If you live in Lagos Nigeria, you might be really quick to mix up stress and exercise together with the thought that they are born of the same parent and are on the same spectrum. You might be quick to believe that the jumping from one bus to the other, the adrenaline rush you experience when you see your boss or the hours you spend in traffic are al exercises but in reality they are not.
When you ask people in Lagos or in other busy areas of the country to register in a gym, they’ll tell you that the run around they do on a daily basis is exercise enough for them not to perform any exercise again but in reality, they are talking about stress. Talking about the two of them, one makes us healthy and one makes us sick.
If you hear a gunshot, and you begin to run for your life, it is as a result of your body responding to the stress trigger thereby releasing stress hormone cortisol and adrenaline which will put the body in a state known as the fight or flight state. If you decide to run which is not the best thing to do when you hear a gunshot, your muscles become tighter as blood begins to flow to the muscles faster than usual. With stress, your body wants to get you out of trouble and it is good in a short time, but in the long run it can become very harmful as it can wreck damage to the body.
The brain cannot tell the difference between imagination and reality, it respond to the both with equal precision, and it will react the same when you are trying to run after a gun shot, or when you are being yelled at by your boss. Stress can come in different forms including when you nag, when you are angry, and so on. With stress, the body focuses less on the intestine and the stomach and transfers all the blood to the blood flow to the muscles as they are important to save you.
Stress will come with signs like headaches, increased heartbeat, muscle pains, acquired irritation and anger, and so on. When we continue to get stressed, this prolonged stress can lead to diabetes, obesity, sexual dysfunction, heart disease, and regular sickness. The cause of stress can differ from one person to another and from regions, but as Nigerians, one of the causes of stress is Money and I think if you are living in this country where there is high inflation, it is understandable that it gets you stress but my friend please remember that if stress lead to something else, you will still need money to care for that repercussion of the stress. Job pressure, and preparation for exams, health issues, relationships, and so on can lead to stress and remember that prolonged stress causes damage to the body.
Now that I have explained stress, let me explain exercise. We know that it has to do with the movement of the body muscles to work causing the body to burn calories. People say that exercise is stress but it is not true because exercise increases the overall body function. Exercise makes a person happy and relieved and can range from swimming, dancing, lifting weights, yoga, skipping, and any other form of exercise that will keep the muscles moving.
Compared to stress, with exercise there is an increase in testosterone thereby increasing sexual drive. Exercise also improves mental health, improves blood pressure, stimulate dopamine, improves mood, improve sleep, ability to adapt to situation, and it cancels stress. Exercise has to do with doing what you love the most and you do not need to hit the gym, you just need 30 minutes a day exercise anywhere you are.
Read More
- https://www.who.int/news-room/questions-and-answers/item/stress
- https://www.mind.org.uk/information-support/types-of-mental-health-problems/stress/what-is-stress/
- https://www.yalemedicine.org/conditions/stress-disorder
- https://www.medparkhospital.com/en-US/disease-and-treatment/stress
- https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/exercising-to-relax
- https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4013452/
- https://www.heart.org/en/healthy-living/healthy-lifestyle/stress-management/working-out-to-relieve-stress
- https://www.nhs.uk/live-well/exercise
