How stress affects your body

Some 72% of Australians think stress affects their physical health and they are right! It causes a range of physiological responses including environmental, nutritional, emotional, postural and dental stress.

Every day we are exposed to chemicals in the environment, which can affect the food we eat, our personal care and our home environment. Worryingly, only a small percentage of these chemicals have been tested for their toxicity.

When you feel stressed your ability to absorb nutrients is reduced because it affects your digestive system. If you can’t eat properly, it can reduce your sleep quality, lowering your mood, making it harder for the body to fight infection and inflammation.

Emotional stress affects your ability to sleep properly and consequently your hormone levels may become imbalanced. This can affect insulin levels and may compromise the hormones that tell you when and how much to eat, and which help to metabolise fat.

When you have poor posture because you feel stressed, it can affect your ability to breathe and may make ingestion more difficult because the intestines become squashed.

Dental stress can be reflected in poor digestion, restricted breathing and chronic musculoskeletal pain that may cause chronic headaches, facial pain, neck ache and backache.