I recently had a terrible disagreement with someone and everytime I think about it I start shaking and my heart starts pounding from adrenaline, which according to Google is unhealthy. But our hearts are accelerated when exercising, which is supposed to be a good thing – so what is the difference?
In: Biology
One good example I’ve heard, is that when you encounter something fearsome, you’ll get a shot of adrenaline to fight or flight with. But you can see the these and you know when it’s gone so the elevated heart rate and blood pressure soon drop.
With stress or anxiety, it’s not a clear physical threat. You might stress over your job, that you need to do this project, and do it well, or the company will go under, and you’ll lose your job, and you’ve got bills to pay, and the job market is not looking good right now, etc. So your brain is thinking over all the bad things that could happen, and starting to generate a fear response because you’d obviously fear this chain of events happening. Yet it’s a long term issue, and there is no clear end in sight. Certain jobs might put you in a position where job security is not great and so you are always stressed. So your brain is telling your body bad things will happen, you’re in danger, and cortisol the stress hormone is released. Your body is constantly got elevated heart rate and blood pressure, because it doesn’t understand the threat. And there is nowhere for this to go.
Under exercise however, your heart is just responding to your needs and working more as it is needed, all that work is done just for those muscles you are using
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