In the previous post we discussed structural stress. The second form of stress on our bodies is chemical. I often tell my patients that chemical stress can include anything which your body creates, anything that it cannot get rid of, or anything that you come in contact with from your environment.
STRESS NUMBER 2: CHEMICAL
How can something your body created be bad for you? Your body can produce too much of a particular chemical or hormone (chemical massager to remote locations of the body). If it is unable to property regulate the amount of chemical or hormone being released it begins to dysfunction.
A common example is a hormone called cortisol, released from your stress hormone glands called your adrenal glands. When under extreme or continuous stress (structural, chemical, emotional) cortisol is being constantly released causing MORE chemical stress; the effects of which can be damaging. Some common symptoms include: impaired memory, decreased thyroid function, blood sugar imbalances, decreased bone density, sleep disruption, decreased muscle mass, elevated blood pressure, lowered immune function, slow wound healing, increased abdominal fat… sound familiar?
ANYTHING YOUR BODY CAN’T GET RID OF
Our bodies need to be able to process and flush out A LOT of chemical offenders today. The primary detoxification organs of the body are our liver, kidneys, lungs, intestines, and skin. In most of our patients we find one or more of these to be dysfunctional. When your body cannot detoxify property you will become sick, inflammation, pain will result and other organ systems will begin to fail. Proper assessment of exactly which organs need help is imperative in any health restoration program. Check out our Nutrition Response Testing service for more info on how this is examined.
ANYTHING YOU COME IN CONTACT WITHIN YOUR ENVIRONMENT OR EAT AND DRINK
Your environment includes where you live, work, play and eat. Unfortunately, our environment is immensely different from what is was 100 years ago. We are living in a world in which 21,000,000,000 pounds of chemical compounds are released into the environment per year!!! These chemicals can be found in our soil, on our plants, in our meat, in the air, water, our homes, and of course in our bodies.
In this environment we need to be functioning at peak performance, but there is another unfortunate stress which we are dealing with… our food. Not only is conventional food loaded with pesticides and herbicides, it is lacking or devoid of nutrients needed for our detoxification organs to function properly.
Process foods are devoid of most if not all nutrients and conventional (non-organic) produce has been shown to contain only 1/3 of the nutrients value of organically grown. Without whole food nutrients our bodies simply cannot keep up with the toxic “hustle and bustle” of today’s world.