Stress Literally Kills

Inflammation, Morbidity, Mortality, and Firemen.

Photo by Hailey Kean on Unsplash

Think back to the last time you had a cold. Hopefully it wasn’t this truly nasty one making the rounds, but even if it was this still applies. You probably had a lot of symptoms. You may have had a fever, it’s possible you produced more mucous than you usually do, and your throat might have been sore and inflamed. These are all symptoms of the virus your body was fighting. In order to kill the virus or interrupt its replication, your body raised its temperature sometimes globally and sometimes in key locations, produced more white blood cells, created mucous to catch and expel the pathogen assailing you, and redirected nutrients to fight the disease.

With most colds and minor infections you might feel a bit rotten for a short time, but your body eventually prevails against the pathogen, expels its last remnants, and then returns to normal. Your inflammation decreases, your mucous goes clear, your white blood cell count goes down, your appetite returns, and your energy goes back to normal.

Your body has prevailed against the infection and no longer needs to create those annoying symptoms to fight it off.

Now think back to the last time you were driving and narrowly avoided an accident or the last time a deadline for something important at work was…