The other time at a meeting, the conductor made mention of someone diagnosed with kidney damage. Going on, he explained how this result came about because of the patient’s thinking habit; but there beside me was this lady with eyes screaming, “how? just how?”
Well, can the kidneys get damaged by overthinking? Or in a more refined language, can psychological stress lead to kidney damage? – let’s find out!
To start with, I should mention how there is always an opening for psychological tension in our daily living. Stress, itself, is anything that disturbs our state of balance. It comes in several forms including infections, injury, and the psychological part that include conflict, anxiety, argument, threats.
So, does a day ever go by without that one thing that breaks our heart, or threatens us? Even paying attention to the COVID-19 streak can put your mental well-being under a whole lot of stress.
However, don’t get me wrong. Although we all come across openings for stress, we all aren’t doomed to kidney issues. We all get to make that one choice of if we want to hold on to the tension, or if we want to let it all go. For now, I will go on to explain how not letting it go can be dangerous.
When we come under stress, our bodies release some hormones. Among these is the popular Adrenaline, with another being Cortisol. Adrenaline acts by increasing the heart rate and peripheral resistance to blood flow by vessel constrictions. This two factors ultimately raise the blood pressure.
Cortisol, on the other hand, raises the blood sugar (glucose) level. These two responses are quite essential in dealing with short-term stress, but if these responses remain for a long time, there comes the risk of persistent blood pressure increase, which is hypertension.
Hypertension is the bad guy capable of causing heart attacks and stroke, among others. But where do the kidneys come in, right?
The kidneys make up a blood filtering system, and since stress has led to an issue with the blood circulatory system, there is sure to be an effect on the kidneys. Simply put, the out-of-control blood pressure and raised blood sugar add burden to the work of the kidneys. If this burden goes on for a long time, the kidneys come to the point where they can’t keep up, hence the kidney damage.
Even worse is how people under stress indulge in unhealthy activities such as smoking, which only increases the chance of these complications. Hence, the good doctor says, when you find yourself in stressful conditions, try to avoid:
- Smoking
- Drinking too much alcohol
- Unhealthy food
Instead,
- Take out time to sleep and relax
- Practise your yoga and meditation
- Eat good food
- Engage in controlled physical activities
- Pray
- Talk to someone, a friend
In all, the good doctor is telling you to take your mind off the cause of the stress. Now, don’t take this advice as a lack of care. Don’t go, “you don’t understand what I’m going through!”
Indeed, I can’t feel your pain, but we all have ours to consider. However, when we put forward the advice to let it go and take your mind off it, we are trying to help save more time to your health, and you need that time to find out that the same world which has only shown pain, can also reveal a lot of beauty.
Need a sound to listen to for the week? Here’s one!
What a Wonderful World
— Loius Armstrong
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