What are the health risks of chronic stress? What is a fight-or-flight mechanism?

What are we discussing:

-What is the difference between acute stress and chronic stress?

- What happens to your body when you are in this defense mechanism?

-In what ways can your body enter into fight or flight mechanisms?

Cell biologist Bruce Lipton

-Cells are in growth, or in protection (fight & flight)

-Stress hormones shut down the functions of many systems in our body Hypothalamus pituitary-adrenal axis

-The immune system and the fight-or-flight mode

-A life without stress does not equal a 100% healthy life

Bruce Lipton's videos on "the biology of belief"

Foreword

A little stress can be beneficial, but when it becomes chronic, it will harm your health. In this blog post, we'll explain when stress is unhealthy. And what happens to your health when you experience chronic stress.

What is the difference between acute stress and chronic stress?

Healthy acute stress

Our bodies have a natural survival mechanism. When you're in danger, you go into "fight or flight." Your brain senses danger, causing your body to release certain hormones so you can better respond to the danger. You experience improved reflexes, more energy, and less anxiety.

Hence the well-known story of prehistoric man and the tiger. In prehistoric times, people would also go into fight-or-flight mode if a tiger suddenly appeared in front of them. Or when men went hunting a wild animal, they would briefly enter that fight-or-flight mode. Once the danger has passed, the body calms down again, and survival mode disappears.

When stressed, your adrenal glands produce adrenaline, noradrenaline, and cortisol. Your stress hormones and vascular system are put to work. Your reflexes are stimulated, and your blood pressure and heart rate increase. Because cortisol prepares you to work hard and perform better for longer periods of time, it increases your heart rate. Because your heart rate increases, oxygen can be pumped through your body more quickly. This also increases the absorption of sugar in your muscles.

This means your blood sugar levels will rise. More sugar in your blood, called glucose, gives your body more energy, allowing it to perform better. The proteins and glycogen in your muscles are converted into glucose, giving you the extra energy to escape. Your arms and legs, in particular, receive that extra energy to run away.

Healthy tension leads to increased cortisol levels, which in turn leads to better performance. Your body is alert and on edge. Once the danger has passed, the tension subsides. Cortisol levels return to normal. This can also happen during a competition or a work deadline.

This healthy stress temporarily slows down your immune system and digestion. Your brain makes you think less and develops more reflexive behavior. Producing cortisol requires a lot of energy. So, during acute stress, your body works very hard. A stressful situation should never last too long. It's meant as a survival mechanism, and you can't live in such a situation constantly. That would be completely exhausting your body, and therefore not good for your health. With healthy stress, you only remain in a fight-or-flight mode temporarily.

Unhealthy chronic stress

Your thoughts and emotions can also trigger a fight-or-flight response. With chronic stress and anxiety, your body thinks it's in danger and therefore activates the fight-or-flight response.

In today's society we experience many problems such as:

-Chronic stress

-Trauma is also chronic stress

-Ill-treatment

-Fear

-Unable to forgive

-Politics is constantly creating new crises in all areas, causing us stress

-Not being able to let go,

-Feelings of guilt

-Great concerns on all levels

The body perceives these problems as a major threat. And if you're experiencing a lot of stress in your mind, you can still activate the fight-or-flight mechanism.

Whether you are physically in danger or your mind is under great stress, your body sees both as danger and will activate the fight-or-flight mechanism.

Imagine what happens when stress, unresolved trauma, and emotional overload are constantly present? Your body has to work hard for days, months, or even years at a time. And that's exhausting.

Blood sugar and fat retention

This fight-or-flight mechanism requires a lot of energy, causing you to become severely overtired. Your blood sugar levels remain constantly far too high. Cortisol causes your body to produce more insulin. This is a substance that helps increase sugar absorption in your muscles. These sugars provide your body with extra energy. If you don't use this energy, the surplus is stored as fat. And that's why it's difficult to lose fat when you're in a chronic fight-or-flight mode.

Hormones

Your hormones are constantly being worked on. If cortisol is chronically elevated, testosterone levels drop in men and progesterone levels drop in women. Hormones always strive for balance. If one is too high, the other will drop. So, hormone ratios change.

Adrenal fatigue

In chronic fight or flight mode your adrenal glands will become exhausted

Adrenal fatigue associated with chronic stress and trauma is therefore very common. If your diet isn't 100% free of acids, chemicals, processed foods, and heavy metals, you can develop serious health problems.

Chronic stress makes you sick

Because your body constantly has to work hard, you are more likely to develop many of today's health problems such as: obesity, cardiovascular disease, cancer, autoimmune diseases, depression, chronic fatigue, nervous disorders, muscle disorders and many other vague conditions.

As you can see, chronic stress, unresolved trauma, and emotional overload can be very toxic. An illness isn't just physical; it's also mental and emotional. Therefore, fear, stress, trauma, and emotional overload are the first things you should avoid during your illness.

Chronic stress and poor diet

Chronic stress and a poor diet combined will further reinforce the body's perception of danger. Your body will produce even more stress hormones. This combination leads to illness.

Trauma is also chronic stress. The illness caused by stress is a trauma in addition.

Trauma is thinking about your past daily. You relive your painful situation daily. Your body believes it's in danger and activates the fight-or-flight mechanism. Someone who experiences trauma and then becomes ill due to chronic stress also develops trauma. Becoming chronically ill is very traumatic. Try to avoid it.

What happens to your body when you are in this defense mechanism?

We provide a brief description

-All your cells work slower --> your brain works slower, your intestines work slower, your immune system works slower --> when all your cells work slower you have more energy to run or fight.

Your brain cells work more slowly because when you're in danger, you shouldn't think, but rather react reflexively. That's why chronic stress can make you forgetful or even black out.

Because cells work more slowly, the absorption of vitamins and minerals is much more difficult --> this results in a nutrient deficiency.

-When cells function more slowly, toxins become more difficult to remove.

-Your hormonal system becomes unbalanced --> if cortisol chronically rises, testosterone drops and progesterone drops.

-Your adrenal glands become tired --> many hormones are produced in the adrenal glands

In what ways can your body enter into fight or flight mode?

Mental or emotional problems

1-Chronic stress (anxiety-trauma)

2-Anabolic use (synthetic testosterone)

3-Pharmaceutical drugs --> the toxins stress your body

4- Vaccine Damage --> Vaccines damage or burden your nervous system

5-Soldiers experiencing traumatic events --> trauma causes you to relive your situation over and over again, making your body think it's in danger.

6-A partner who constantly abuses you physically, mentally and emotionally

--> think of narcissists and psychopaths

Physical problems

7-You see a crocodile or other dangerous animal in front of you.

8. When your head or body has suffered a blow, your nervous system is overloaded. You need to try to calm your nerves. This can take months.

9. Bad lifestyle: If you consistently eat the wrong foods and consume too many toxins, your body will experience chronic stress. We're talking about extreme cases.

When your body is in a fight-or-flight mode for a long time, you develop health problems. Acutely, it's harmless, but prolonged periods of this fight-or-flight mode will seriously damage your health.

Cells are growing, or rather, protecting. How does stress work at the cellular level?

Dr. Bruce Lipton (American cell biologist)

This is an interview we've translated into Dutch. What's written here is a literal translation.

DR. LIPTON: With the knowledge I'm sharing with you now, you'll know more than most conventional doctors. Chronic stress makes you very ill. I'm going to explain all of this scientifically. You don't get cancer because it's supposedly in your genes.

There's no such thing as a "cancer gene." There's no such thing as a "gene" anywhere in the world that causes cancer. It's associated with it, but it's not the cause. Completely different factors contribute to cancer.

This is usually a very deep-seated anger or frustration (stress). Extensive research into the personality traits of cancer patients has shown that they primarily experience a great deal of anger and unresolved pain. They are dissatisfied with their lives or situation.

These are people who can't let go of their stress and negative emotions, or they live with worries for too long. They carry it with them for years, and the stress builds up in their bodies. If we have the opportunity to be so healthy and young for so long, why do we all get sick?

One of the biggest reasons is "chronic stress, anger, and trauma." I'll show you how stress works. I'm going to teach you real science. Look, I'm putting cells in a Petri dish. I've divided them into two sets. In one set, I put nutrients right in front of the cells, and in the other set, I put toxins right in front of the cells.

Now I put them back in the incubator. I'll come back a little later and take them out. Where do you think the cells are in each set? If there are nutrients in the Petri dish, the cells will move toward the positive growth signals.

But if there are toxins in the shell, the cells move away from the signals. They consider these threatening, negative signals. So, when cells see something that promotes growth (nutrients), they open their arms to the signal and absorb it.

But when cells see toxins, they move away from the signals and shut down. Cells cannot open and close simultaneously. They also cannot move forward and backward simultaneously. Cells cannot move in both directions at the same time. Conclusion: Cells can be in growth or protection, but they cannot be both at the same time.

The genes in your cells are programmed , just like the programs on your computer's hard drive. So, what kind of programs does our body have? There are two types:

Gene programs ensure survival:

1- Growth (and reproduction)

2- Protection

Bruce Lipton: Cell behavior Fight or flight

If the video is censored, you can find the video on Rumble.

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What do we mean by growth?

DR. LIPTON: Trillions of cells die every day, but new cells also grow every day. This is because old cells die and new cells are constantly being added. Our body therefore needs growing cells to survive. If the cells can't grow, your body becomes sick and you can die.

Growing cells serve for maintenance, health, and repair . Some people think of growth as the growth from a baby to an adult, but everyone needs to grow every day... even if you're 100 years old. For example, the lining of your intestines needs to be replaced every three days, and your skin cells every 28 days. You essentially shed your skin, like a snake.

Chemotherapy is deadly

That's why chemotherapy is so toxic and dangerous. Chemo kills dividing cells, preventing your body from growing. It also shuts down your immune system. And without an immune system, your body can't eliminate harmful cells. Whether they're cancer cells or normal cells, chemotherapy kills (dividing) cells. That's why people who receive chemotherapy experience digestive problems. Their skin also doesn't grow properly, and their hair falls out and doesn't grow back. If your cells can't grow, you have little chance of survival.

What is protection (fight-or-flight mode)?

DR. LIPTON: Your mind explores your environment. If the mind perceives something as threatening (which isn't necessarily the case), a signal is sent to the cells: the environment isn't positive! Our perceptions, therefore, send signals to our cells. With negative signals (stress, fear, etc.), the body will shut down many of its own systems to generate more energy.

During stress, hormones travel from the hypothalamus to the pituitary gland and then to the adrenal glands. This releases stress hormones, putting you in a fight-or-flight (protective) mode.

So in short:

--> cells move towards positive signals (nutrients) --> cells start growing.

--> cells distance themselves from negative signals (toxins) --> cells go into protective mode.

When your body goes into protection (fight-or-flight mode), your body stops cell growth .

The more the body thinks it needs protection, the more it will shut down that growth mechanism. There are some signals the cell doesn't care about because they are neither positive nor negative (the zero in the drawing).

So, when your days are filled with chronic stress, hormones surge in your body to make you fight or flee. You enter a chronic fight-or-flight state. Cells can't be replaced and repaired normally, but stress hormones also shut down the immune system. That's why you get sick when you're under high stress or when you can't process trauma.

Stress hormones shut down the functions of many systems in our body Hypothalamus pituitary-adrenal axis

DR. LIPTON: This system is called the hypothalamic pituitary-adrenal axis (called the hypothalamic pituitary adrenal axis). The hypothalamus is about the size of a pea. It's the part of the brain that interprets perception, your observations (or beliefs).

A key function of the hypothalamus is to control the hormonal system. When an external signal arrives, your body determines whether it's a positive or negative signal. If it's a negative signal, your hypothalamus will send a negative signal to all the cells in your body. When stressed (a negative signal), you produce more cortisol. And the hypothalamus responds to that cortisol level.

When the hypothalamus senses stress, it wants to tell the entire body that something is wrong. So it sends a signal to the pituitary gland. This "master gland" sends signals to 50 trillion cells. The pituitary gland gives shape to your body and is a gland located in the center of your head, beneath your brain, that secretes numerous hormones. This gland plays a key role in regulating a large number of hormones.

The pituitary gland has two forms:

-growth or

-protection.

If there's a threat, the pituitary gland sends a signal to the adrenal glands. For the adrenal glands, there's only fight or flight. So, they release stress hormones into the body.

The first thing stress hormones do is direct blood flow primarily to the arms and legs. But at the same time, they shut down your immune system. The hormones force blood flow to the arms and legs for protection. But if the blood flow is primarily to the arms and legs, where was it before? In the intestines.

And what is the function of the intestines? Growth, health, and maintenance ... 70% of your immune system is produced in your intestines. If I'm in fight-or-flight mode, am I going to use my arms, legs, and muscles, or my intestines? My muscles and limbs, of course. You need to be able to run and fight. Chronic stress stops your growth mechanism (cell growth).

Because the function of stress hormones is to absorb the body's energy and make everything fight or flee.

So the stress hormones will shut down the functions of many systems in our body that are not needed for fight or flight.

The immune system and the fight-or-flight mode

DR. LIPTON: Your immune system normally serves to protect you from bacteria, viruses, and cancer cells. So the immune system doesn't protect you from tigers. It protects you from things that can get under your skin. The more hormones the endocrine system produces, the more your immune system shuts down and growth is stunted.

One of the most important things the fight-or-flight mechanism does with energy in the body is slow down the immune system. Imagine you have a bacterial infection with diarrhea and a large tiger is chasing you... How much energy should you put into fighting the infection and how much into running away from the tiger? Forget the immune system, because if that tiger eats you, your bacteria are his problem. (Bruce laughs)

Tiger <-- Energy --> Bacterial infection

What many people also don't know is that everyone is now infected with almost every disease and germ that humans can carry. If I take a blood sample, you can see it. Every one of you has viruses, bacteria, and parasites.

But if your body already has viruses, bacteria, and parasites, why aren't you sick? If your immune system is functioning properly, it will suppress the parasites and germs. But as soon as your immune system starts to shut down, these organisms begin to grow again.

So, contracting a disease isn't really accurate. You already have the disease, and doctors call these "opportunistic organisms"—germs and parasites. So, if you experience stress that shuts down your immune system, you give these organisms the opportunity to develop a disease. The problem, however, is that stress shuts down your immune system.

So to heal, don't just treat the disease, but also the stress.

So stress causes two problems:

1 Stress shuts down cell growth

2 Stress shuts down the immune system

So if the growth inhibition becomes chronic, because your body needs chronic protection, then your body will become ill. That's why you develop so many illnesses when you're under chronic stress.

But there is still a third problem That stress can cause it. When you fight or flee, do you consciously reason it out, or is it a reflex? The latter, of course. Stress hormones ensure good reflex behavior. Stress hormones constrict the blood vessels of the intestinal tract, which directs blood to the extremities. They also press on the blood vessels of the forebrain, where our consciousness resides, pushing more blood back (hindbrain). This activates the reflex behavior.

This means you're less intelligent when you're under chronic stress. For example: you spent days studying for your exam. You knew all the questions at home. Then, when you take your exam at school, you experience a kind of blackout. You've forgotten many of the questions.

The first thing you feel is your arms and legs tingling from stress. This is because blood is being rushed to your arms and legs to help you escape. Your awareness and intelligence are temporarily reduced by this fight-or-flight mode.

So realize that chronic stress can affect you on many different levels. This is important, because the problem is that this stress leads to your life stopping.

When we are in protection mode, we shut down growth and then disease sets in:

• Protection leads to diseases

• Growth leads to well-being

What causes these diseases?

The answer is chronic stress. Unfortunately, people don't realize this.

A life without stress does not equal a 100% healthy life

DR. LIPTON: If I simply eliminate stress from my life, where am I on the scale? Zero. Do you want 100% wellness? Then, besides the absence of stress, you also need joy and love to thrive.

So if you're stuck in the middle, at zero, you're not really growing or truly well. Your cells still can't be growing at 100%. Stress alone isn't the problem. What we definitely need is more love, joy, and happiness.

Love is the most important factor in growth for a healthy life. If a child doesn't receive love, their growth is stunted in all areas—mentally, emotionally, and physically.

Videos (English)

In this video, he explains what's in the blog post. He explains it in a fun way, too.

If the video is censored you can find the video on rumble.

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Bruce Lipton: trauma, toxins, thoughts cause disease

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Full Lecture: Bruce Lipton The Biology of Belief Full Lecture

If the video is censored you can find the video on rumble.

See video on Rumble

2:00 PM Death Reasons USA

27:30 drug energy

42:20 How cells work

47:20 Secret of life

1:04:00 Perception

1:18:57 Perception (belief) controls biology

1:20:20 How brain works, Placebo effect +ve -ve thinking

1:26:00 Stress

1:35:05 Front brain consciousness

1:37:06 Love

2:21:17 Cells identity

Quote: Our perceptions send signals to our cells and they influence our behavior.

Quote: If you understand epigenetics, you don't need the pharmaceutical industry. Your biology is determined by your environment, not your genes.

Quote: Lack of knowledge results in lack of power and healing.

Want to learn more about how stress and anxiety can make you sick? The topics in this blog post are from the book "Stress and Anxiety Makes You Sick." You can find more information about the book on this blog post.

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