During college stress can be a common component of everyday life. There is a certain amount of stress that is healthy, though if the stress consumes you, this can lead to more severe cases such as anxiety and PTSD. Though what are the factors that result in these cases where stress can be debilitating?
Well to start epigenetics is a major factor, this results from changes in the environment resulting in methylation of one’s DNA. This causes changes that can result in certain portions of the DNA being labeled for inducing more activity at those sites. Enough stress can result in the expression and methylation of DNA, causing genetic changes because of the stressor.
The results of the methylation of the DNA creates tags that can be utilized to change the regulation of those genes.
So how do we address the stress? Well as stressful experiences become more regular in our lives, there is no major way to avoid stress. Though effort can be made to reduce the duration of the stress, and find other activities and hobbies as an outlet for mostly stress free activities. Exercise is also a great outlet, as this can relieve stress by distracting you from the stressor, and increasing GABA levels, this results in reducing action potential for neurons, thus decreasing the strength of stressors. However one of the easier solutions for reducing stress is our lifestyle, in the current age of continuous communication via the internet. One can allot time for themselves, by discerning time for when to be stressed, such as at work and separating time after work as being personal time that shouldn’t be affected by work. As with the constant nagging by other employees to reply to work related matter creates unneeded stress, that could be eliminated by limiting the number of work related interactions during vacation, and during one’s personal time.
