I would like to share with you some concepts about Stress. The immune systems strength heavily relies on the amount of stressors your body is dealing with.
To help you learn how to mitigate and scale the stress, I’ve created a worksheet called The Stress Cup.
Print out the below and use it!! After 5-7 days of logging in your stress cup, send it over to me and I’ll gift you a 30 minute video training session with me.
Let’s get straight to it, shall we?
What is Inflammation?
A bodily response directed by cells in our immune system.
What cells?
Dendrites, Macrophages, T-cells, and B-cells
There are two segments within our strong Immune system
The Innate Immune System
The guardians of the castle (Dendrite cells & Macrophages) who protect the door from any bacteria or viruses that look or act suspicious.
Guardian Dendrite & Guardian Macrophage destroy invaders and display their heads on the castle wall for the inside army to see - The adaptive immune army
The Adaptive Immune System
T - cells & B - cells who adapt themselves to any invader mounted on the castle wall by the guardians.
Why do they adapt?
To be prepared for any future encounter with any of these invaders, so they can can be perfect assassins for it.
How?
T & B cells clone themselves and spread within the body, waiting to encounter another invader with their antigen (specific pattern of protein of invaders)
When fighting, they anti bodies called “cytokines” → These are inflammatory
Is all Inflammation bad!? No!!
How so?
The Immune system generates & controls acute inflammation response needed for the beneficial functions of: Proper wound healing, fighting infections, and exercise recovery.
Difference between Acute & Chronic
Acute is temporary
Chronic is a continuous stimulation of the immune system. Constant release of “cytokines” wreak havoc in your castle and health.
Fun Fact:
70 - 80% of your immune system lives in our gut!
Oxidative Stress
What is Oxidative Stress?
A free radical AKA Reactive oxygen species (ROS). Think of ROS as the drunk guy at a bar for now….
It is the process of an unpaired electron (Free radical) stealing an electron from a nearby cell membrane in your beautiful body.
What does this do?
When a free radical steals an electron from a nearby molecule, it damages structures like cell membranes even DNA. Tell Kendrick that…
Long term DNA damage by free radicals can cause mutations leading to cancer.
Where does it come from?
It comes from many internal and external stressors like:
Pollution
Infection
Radiation
Cigarette smoking
Normal metabolism in our cells
Processed foods
Many more
How do I avoid this!?
Well, you can’t avoid it entirely. The goal of all of this is to keep you aware of shit so you can minimize it as much as possible. It’s a yin & yang thing ya know?
Stay tuned for the next blog post, where I give you a free PDF to learn where your stressors are coming from. From there, we can create interventions to help reduce inflammation & oxidative stress, thus strengthening your immune system.
