Stress can become a vicious cycle — here’s one way to find the exit

Crying game

“It’s alright to cry. Crying gets the sad out of you.”

That sounds like advice a mom would tell her tween daughter after a heartbreak. But in case you don’t recognize the line, it was actually sung by NFL great and all-around tough guy, Rosey Grier, on “Free to Be You and Me.”

And yes, men…it is okay to cry.

Still, crying is one thing. Admitting that you’re anxious, depressed or stressed…well that’s another entirely. And for men, you’ve been raised to just “suck it up and get over it.”

But that way of dealing with it could be making you sick…like really sick.

Now there’s a way to “get over it” that can actually help you deal with it. And it couldn’t be any easier. Plus, the best part: You don’t have to talk to anyone about your feelings.

Finding the exit from the vicious cycle

We know this for sure… Prolonged anxiety and stress can cause damage that leads to a variety of health problems. BIG problems. And the older you are, the more dangerous it becomes.

Here’s how it works…

Stress prompts your body to secrete cortisol. So far so good, because cortisol helps you cope. But when stress is chronic, cortisol levels get too high. That’s when the part of your brain called the hippocampus sends a signal to shut down cortisol.

Well, that’s what’s supposed to happen…

Unfortunately, excess cortisol can damage the hippocampus. So the signal to shut down cortisol might be muted. Or it might not go out at all. In that case, cortisol remains high, damaging the hippocampus even further.

It’s a terrible Catch 22. And it gets worse…

Throughout our lives, hippocampus cells die. In later years, the hippocampus might be just three-quarters of the size it was when we were in our 20s.

So that cortisol attack becomes even more dangerous as we age. Especially because high cortisol levels prompt anxiety and depression.

It’s a vicious cycle that gets more and more vicious. Because high cortisol levels also contribute to heart disease and cognitive impairment.

That’s enough to make anyone anxious and stressed!

But like I said there is a really easy fix here.

In a recent study of men over 50, half the men took a multivitamin, with vitamin and mineral doses well above the RDA. Another group took a placebo.

The results were remarkable. Men in the multi group experienced significant reduction of “negative mood symptoms.” These included stress, anxiety, and depression. The multi men also reported improvement in alterness and “general day-to-day well-being.” They felt more energetic as well.

And all these improvements occurred in just eight weeks.

Now, if only we could get Rosey to sing “It’s alright to take a multi. Multis get the stress out of you.”

Sources:
“The effect of multivitamin supplementation on mood and stress in healthy older men.” Human Psychopharmacology, Vol. 26, No. 8, onlinelibrary.wiley.com