Stress

So, we got a promotion in the mail for a free month of netflix. I'm not a huge media consumer and rarely watch movies. But my husband and I are giving it a try, and we'll cancel after the free month is over (for time and money reasons).

We watched a documentary by national geographic called Stress. I liked the documentary a lot because it talked about real research that has been done on stress and the neuroscience behind the effects of stress. I knew that chronic stress wasn't good for your health and can lead to brain cell death, but that was about all I knew. Chronic stress actually has a lot of impacts. For instance, when we undergo stress, the bodies resources of prioritized and goes to heart, lungs muscles and brain (such as when an animal is running for it's life) and then other body systems shut down. This is ok for short "fight or fight" responses, but long term stress lowers the immune system and health problems can arise (because resources are not being distributed evenly).
I learned that stress is linked to accelerating the rate of shortening the telomeres on the ends of chromosomes. But acts of compassion and helping others increases the levels of telomerase which helps rebuild telomeres. One way I thought of this was that the saying of helping others in need makes us feel better, is actually true at a biological level.

Ok, I am not a science person and I might not have understood all the science behind everything, but that is the basic gist of what I got out of the documentary.