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Oct 23 2008

What Stress Won’t Do To You

There are a lot of urban myths and old wives’ tales about how stress directly affects the body. I’m guilty of thinking that stress will turn my hair white and even writing about it. But stress alone can’t turn your hair white or grey. Stress can aggravate some medical conditions, but it usually is not the main culprit for some maladies that we blame it for. So, if you think your stress will give you an ulcer or cancer or turn your hair white, you can relax.

What About Ulcers?

The common teaching is that stress and spicy food gave you ulcers. Actually, they don’t. Ulcers are caused by a certain bacteria called (get ready for it) helicobactor pylori (usually just referred to as “h. pylori” for sanity’s sake). Appropriately, h. pylori is shaped like a corkscrew. We all have it in our guts, but sometimes it can really bother us by giving us an ulcer. It is unknown exactly why we sometimes can’t tolerate our little tenant.

Other causes include overuse of painkillers, smoking and drinking, which the h. pylori doesn’t seem to like, either.

Although stress can’t cause an ulcer, it can aggravate one when you already start to get one.

Hair Turning White

The reason your hair turns white is because melanin is no longer getting to the follicles. Melanin is what gives the strand of hair it’s color. This is usually die to the normal ageing process, but if you get really sick, your hair can turn gray or fall out altogether. Ignored long-term stress can aggravate your overall health, but is not a direct cause of your hair turning white. There aren’t any provable cases of someone’s hair turning white overnight due to extreme stress.

Cancer

Stress can’t cause cancer. Again and again, medical studies have proven that stress alone can’t cause cancer. Stress can lead to smoking, drinking and poor food choices which can cause cancer. But stress all by itself. You have enough to worry about — getting cancer because you’re worried about getting cancer is something you no longer need to worry about.

Hope this helps.

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28 Comments

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  1. Posted October 23, 2008 at 3:45 pm | Permalink

    Thank you for refuting the conventional wisdom of how stress can cause illnesses or medical conditions.

  2. Posted October 23, 2008 at 4:46 pm | Permalink

    I don’t know… I read so much about stress being bad for you. I’m not sure I’m convinced. :)

  3. Posted October 25, 2008 at 3:56 am | Permalink

    Well as a medical person I must tell you that stress indeed a factor that increases the risk of ulcer. Not because it brings bacteria to your body but because stress makes your body releases much more acid than usual. In short term it won’t mean much than a dispepsi/indigestive. yet, if it happen for a long time than you stomach wall will be irritated and that contribute to ulcer.

  4. Posted October 26, 2008 at 12:20 pm | Permalink

    Isn’t that image upside down? :)

  5. Posted October 26, 2008 at 8:12 pm | Permalink

    wow good job, its exelent post.

  6. Posted October 27, 2008 at 10:40 am | Permalink

    i am felling great now really stress free
    good post

  7. Posted October 27, 2008 at 5:15 pm | Permalink

    At least now when my folks say its my fault they went grey at such an early age I know there joking! After reading all of that I can relax a little.

  8. Posted October 30, 2008 at 7:47 am | Permalink

    Stress is the number one killer in my mind. If your stressed out all the time, chances are your happiness level isn’t high. There are plenty of things that can make you stressed out and depressed. You just have to work through it and get to the next day.

  9. Posted November 6, 2008 at 9:37 pm | Permalink

    It’s true that stress alone can make your hair turn gray, just look at the last few presidents, their hair turned gray within 2 years in the office.

  10. Posted November 11, 2008 at 10:36 pm | Permalink

    It is nice to know that you feel the same why I do about the myths of stress. Thank you for the great post.

  11. Posted November 20, 2008 at 9:36 am | Permalink

    Stress might be a factor about hair turning grey fast. I have actually witnessed some practical incidents. Thanks anyway for the nice post.

  12. Posted November 21, 2008 at 5:48 am | Permalink

    Such a wonderful article about ulcers and hair turning white.There are really a lot of new stuff in your post.Thanks for sharing.

  13. Posted November 21, 2008 at 2:51 pm | Permalink

    Stress effects us all but if we all just learn to deal with things immeadiatly we would curb our stress.

  14. Posted November 22, 2008 at 3:48 pm | Permalink

    I know you state that stress doesn’t cause ulcers, but perhaps there is an indirect link there. You also state that some ulcer causes include overuse of painkillers, smoking and drinking. When people are stressed, they smoke, drink and use painkillers excessively.

  15. Posted December 2, 2008 at 1:38 am | Permalink

    It is well said that a sound mind in sound body is above the health. Stress and its frequency are much common with the affluent classes. I have to know its correlation with suffering like hair color, ulcer and even TB. We should be habitual to be adjusted with difficult circumstances. If you might have enumerated causes and remedy of stress! Thank for post.

  16. Posted December 5, 2008 at 2:17 pm | Permalink

    I totally agreed with your thoughts that stress turns tour hair white. In my point of view stress is bad it completely spoils your health and directly affects on you. I was scared after reading this post. So we should try to escape from the stress and stay healthy and fit. Thank you very much for sharing the nice and informative post. You really did a great job. Thank you for it.

  17. Posted December 7, 2008 at 10:21 am | Permalink

    Daily work out help relax the body and mind. However you should not stretch yourself to the extreme.

  18. Posted December 7, 2008 at 11:27 pm | Permalink

    This is an extremely thought-provoking post, thanks for sharing.

    Even though stress doesn’t reduce these health conditions directly, stress isn’t very fun.

    A new supplement product called Bromalite, containing all-natural ingredients can help reduce stress, and increase your energy. It also gently cleanses your colons, contains pro-biotics which turn your body into a hostile environment for nasty things like parasites, worms, and toxins. It also thermogenically burns fat cells, causing you to melt away fat. Overall, it’s a great supplement to be taking

    We are offering a free trial of Bromalite at our website, http://bromalitetrial.com

    You will just need to pay a small shipping fee of $4.95

  19. Posted December 10, 2008 at 11:08 pm | Permalink

    I find this post very interesting. I have traditionally thought that stress does have some causality with ulcers and cancer. And I am not sure if i agree with you 100%, I do feel that stress can have some effect on these ailments. However, If you do truly believe that stress does not have any cause with these ailments and you do tell your self to relax, I think these will have a positive effect on your health. I thinking that stress will give you cancer or ulcers will most likely just make you more stressful. So telling your self to relax and not worry about it will definitely have a positive effect.

    Great Post. Thanks.

  20. Posted December 11, 2008 at 8:16 pm | Permalink

    Well there are indirect causes and direct causes.

    “Stress alone can’t cause cancer” is not quite the same as “stress can’t cause cancer.”

  21. Posted December 12, 2008 at 5:00 am | Permalink

    Wee written nice article.

  22. Posted December 18, 2008 at 9:50 am | Permalink

    The perfect solution like listening to music or 10 minutes perfect deep sleep can get rid of this stress . Nice article!

  23. Posted December 20, 2008 at 9:20 pm | Permalink

    Yes it is true. Please don’t realize but they have negative effect on your health.

  24. Posted December 23, 2008 at 8:44 pm | Permalink

    Couldn’t agree more.. from my own research of other scientific articles stress is only a contributing factor, not more than that. If stress alone was the reason for cancer then everyone would have some form of it. There’s a scientific evidence that cancer does strengthen cancer cells that’s the main reason why chemotherapy patients need to remain optimistic and free from stress.

  25. Posted December 27, 2008 at 10:00 pm | Permalink

    ‘Ignored long-term stress can aggravate your overall health.’- Stress and its concomitants are only one’s own making and not something that comes from without. nosle.com todd

  26. Posted December 28, 2008 at 11:57 pm | Permalink

    Stress- Sucks the whole.

  27. Posted December 29, 2008 at 9:47 am | Permalink

    I never heard that hair turns white when you are stressed.If that is true I guess soon I will b called “STORM”! (I AM SURE YOU KNOW STORM FROM X-MEN!)

  28. Posted December 31, 2008 at 9:38 pm | Permalink

    Well my hair is turning white and i’m in my early 30s. By 40 I’ll have 90% white hair and that’s not because of stress. I lead pretty balanced stress free life.. The main reason I’ll have white hair is because of my genetics as my dad’s hair turned white by the age of 40.

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