Chronic Stress-An Etiological Agent for the Genesis of Multitude of Diseases, and the Effect of Meditation on Modulating the Stress-Juniper publisher
Author: Dr.
Malireddy S Reddy
Abstract
This review/research article is written to explain in
detail the pathophysiology of the chronic stress syndrome, which will
ultimately leads to several diseases. Panic circumstances under which
this chronic stress syndrome develops and induces anxiety, fear and
diseases are thoroughly outlined. The negative effects of the
chronic-low-level stress on the gastro intestinal tract and its micro
flora, including Probiotics, have been presented with explicit details.
The positive effects of meditation on curbing the stress and stress
related diseases have been discussed, particularly with reference to the
effect of meditation on controlling or modulating the stress inducing
hormones.
Keywords:
Fight or flight response; Stress; Chronic-low-level stress; Stress
syndrome; Meditation; Probiotics; Obesity; Hypertension; MS Reddy's
Multiple Mixed Strain Probiotic Therapy.
Introduction
This article is written in a simplified fashion so
that both the medical as well as non-medical professionals can read and
understand the patho-physiology of stress and its control or management
through meditation. In my opinion, stress is the major cause of several
diseases, and if it can be controlled without using severe medications
(which give unpleasant side effects), the entire humanity will be making
a step in the right direction to curb the unnecessary human suffering.
What is stress?
Before we go into specifics of this subject, let me
define the stress. The following is my simplified version of the meaning
of stress. Stress is a multi-factorial syndrome negatively affecting
various organs in the body through acute or chronic excitement of the
sympathetic nervous system and subsequent repairable or irreparable,
major or minor, hormonal imbalance. Stress can be induced physically or
through vivid negative mental imagination (which is not real), because
human being has the most well developed central nervous system, which is
capable of dreaming both negative as well as positive aspects of the
past as well as the future (with equal intensity). Stress is the
ultimate root cause for the genesis of several diseases including but
not limited to heart attacks, stroke, irritable bowel syndrome (IBS),
chronic constipation, Eco imbalance in the GI tract (reduction of number
of Probiotics in relation to the non-Probiotic harmful microorganisms)
leading to hypercholesterolemia, allergies, migraine headaches,
pulmonary diseases, autoimmune diseases, arthritis, premature aging,
chronic fatigue, depression, obesity, hypertension, diabetes,
vulnerability to various bacterial and viral infections due to
hypoactive immune system, immune deficiency diseases, certain cancers,
Alzheimer's, and various other unexplainable metabolic disorders.
How does stress manifest itself in the human body?
Let me summarize it in a simplified format the
pathophysiology behind the 'fight or flight' mechanism which will
ultimately result in a chronic stress syndrome. Fear starts the fight or
flight mechanism, which exists in the body, to protect us from the
perceived danger. When somebody is confronted with an unexpected danger,
such as a tiger suddenly appearing in front of you in a forest etc.,
the immediate response is to either fight or run away from the scene.
This fight or flight mechanism and the physiology behind it was
originally discovered by the Harvard Physiologist Dr. Walter Cannon. It
is designed to protect us from the bodily harm, when we experience
excessive fear or panic either from internal worry or external
circumstances. When we are confronted with any enemy who can hurt us
either physically or through verbal abuse, the following sequence of
involuntary events take place in our body: the eyes and ears or both
send the information to the amygdala, an area of the brain that
contributes to the emotional processing.
The interpretation of the intensity of panic scene is
done by the amygdala. When it perceives a real danger, it instantly
sends a distress signal to the hypothalamus. The hypothalamus then
activates the sympathetic nervous system by sending signals through the
autonomic nerves to the adrenal glands. As a response, the adrenal
glands produce and pump the hormones epinephrine (adrenaline) and nor
epinephrine into the blood stream. These hormones which are being
circulated by blood brings about a series of physiological changes in
various parts of the body. They are as follows: the heart starts beating
faster; pulse rate and blood pressure go up; rapid breathing; increased
blood supply to the muscles, heart and other vital organs; decreased
blood supply to the GI tract; release of excess blood sugar and fats
(fatty acids) into the blood to increase the energy to all parts of the
body. All of these above reactions happen in a spur of the moment,
without even a slightest notice to the person experiencing it.
As a second step, after the initial surge of
epinephrine and norepinephrine subsides, the hypothalamus activates the
second component of the stress response called "HPA Axis", which
involves Hypothalamus, Pituitary gland and the Adrenal glands. If the
brain continues to perceive the danger, the hypothalamus releases
Corticotrophin Releasing Hormone (CRH), which travels and triggers the
production and release of Adrenocorticotropic Hormone (ACTH) by the
pituitary gland. The ACTH hormone instantly activates the adrenal glands
to release cortisol. This cortisol maintains and improves (by acting as
a booster to the fight or flight mechanism) the physiological changes
already brought about by epinephrine and norepinephrine, to cope up with
the persistent danger. When there is no longer a threat, the levels of
cortisol drop gradually and the parasympathetic nervous system gets
activated to dampen or negate or put a break to the stress response.
Figure 1 shows
the location of endocrine glands (Pituitary and Adrenal) involved in
the production of hormones which have direct influence on fight or
flight mechanism. I have also included the glands that are indirectly
involved, such as islets of Langerhans in the pancreas, which get
activated to produce more glucagon and insulin to convert glycogen to
glucose and also to improve the uptake of glucose by the activated cells
of stimulated tissue. In addition, the endocrine glands involved in the
production of estrogen and testosterone have been pointed out to show
the negative effects of low level stress to reduce the production of sex
hormones, which will ultimately result in the lack of interest in sex
(reduced libido), impotency, erectile dysfunction, osteopenia,
osteoporosis, sarcopenia etc.
Effects of chronic-low-level stress
Unfortunately several individuals are unable to put
breaks on stress and end up living with chronic low-level stress. This
chronic-low-level stress keeps the HPA axis activated for a longer time
than it is required (to maintain the level of cortisol in the blood and
to reduce the effects of parasympathetic nervous system, which can
dampen the stress syndrome). This chronic- low-level stress contributes
to the onset of several health problems. The frequently repeated and
persistent epinephrine surges will undoubtedly damage the blood vessels
and arteries due to increased blood pressure, which will ultimately lead
to heart attacks and strokes. In addition, the abnormally elevated
cortisol surges (frequently repeated) in the blood will bring about
physiological changes to replenish the bodies energy reserves that are
depleted during the stress response. Unfortunately, such a physiological
change contributes to the buildup of fat or adipose tissue which leads
to obesity. Cortisol not only increases the appetite so that people can
eat more to obtain extra energy, but also increases the storage of
unused nutrients as fat. Thus stress could be one of the major
contributing factors for the increased prevalence of obesity in America
and elsewhere in the world.
Since the blood supply is severely reduced to the
gastrointestinal tract, during stress or chronic-low-level stress, the
digestion gets sluggish to the point of not breaking the proteins down
to amino acids. Some of these not fully digested peptides when gain
entrance into the blood stream may induce
allergy due to the production of antibodies and their subsequent
reaction when confronted with similar antigen. In addition,
chronic-low-level stress due to persistent presence of cortisol hormone
in the system enhances and maintains the effect of epinephrine and
norepinephrine and thus decreases the blood supply and subsequent
intestinal peristalsis, ultimately causing chronic constipation. The
resultant constipation encourages the growth and proliferation of
non-Probiotic transient and nontransient bacteria to convert amino acids
tyrosine and histidine to toxic amines, tyramine and histamine [5,6].
The histamine induces vaso constriction and thus cause the hypertension
and also premature aging. chronic-low-level stress induced constipation
encourage some of the fecal micro flora to convert amino acids tyrosine
to phenol and paracresol, and tryptophan to indol, which are highly
carcinogenic. In addition, the enzymes produced by some of the stress
activated dominant adventitious flora will convert procarcinogens to
carcinogens [5,6,9].
Lack of intestinal motility and subsequent
constipation due to stress, will significantly reduce the Probiotic
population and simultaneously increase the fecal adventitious microflora
which produce the following enzymes to convert procarcinogens to
carcinogens: Beta glycosidase, Beta glucoronidase, Steroid 7 alpha
hydroxylase, Nitro reductase and Nitrate reductase, Azoreductase and
Tryptophanase [5]. Although procarcinogens are not harmful, the converted carcinogens are genotoxic and thus can trigger cancer [9].
Lack of sufficient blood supply to the GI tract due to stress, the
absorption of calcium and other minerals by both active (transcellular)
and passive (paracellular) transport systems in the duodenum and ileum
will be significantly reduced thus causing, over a time, both osteopenia
and osteoporosis [4].
Reduction of Probiotics and their activity (due to
stress) will greatly increase the absorption of toxins, formed in the GI
tract, due to chronic constipation. According to Dr. Nagler of
University of Chicago, some of the Probiotics can retard the absorption
of allergens by signaling the innate immune cells to produce high levels
of interleukin (IL-22), a signaling molecule known to decrease the
permeability of the intestinal lining, thus preventing allergens to
enter into blood stream [2].
However such mechanism may not be operational due to stress induced
constipation, because of the significantly low number of Probiotics and
sluggishness of the intestinal lining and decreased blood supply. Thus
the entire human system can be disturbed because of the low level
chronic stress.
Since the Probiotic bacterial numbers significantly
come down during persistent stress, immune modulation gets effected
leading to the immune deficiency [7,8].
Due to this immune deficiency and reduction of Probiotics, the
opportunistic subdued pathogens (both bacteria and virus) will dominate
in numbers and thus turn into virulent pathogens proning the individual
to bacterial and viral infections. Since most of the Probiotics are
nutritionally fastidious, it is extremely important to maintain good
blood supply and intestinal peristalsis to produce and improve the
activity of proteolytic and lipolytic enzymes, amino and carboxyl
peptidases, and lactase enzyme etc. to enzymatically break and generate
the simpler and easily assailable nutritional compounds to stimulate the
growth and proliferation of Probiotics in the GI tract. Unfortunately
due to significant reduction of blood supply (during stress) to the GI
tract, the resultant improper digestion and the digestive end products
of improper digestion cannot support the growth of Probiotics. Turn
around, this will encourage the growth of nutritionally non-fastidious
pathogenic as well as non-beneficial micro flora which will cause severe
intestinal infections. The reduction of Probiotics and subsequent
increase of other non- beneficial micro-organisms, due to chronic
stress, can ultimately result in irritable bowel syndrome, intestinal
diverticulosis and colon cancer, and hospital acquired infections etc. [3,9].
It has been proven that replenishing Probiotics will reverse the C.
diff and MRSA infections (nosocomial infections due to stress) using,
Dr. M.S. Reddy's Multiple Mixed Strain Probiotic Therapy [5,6,8].
Since chronic stress syndrome significantly reduces
the blood supply, nutrients, and intestinal motility, it indirectly
reduces the number of Probiotics and thus significantly reduce several
physiological benefits of Probiotics [8].
In this article, I have only stressed the negative effects of chronic
stress on the health of gastro intestinal tract, specifically with
reference to reduction of Probiotics and the calcium and other mineral
absorptions. Technically the genesis of hypertension, diabetes, and
several other diseases can also be due to chronic stress because of the
excitement of stress hormones on a periodic basis. If we can reduce the
stress, several of these diseases can be eliminated or reduced.
According to the survey conducted by the American
Psychological Association, about 25 percent of Americans (88 million
people) are experiencing high levels of stress (8 or more on a 10 point
scale). The low level of stress (4 to 7 on a 10 point scale) has been
experienced by 50% of the Americans (to be precise 165 million people).
In other words 253 million Americans out of 330 million people have been
experiencing the chronic-low-level stress syndrome. To sum it up, every
adult In the United States has been subjected to stress. No wonder why
the medical costs are so high (along with increased number of diseases),
despite the fact the nutrition and health awareness are more in the
United States than any other country in the world. In my opinion, this
chronic-low-level stress syndrome plaguing the American society is due
to the uncertainties in economy, social problems, increased divorce
rate, increased monthly obligations, job insecurity, and more than all
fear and anxiety associated with the day to day living. The excessive
use of cell phones, emails, and over communication is also contributing
to this stress syndrome, which is a silent killer. I am sure, the
majority of the population in the entire world must be going through
this chronic-low-level stress syndrome, which is the genesis of
multitude of diseases.
Stress in modern day life
As a classical example, fight or flight response has
always been referenced as tiger attacking human being. In today's world,
the tiger is no longer a threat. Then what is it? The following are
some of the examples: an unscrupulous boss or supervisor constantly
behaving like a tiger and threatening the employee; a spouse behaving
like a terrorist and physically or verbally attacking his or her partner
repeatedly and violently; a government putting unnecessary stress on
the people; and fear due to unknown reasons which lead to stress and
anxiety etc. The fight or flight mechanism enables a person either to
fight or flee away. Either way, the physical activity involved will
reduce the levels of stress hormones (the novel concept behind physical
exercise). Unfortunately, in this day and age, you cannot either fight
with your boss or spouse or run away from them. Thus the stress hormones
stay intact in the system and constantly induce the chronic-low-level
stress syndrome, which ultimately results in a specific or multitude of
sicknesses and diseases. Another stress factor is, constantly thinking
about bad experiences encountered in the past, and also anticipating the
troubles and problems you are going to face in the future. According to
the Buddhist principles, delving into the unpleasant past memories will
cause pain and suffering, whereas imagining about the future
anticipated problems create anxiety and stress. It is because amygdala
perceives past bad memories or anticipated future problems as threats
and automatically activates the uncalled for fight or flight mechanism.
If a person lives and thinks in the present (not in the past or future),
the level of stress will be significantly low. In reality, the past
does not repeat and future does not exist, yet these two factors are
contributing to this unnecessary stress which is destroying the health
of people and thus dampening the progress of the world.
How does meditation relieve or eliminate stress?
Stress can be eliminated through optimism and
happiness. Since stress is a psychological factor involving the central
nervous system and hormones, people have to learn to control it by
understanding the pathophysiology behind the onset of this syndrome. The
best way to control the stress syndrome is through development of
positive mental attitude by practicing meditation. Several major medical
organizations in the country, including their applied and basic
researchers and scientists, are all in total agreement that the
meditation is the best way to control the stress. Let me define and
explain what meditation is? Meditation has no affiliation to any
country, region, race or religion. Generally people relate the word
meditation as part and parcel of Hindu religion, which is not true.
Meditation was the brain child of the Hindu God "Lord Krishna", who
taught this concept to the world, perhaps over 5000 years ago. The
concept and practice of meditation was introduced to uplift the
depressed souls who were afflicted with the stress syndrome in a battle
ground.
Meditation is nothing but realization of the power of
the inner soul (human potential) and integrating or uniting the soul
with the mind and body, to direct the human actions in right path with
least stress. There are several techniques to practice meditation. The
best and simple approach is, give an imaginary shape to your
subconscious, and communicate with the subconscious image on a daily
basis regarding your goals, health, thoughts, and actions. Once you
start to communicate with your own subconscious, your level of
self-confidence will be greatly improved and thus you will not have any
fear or anxiety or stress.
According to the ancient Vedic scripts, the human
life simultaneously exist in two parallel dimensions. One is "physical
body" and the other is imaginary or psychological (not physical) called
"subtle body". The subtle body is considered as "energy", while the
physical body is regarded as "mass". To put it in simple words, it is
constantly referred to as "mind (brain, subconscious, subtle body) over
matter (physical body)". The subtle body consists of NADI (energy
channels) connected by nodes of psychic energy called chakras or energy
centers. According to the yogic tradition there are seven energy centers
in the subtle body. They are as follows in the ascending order from
lower energy center (Muladhara) to the higher energy center (Sahasra
kamala), connected by energy channels: Muladhara, Swadisthana, Manipura,
Anahitha, Yashudhi, Agna, and Sahasra Kamala. The imaginary locations
of these energy centers and the organs they influence are presented in Figure 2.
Each energy center through activation supplies energy to the specified
organs to keep them functional and healthy. According to Gardiner and
Osborn [1],
the chakras (energy centers) are described as metaphysical counter
parts to the endocrine glands. The charkas (energy centers) are linked
to the nerve plexus along the spinal cord, as per the description of
Sturgess [11].
It can be argued, at this juncture, questioning that
are these energy centers (chakras) real? If they are not real, how
could we believe the mere existence of subtle body, including the energy
centers and energy channels? The answer is very simple in that we all
have thoughts and aspirations, can we physically feel the thoughts? Do
they have any shape? My answer is no, because they are very subtle and
controlled by imaginary subtle body. Since the endocrine glands are
activated through the stimulus generated by mere imagination, we can
safely assume and it has been proven that the endocrine activities are
both psychological and neurological. Similarly, the imaginary energy
centers have role in modulating the human endocrine system through the
sympathic as well as parasympathetic nervous system. In other words,
imagination (either positive or negative) drives the endocrine system.
This is whole basis for the discovery of fight or flight mechanism by
Harvard Physiologist Dr. Walter Cannon. Now it makes more sense with
regard to the physiological and psychological functions of the energy
centers (chakras), and energy channels of the subtle body.
The main subject of this paper is to discuss about
the genesis of stress and how to control it by not using the drugs,
which have serious side effects? Since stress is a psychological and
neurological response to a situation, the treatment model should be to
reduce such an adverse response, to eliminate the resultant
chronic-low-level stress syndrome. This is where the meditation plays
its role with the subtle body, energy centers and energy channels. One
has to imagine that the energy centers (chakras) can be activated and
churned to dissipate the energy, to the specified organs, to activate
them and to make them more functional. The energy thus liberated from
the energy centers greatly improves the health and outlook of the person
and eliminates fear, anxiety and stress. In the Figure 3,
I have presented various energy centers and their influence on
functions of specific organs. During meditation, one has to imagine and
feel that they are in fact activating the energy centers to keep the
organs functioning. It will only take few minutes but its psychological
and neurological impact is significant and immeasurable in terms of
improving the optimism, control of the central nervous system and
endocrine system. Through practice of meditation, which is a
psychological booster, the day to day stress can be significantly
reduced and thus ultimately eliminate the chronic-low-level stress
syndrome. The concept and practice of meditation is gaining significant
momentum in the medical field, since there are no specific drugs to
control the stress and its ramifications on health.
For example, we all know that the hypertension is an
ailment or disease and a physician can only treat it by prescribing a
specific drug. However, the genesis of hypertension, as it name implies
"tension", stems from chronic-low-level stress. A drug can only try to
keep the blood pressure normal (of course with other unavoidable bad
side effects). In other words, the treatment is aimed at reduction of
the symptoms only. In reality, the physician has not cured the main
cause of the aliment, which is stress.
The only way to treat the main cause is through meditation which has
direct influence on endocrine system and the central nervous system.
Consequently the modern treatment should be aimed at using drugs to
immediately reduce the life threating symptoms on a short term basis,
and using body-mind therapy (meditation) on a long term basis to treat
the genesis of the disease. The complementary and alternative medicine
is gaining more popularity because the patients are not fully satisfied
with the treatment they are receiving from their primary physicians. As I
have indicated earlier, human being has advanced central nervous system
which unfortunately responds involuntarily and negatively to the
outside unpleasant or imagined as unpleasant circumstances and thus
induce the chronic-low-level stress syndrome followed by multitude of
diseases. Meditation controls the central nervous system and positions
it in a proper perspective to react to the outside unpleasant or
imagined as unpleasant circumstances voluntarily and positively, thus
eliminating or reducing the stress and its pathological affects. The
reduction of stress is the ticket for anti-aging.
I have included graphic presentation of the hormones
and organs controlled by seven energy centers which can be activated or
harmonized through meditation (Figure 3).
Meditation is an approved alternative medical practice which is
governed by the division of the National Center for Complementary and
Alternative Medicine (NCCAM), under the domain of Mind- Body medicine.
The "NCCAM" comes under the umbrella of the National Institute of Health
(NIH). Consequently any practicing allopathic Doctor in the United
States can legally recommend meditation as a therapeutic aid to reduce
the stress of his or her patients.
Several people question regarding how meditation can
control or normalize the hormonal imbalance, which is experienced in
chronic-low-level stress syndrome. Before answering this question, if
you analyze it philosophically, stress is a psychological syndrome and
even a person who is doing well in his profession or job or business
gets stressed because he is constantly comparing himself with others.
This creates a sense of insecurity, which diminishes self-confidence,
resulting in inferiority complex in a person, which will in turn create
constant mental agitation with an ingrained imaginary negative image of
himself or herself. Thus he or she develops a chronic- low-level stress
syndrome, which will subsequently lead to severe depression, unhappiness
and irreparable bad health. Another cause for the stress is the
inability of several human beings not able to do what they really wanted
to do in life or not having an opportunity to do it. Greed destroys
their beliefs and purpose of their lives, thus leads to unhappiness,
stress, and disease. An individual who is carrying on duties (against
his inherent passion) or in accordance with those dictated or expected
by others will never be a happy soul. It is because he is fulfilling
dreams of others with no full commitment , and such an action always
gets criticized, which will lead to pessimism, unhappiness and such
person ultimately develops chronic stress syndrome and diseases.
Whereas, the man who carries on the duties in which he has inherent
passion is always happy and thus keeps the stress syndrome at bay and
leads a happy and healthy life. Self-satisfaction and commitment are
extremely important to develop self-confidence and to eliminate fear and
stress.
In my opinion, meditation gives inner strength,
selfconfidence, healthy central nervous system, and the way we look at
our life. If you scientifically analyze it, meditation alters the
perception of the amygdala about the intensity of perceived danger and
its intensity of subsequent reaction to activate the hypothalamus,
pituitary gland and the adrenalin gland hormones involved in the fight
or flight mechanism. In addition, through meditation the energy centers
can be tuned to perform in harmony with the total central nervous system
including the activation and timely suppression of hormones and the
neurotransmitters. The effects of meditation have been scientifically
proven to reduce hypertension, stress etc. A person who meditates looks
at the threats in a different fashion (with least stress) than an
ordinary human being who is always in a panic mode, and thus experiences
high levels of stress. To summarize, since the genesis of several
diseases are due to stress, let us put a genuine effort to eliminate
this unnecessary evil (stress) to build a better world with happy and
healthy people.
Acknowledgement
I sincerely thank Dr. Bellamkonda Kishore, MD, PhD,
MBA, for his input in assisting me to interpret meditation and its
influence on the reality of life. Thanks also goes to Dr. Siva Prasad
Kumpatla, M.Sc (Ag), MS (Bio info), PhD, for his help in the preparation
of figures, and to Ms. Renee Williams for typing the manuscript.
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