Heightened Sustained Stress from Toxic Relationships can Cause Disease

After I discovered the ‘love of my life’ was having affairs, I immediately broke it off. The void felt like a death. The shock, grief, and anxiety took its toll. I could not eat. I would not sleep. I lost weight. I thought I was dying.

For those of us in the throws of chronic stress, the body takes a hit. Sustained heightened stress is a precursor for hypertension, gastrointestinal disorders, chronic fatigue syndrome, to name a few of the disorders that come when one is not able to down regulate their nervous system.

Most of us are familiar with the sympathetic nervous system that controls our fight, flight and freeze responses. This system gears us up for action when faced with danger, perceived danger or stress.

The parasympathetic system is a lesser known function of our nervous system. This system down regulates, when functioning properly, our stress reaction. In other words it slows the heart rate, lowers the blood pressure, and returns the gut to function. Known as the rest and digest system, when not responding well, those heightened physiological responses stay dangerously high. The adrenals continue to pump out adrenalin, the heart rate continues to race and the blood pressure remains high. This leads to chronic diseases like hypertension, chronic fatigue and even…