues), improving and relieving congestion throughout the body
• Increases the number of red blood cells, especially in cases of anemia
• Lower blood pressure
• Reduces heart rate (helps develop a stronger heart)
• Elimination of metabolic waste

In addition to the psychological tension, your body may experience negative physical effects of stress. It may be in the form of muscle tightening which will affect your body’s coordination, speed and fluidity of movement, as well as the outcome of your performance.

Stress has reportedly been the cause of many poor performances among athletes. So, as we find ourselves in the midst of another busy race season please be sure to schedule your massage sessions.  Massage therapy will help you reduce stress and maximize your potential.

Massage Therapy & The Muscular System

• Relieves soreness, tension, and stiffness
• Improves muscle tone
• Increases flexibility and range of motion of joints
• Improves the flow of nutrients to muscles and joints, accelerating recovery from fatigue and injury
• Reduces scar tissue
• Breaks down or prevents adhesions (knots)
• Speeds recovery from exercise
• Enhances freedom of movement
• Prevents or delays muscular atrophy, resulting from inactivity caused by injury, age, surgery, or illness
• Increases physical confidence
• Relieves cramps and muscle spasms
• Reduces pain and swelling

Massage Therapy & The Skeletal System

• Improves posture/body alignment
• Relieve stiff joints
• Decreases inflammation
• Restores range of motion (increasing joint movement)
• Releases joint strain (releasing tight muscles and tendons)
• Releases restrictions in the fascia (connected tissues)
• Improves the circulation / nutrients to your joints

Massage Therapy & The Respiratory System

• Develops respiratory muscles
• Regulates respiration
• Promotes deeper and easier breathing

Stress management can be complicated and confusing because there are different types of stress–acute stress, episodic acute stress, and chronic stress — each with its own characteristics, symptoms, duration, and treatment approaches.

{The good news is that massage therapy can help facilitate stress management!}

Acute Stress

Acute stress is the most common form of stress. It comes from demands and pressures of the recent past and anticipated demands and pressures of the near future. Acute stress is thrilling and exciting in small doses, but too much is exhausting. A fast run down a challenging ski slope, for example, is exhilarating early in the day. That same ski run late in the day is taxing and wearing. Skiing beyond your limits can lead to falls and broken bones. By the same token, overdoing on short-term stress can lead to psychological distress, tension headaches, upset stomach, and other symptoms.

Fortunately, acute stress symptoms are recognized by most people. It’s a laundry list of what has gone awry in their lives: the auto accident that crumpled the car fender, the loss of an important contract, a deadline they’re rushing to meet, their child’s occasional problems at school, and so on.

Because it is short term, acute stress doesn’t have enough time to do the extensive damage associated with long-term stress. The most common symptoms are:

• emotional distress–some combination of anger or irritability, anxiety, and depression, the three stress emotions;
• muscular problems including tension headache, back pain, jaw pain, and the muscular tensions that lead to pulled muscles and tendon and ligament problems;
• stomach, gut and bowel problems such as heartburn, acid stomach, flatulence, diarrhea, constipation, and irritable bowel syndrome;
• transient over arousal leads to elevation in blood pressure, rapid heartbeat, sweaty palms, heart palpitations, dizziness, migraine headaches, cold hands or feet, shortness of breath, and chest pain.

Acute stress can crop up in anyone’s life, and it is highly treatable and manageable.

Episodic Acute Stress

There are those, however, who suffer acute stress frequently, whose lives are so disordered that they are studies in chaos and crisis. They’re always in a rush, but always late. If something can go wrong, it does. They take on too much, have too many irons in the fire, and can’t organize the slew of self-inflicted demands and pressures clamoring for their attention. They seem perpetually in the clutches of acute stress.

It is common for people with acute stress reactions to be over aroused, short-tempered, irritable, anxious, and tense. Often, they describe themselves as having “a lot of nervous energy.” Always in a hurry, they tend to be abrupt, and sometimes their irritability comes across as hostility. Interpersonal relationships deteriorate rapidly when others respond with real hostility. The work becomes a very stressful place for them.

The cardiac prone, “Type A” personality described by cardiologists, Meter Friedman and Ray Rosenman, is similar to an extreme case of episodic acute stress. Type A’s have an “excessive competitive drive, aggressiveness, impatience, and a harrying sense of time urgency.” In addition there is a “free-floating, but well-rationalized form of hostility, and almost always a deep-seated insecurity.” Such personality characteristics would seem to create frequent episodes of acute stress for the Type A individual. Friedman and Rosenman found Type A’s to be much more likely to develop coronary heat disease than Type B’s, who show an opposite pattern of behavior.

Another form of episodic acute stress comes from ceaseless worry. “Worry warts” see disaster around every corner and pessimistically forecast catastrophe in every situation. The world is a dangerous, unrewarding, punitive place where something awful is always about to happen. These “awfulizers” also tend to be over aroused and tense, but are more anxious and depressed than angry and hostile.

The symptoms of episodic acute stress are the symptoms of extended over arousal: persistent tension headaches, migraines, hypertension, chest pain, and heart disease. Treating episodic acute stress requires intervention on a number of levels, generally requiring professional help, which may take many months.

Often, lifestyle and personality issues are so ingrained and habitual with these individuals that they see nothing wrong with the way they conduct their lives. They blame their woes on other people and external events. Frequently, they see their lifestyle, their patterns of interacting with others, and their ways of perceiving the world as part and parcel of who and what they are.

Sufferers can be fiercely resistant to change. Only the promise of relief from pain and discomfort of their symptoms can keep them in treatment and on track in their recovery program.

Chronic Stress

While acute stress can be thrilling and exciting, chronic stress is not. This is the grinding stress that wears people away day after day, year after year. Chronic stress destroys bodies, minds and lives. It wreaks havoc through long-term attrition. It’s the stress of poverty, of dysfunctional families, of being trapped in an unhappy marriage or in a despised job or career. It’s the stress that the never-ending “troubles” have brought to the people of Northern Ireland, the tensions of the Middle East have brought to the Arab and Jew, and the endless ethnic rivalries that have been brought to the people of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union.

Chronic stress comes when a person never sees a way out of a miserable situation. It’s the stress of unrelenting demands and pressures for seemingly interminable periods of time. With no hope, the individual gives up searching for solutions.

Some chronic stresses stem from traumatic, early childhood experiences that become internalized and remain forever painful and present. Some experiences profoundly affect personality. A view of the world, or a belief system, is created that causes unending stress for the individual (e.g., the world is a threatening place, people will find out you are a pretender, you must be perfect at all times). When personality or deep-seated convictions and beliefs must be reformulated, recovery requires active self-examination, often with professional help.

The worst aspect of chronic stress is that people get used to it. They forget it’s there. People are immediately aware of acute stress because it is new; they ignore chronic stress because it is old, familiar, and sometimes, almost comfortable.

Chronic stress kills through suicide, violence, heart attack, stroke, and, perhaps, even cancer. People wear down to a final, fatal breakdown. Because physical and mental resources are depleted through long-term attrition, the symptoms of chronic stress are difficult to treat and may require extended medical as well as behavioral treatment and stress management.

Adapted from The Stress Solution by Lyle H. Miller, Ph.D., and Alma Dell Smith, Ph.D.

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