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Don’t Want Alzheimer's? Stop Sweating the Small Stuff.
The daily life of a typical American is deadly. We generally exist in a state of chronic stress that begins in childhood and continues throughout midlife. By the time we are old enough and wise enough to stop sweating the small stuff — the daily evidence of our supremely human lives — the damage is already done, and we find ourselves facing real consequences of chasing the American Dream: cardiovascular disease, metabolic disease, cancer, psychiatric and neurodegenerative disorders.
Your body is designed to deal with stress. So why does research show that 75-90 percent of all human disease — including dementia — is related to activation of the stress system?[R]
Think about when you get hot and start sweating or when you get cold and begin to shiver. Both are your body’s response to stress — in this case, environmental stress. When conditions change, your body automatically adjusts to compensate for those changes in order to get back to homeostasis[R]. The word “homeostasis” itself is a good illustrator: homeo in Latin means “similar to” and stasis means “standing still”. Your body is always adjusting to maintain this stillness.
In our busy lives, stress is everywhere. We barely notice our bodies struggling to maintain homeostasis.
