What is the #1 Biggest Health Risk Factor

Are y’all ready?

Hi y’all.

Since this is a post on Stress, interspersed through this post will hopefully be some calming pics. Let me know which pic you liked best in the comments.

…. An Orca breaking the water. Probably stressful if you are a small fish in the same water as the Orca….

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I’m still away but decided to send this out to keep everyone thinking. Everyone can actually be interpreted as y’all, especially when on a cruise ship with people from all over the world. Yet the accent I seem to hear the most seems to be Southern.

“Hey y’all, can you hold that elevator?”

“Hey, what offship excursions did y’all do?”

…. Chasing Waterfalls in Alaska is the opposite of stress….

Anyone know the difference between a Waterfall and a Cascade?

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So in honor of y’all I will tell ya what I believe the #1 Health risk factor is.

Y’all ready?

Here goes.

It’s Chronic Stress.

My definition of stress is anything that you care about moving forward but you don’t have control of or know how to affect it.

You care about whether a family member will be OK with their new recently diagnosed illness. But other than providing some emotional support you have no ability to change the outcome of their illness.

You have a job that supports your family. But the company you work for may be closing and there is nothing you can do to stop that.

…. Pretty cold near a massive Glacier… temperature stress but only for a short time as I went back inside the boat after the pic….

Now if I was stuck on a boat near the glacier, that y’all is what I would consider STRESS.

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How does the body handle stress?

Well short, acute and temporary stresses are rarely an issue. These temporary stresses can actually train your body how to handle the next stress without draining your reserves.

But chronic stress overwhelms your natural defenses and drains body reserves, and you can be left worse off for the wear. You are now out of balance.

…. Getting ready for a one mile dog mushing experience…

…. before y’all think the dogs are not treated well, they luv it. When we boarded the mushing cart, the dogs went nuts with excitement. Tails wagging and barking. Quite an experience.

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Now let’s think about this different.

Think about chronic stress as a chronic imbalance in your body.

If you have Diabetes, the imbalance or stress is chronically elevated blood sugars. These elevated blood sugars did NOT occur overnight, and are damaging to your body on a daily basis. But prior to the elevated sugars many other Biomarkers were already imbalanced causing other health issues as well. Blood sugar elevation is the result of a chronic imbalance. But there were many other prior imbalances that have been causing damage to your body. These prior chronic imbalances are very very very stressful to y’all’s body and health.

…. Knowing you are not in New Jersey when you see a store with this name…

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So Chronic Metabolic Imbalances that cause Diabetes also contribute to Overweight, Obesity, High Blood Pressure, Heart Disease, Strokes, Cancer and Dementia.

Think about this a second or a minute if you have the time.

All of the above disease processes are greatly affected by your diet and lifestyle that overstressed y’all’s body from maintaining a healthy balance.

…. Stress would be seeing this on a hike in an Alaskan park…. He was about 15 yards from me when I took this pic….

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So moving forward, when you think of stress, try not to just think of anxiety or fear. Think about where your balance may be off and figure out how to get back in a healthier balance. If you need help figuring that out, you probably know who can help if you are reading Common Sense Health and Wellness.

So y’all I will end with a nice balance meme….