The Hidden Way Stress Is Affecting Your Body

Stress is something everyone experiences—whether it’s from school, sports, or family life. But did you know that stress doesn’t just affect how you feel emotionally? It can also have a big impact on your body. A 2017 study published in the EXCLI Journal titled “The Impact of Stress on Body Function: A Review” by Habib Yaribeygi, Yunes Panahi, Hedayat Sahraei, Thomas P. Johnston, and Amirhossein Sahebkar reviewed how stress affects different systems in our body, including the nervous, immune, digestive, and cardiovascular systems. This blog is a discussion of those findings and how chiropractic can help.

Stress and Your Nervous System

When you experience stress, your body goes into “fight or flight” mode. This is your nervous system’s way of preparing you to handle danger. Your brain releases hormones like cortisol and adrenaline, which make your heart beat faster, increase your breathing rate, and sharpen your senses. This response is helpful in short bursts—for example, if you need to avoid an accident or meet a deadline—but it can cause problems when it happens all the time.

Chronic stress keeps your nervous system in a constant state of alert. This can make it harder for your brain to focus, remember things, or regulate your emotions. Over time, it can even affect how your brain cells grow and communicate with each other. People under long-term stress may feel anxious, irritable, or emotionally drained because their nervous system is overstimulated.

Stress also affects the connection between your brain and your body. Your nervous system controls all the messages that travel from your brain to your organs and muscles and then from your organs and muscles back to the brain. When stress interrupts this communication, it can lead to muscle tension, headaches, digestive problems, or trouble sleeping. 

When stress affects the body it often sets off a chain reaction. Stress can trigger the sympathetic nervous system (our fight-or-flight response). That extra sympathetic drive can turn off small, deep muscles that normally hold the spine steady (the intrinsic stabilizers). When those stabilizers don’t work, the spine can move in ways that promote more spinal dysfunction — what we call subluxations. Those subluxations keep the sympathetic system stuck on, create muscle imbalances and poor posture, and make the body less adaptable to new stressors. Over time this reduces healing, slows digestion, and even interferes with how your vestibular and visual systems work because the brain gets muddled or noisy signals from the body. Chiropractic adjustments and targeted muscle work help restore balanced nerve tone, reactivate the intrinsic stabilizers, rebalance muscles and posture, and clear the noisy signals so the brain and body can communicate and heal more effectively.

Stress and Your Immune System

Your immune system is your body’s defense team, protecting you from infections and illnesses. But when you’re stressed for long periods, your immune system can start to weaken. Chronic stress causes your body to release hormones like cortisol that reduce the number of white blood cells—these are the cells that fight off germs. This makes it easier to catch colds, flu, or other infections.

Stress can also make inflammation worse in your body, which is linked to many health problems such as allergies, arthritis, and even heart disease. Essentially, when your body is in constant “stress mode,” it has less energy to focus on healing and protecting itself.

Stress can weaken your immune system by keeping the sympathetic nervous system activated. When subluxations interfere with normal nervous system function, the sympathetic system can stay turned on longer than it should, turning down the activity of immune organs and making it harder for your body to fight off infections. Poor posture and muscle imbalances from subluxations can also contribute to less efficient circulation and slower immune responses. Chiropractic care helps by restoring spinal alignment, reactivating stabilizing muscles, and balancing sympathetic and parasympathetic tone. This allows the immune system to function more efficiently, keeping inflammation in check and helping your body defend itself even during stressful periods.

Stress and Your Heart

Stress doesn’t just stay in your mind—it has a big effect on your heart and blood vessels. When stressed, your heart beats faster and your blood pressure rises. Over time, this can put extra strain on your cardiovascular system. People under chronic stress have a higher risk of developing heart problems, including high blood pressure, heart attacks, and stroke.

Stress also causes your blood vessels to constrict, which can reduce blood flow to your organs and muscles. This can leave you feeling fatigued, tense, or short of breath. Additionally, stress often leads to unhealthy habits like poor diet, less exercise, or disrupted sleep, which further affect heart health.

Stress can affect your heart and blood vessels because subluxations disrupt the nervous system’s control over cardiovascular function. When sympathetic nerves are overactive due to stress or subluxation, the heart beats faster, blood vessels tighten, and blood flow can become less efficient. Muscle imbalances and poor posture from spinal dysfunction can make it even harder for the body to adapt to these changes. Chiropractic adjustments help restore proper nerve communication, rebalance muscles, and improve posture. When the nervous system can regulate the heart and blood vessels more effectively, the body handles stress better, reducing strain on the cardiovascular system and supporting long-term heart health.

Stress and Your Digestive System

Your digestive system is very sensitive to stress. When you’re anxious or under pressure, your body diverts energy away from digestion to focus on “fight or flight” responses. This can cause stomachaches, nausea, diarrhea, or constipation. Over time, chronic stress can disrupt normal digestive function, increasing the risk of conditions like irritable bowel syndrome or acid reflux. How chronic fight or flight can decrease blood flow through the intestines decreasing nutrient absorption

Stress also affects the balance of bacteria in your gut, which plays an important role in your immune system and overall health. When your gut isn’t functioning properly, it can lead to nutrient deficiencies, fatigue, or more serious health issues.

Subluxations can interfere with the nerve signals that regulate your digestive organs, especially when stress keeps the sympathetic system activated. This disruption can slow gut motility, reduce enzyme production, and decrease blood flow to the digestive system, which may lead to bloating, stomach aches, or constipation. By restoring nerve function, reactivating stabilizing muscles, and improving posture, chiropractic care helps your digestive system work more efficiently, supporting better nutrient absorption, energy levels, and overall gut health.

How Chiropractic Care Can Help

Chiropractic care focuses on the relationship between your spine and nervous system. When your spine is misaligned, it can interfere with nerve signals and contribute to stress-related symptoms. Chiropractors use adjustments to correct these misalignments, which can help reduce stress and improve overall health.

Regular chiropractic visits can help keep your nervous system functioning properly, reduce muscle tension, and promote relaxation. This can make it easier for your body to handle stress and prevent the negative effects associated with it.

Takeaway

Stress affects more than just your mind—it can impact almost every system in your body. Subluxations, posture imbalances, and sympathetic over-activation make the body less adaptable and slow healing. Chiropractic care restores spinal alignment, improves muscle function, and clears nervous system interference so your body can communicate with your brain clearly. When nerve signals are balanced, your body can manage stress more effectively, heal more efficiently, and maintain better overall health. Supporting your spine is one of the most powerful ways to stay resilient and balanced in today’s stressful world.

Stress can have real physical effects on your body. Understanding how stress impacts your health is the first step in managing it. Chiropractic care offers a natural way to support your body in dealing with stress. If you’re feeling overwhelmed, consider talking to a chiropractor to see how they can help you manage stress and improve your overall well-being.

Remember, taking care of your body is important, and managing stress is a big part of that. By understanding the effects of stress and seeking appropriate care, you can maintain a healthier, more balanced life.

At Wellness Within Chiropractic, we proudly serve Hoschton, Braselton, and all of Jackson County, GA with natural, holistic chiropractic care. Dr. Carrillo and our team are dedicated to helping you move better, feel stronger, and support your long-term wellness. If you’re searching for a trusted chiropractor near you, schedule an appointment today and discover the benefits of chiropractic care for your health and lifestyle.