Stress and exercise

Edited by Massimo Armeni

Fitness and sport, year 15, No. 4, 2007 - Massimo Armeni -

The word stress has now fully entered the everyday vocabulary.

But what is stress really ?!

it is a psycho-neuro-endocrine-immunological response to an external stimulus.

Dr. Hans Selye, already in 1967, distinguished between "good" or "eustress" stress, and "bad" or "distress" stress.

Eustress is the stress that stimulates us to find and enjoy successes and triumphs.

Distress is the stress that we avoid, fear or suffer when someone hits us or we are in aberrant situations.

In this regard, from the studies carried out, hostility, depression and anxiety are the most deleterious emotions.

We all have challenges to face in our daily life; the skill consists in knowing how to manage our stress and not let our circuits become overloaded.

How many people do gymnastics today precisely because they feel "stressed" and want to have fun or better yet "discharge" themselves?

Stress and endocrine system

Distress has devastating effects on our body.

Considering the psycho-emotional sphere, situations of chronic " distress " can act as "irritative thorns" that constantly destabilize the adrenal glands primarily.

The adrenal gland is a pyramidal formation of a yellowish color - given by the fat - weighing about 7.5 g., Placed on the posterior pole of each kidney, nestled between the kidney, the diaphragm and the main veins and arteries of the posterior wall of the abdominopelvic cavity .

Richly vascularized as all endocrine glands, they receive blood from the renal artery, from the inferior frenic artery and from the aorta artery .

Venous return is ensured by the adrenal veins .

From the functional point of view each gland can be divided into an external or cortical area and into an internal or medullary area, secreting different hormones but with a synergistic control of stress.

The hormones produced by the cortical are the vital corticosteroids .

The hormones produced by the medulla are Mineralcorticoids, which are also extremely important.

Among them the most important functionally is Aldosterone, which acts by reabsorbing sodium ions and water from the renal tubule, favoring in parallel the elimination of potassium ions with urine.

Between the glomerular and reticular area there is the fasciculata area, which covers about 78% of the cortical volume: the hormones produced in this area are the glycocorticoids, the most important of which is cortisol, followed, in order of importance, by corticosterone ; the liver converts some of the circulating cortisol into cortisone.

All these hormones act by accelerating the synthesis processes of gluconeogenesis and glycogen synthesis, especially in the liver.

On a purely biochemical level, an excess of sugar, coffee, thyrostimulants and lipotrophic substances can unbalance these glands.

The distress also causes other imbalances of significant importance:

the "Fight or Flyght" reactions - fought or escaped - located in the limbic or reptilian brain that condition our daily life, cause a "bombardment" of Y motoneuron impulses through the Pyramidal System, generating a hypertonus of the lower extensor muscles and muscles upper flexors.

Our body practically stiffens, losing its elasticity and osteo-arthro-myofascial mobility.

Our posture adapts to a situation of stress and not more bearable!

This can obviously also lead to joint or myofascial disorders.

Furthermore the distress originates other important hormonal variations and above all heavy modifications in our body composition, as we will see later.

In physiology, the adrenal glands, stimulated by the anterior iisi, are the first to be affected, generating imbalances in the genesis of glucocorticoids but above all a hypercortisolemia with the possible consequences that are:

increase in protein breakdown;

increased elimination of leucine absorption in protein synthesis;

increase in the amino acid cycle, which leads to greater protein synthesis and disintegration;

increase in body fat levels through the stimulation of LPL LipoProtein Lipase;

increased production of Somatostatin, which blocks the release of GH from the anterior junction and therefore leads to muscle catabolism and lipogenesis;

suppression of testicular steroidogenesis in humans through inhibition of LH production - luteinizing hormone - stimulated by anterior iisi

deviation of the use of glucose from the muscles to the brain, therefore possible muscle fatigue;

increases the action of the adrenal medulla with the activation of the SNS by stimulating the production of the two catecholamines Adrenaline and Noradrenaline, and generating relative hypertension, lipolysis, peripheral resistance and inhibition of insulin release, hepatic gluconeogenesis and increase in O2 consumption, and therefore in metabolism basal; in the long run we arrive at a "paradoxical" hypoadrenia.

The ACSM (American College of Sports Medicine), over the years, has carried out various studies regarding the influence that the distress exerts on the human organism and regarding the positive effect of the physical exercise in contrasting it and in reducing it.

Effects of chronic exposure to distress according to ACSM

increase atherosclerosis

increase in carotid atherosclerosis

vasospasm

myocardial ischemia

occlusion of the coronary arteries

increase in ventricular arrhythmia

++ dyspnea ↔ COPD / CRPD

increase in immunoglobulins → ++ arthritis

increase in LDL and VLDL cholesterol

decrease HDL cholesterol

increase in systolic pressure