When you think of stress, you likely think of the emotional effects. In fact, stress is defined as “a state of mental or emotional strain resulting from adverse events or circumstances.” But stress is just as much a physical state as a mental or emotional one. Stress has significant effects on the body and on your health. When you are under stress, your body prepares for fight or flight. Your blood pressure and heart rate increase, your breathing speeds up, and your muscles tighten. The hormones adrenaline and cortisol are released, and your blood sugar rises to increase the energy available to your muscles. Being in this state for a short period is not harmful. Being under stress for a prolonged period is called chronic stress, and an increasing body of research shows that it is dangerous to your health. The way stress affects MS is not yet completely clear, but studies indicate that stress can bring on relapses or increase the severity of relapses. Why? There’s a strong association between stress – particularly chronic stress – and inflammation. The hormone cortisol is normally involved in controlling inflammation. It’s thought that under chronic stress, when your body is flooded with cortisol for long periods, your tissues become less sensitive to its controlling effects and inflammation increases. Some research also indicates that chronic stress can alter the genes of immune cells being released into the blood stream to make them more inflammatory. Additionally, other neurochemicals that are released may play a role in brain inflammation under chronic stress. Because of its physical effects, chronic stress can also aggravate many MS symptoms. These include memory and thinking impairments, depression, fatigue, pain, bowel dysfunction, sexual dysfunction, and sleep disturbances. Because having such symptoms is stressful, this can create something of a vicious cycle unless you develop a good stress management plan. Sincestresshasmental,emotional, and physical aspects, your stress management approach should address these areas as well. 9 Nutrition Exercise Sleep Stress Treatment