The events with an average or positive factor of stress (eustress) forge and vitalize the body; they engage a person’s all resources into carrying out a task or in surpassing a difficult situation. They stimulate the person’s capacity to adapt to the effort that it takes to attain a goal and to achieve an objective; to the effort that a person puts in fulfilling a requirement, a professional or personal necessity as a result of which that person may feel content, fulfillment, joy or enthusiasm.

Negative stress (distress) is a person’s response to the interaction with the professional, social or familial environment. It occurs when the respective person does not have the resources, the education or the necessary aptitudes to meet the requirements or to fulfill the expectations of the environment. It is also triggered by sudden, unexpected and exhausting events, events that generate a state of tension, strain, frustration and discomfort. It may also occur as a result of a long term physical or emotional overstrain or too feeble a strain.

Long periods of negative stress, high intensity stress factors, stimuli privation or lack of activity ruin the health of the body, causing major health problems in time, unless measures are taken to make the body relax, to balance and harmonize the emotional and affective life.

At emotional level, the periods of intense stress are followed by fits of anxiety, emotional disorders, tension, discomfort, nervousness, the urge to escape, the necessity to slow down the rhythm of living; the need of quiet and of a simpler life; feelings of guilt and discontent carried to the extreme sometimes; inferiority complexes and distortion of self-image. This clinical picture biases the panic attacks, should the stressor agents maintain their intensity. A person is threatened by neuroses when going through extreme events as well as by other pathological manifestations of emotional type. They will impair the person and will make him quit the social life, ruining the familial and the professional relationships, too.

At cerebral level, the emotional strain will give birth to vasoconstrictions in certain areas of the brain (the blood vessels irrigating the brain are compressed and narrowed, tightened). The risk of strokes is consequently increased. Accordingly, metabolic rhythm and local oxygenation rate are decreased; the metabolic produces will not be eliminated completely any more, building into deposits in the poorly irrigated areas. Lack of oxygen in the cerebral area leads to sleep disorders or insomnias, agitation and nervousness, depression, poorer intellectual efficiency; deterioration of memory and concentration capacity; forgetfulness and difficulties in perceiving all the events.

In times of stress, hormonal secretions undergo changes; the concentrations of adrenalin and noradrenalin grow enormously. Adrenalin or epinephrine is a hormone secreted by the adrenals in situations of stress. It accelerates the cardiac rate and makes artery tension rise; it activates circulation in the central nervous system; it diminishes the digestive functions and prepares the body for the massive production of energy. Noradrenalin is involved in increasing the cardiac rate and in directing the blood flow towards muscles.

The phenomenon will lead to an accelerated ageing of the tissues and of the whole body. Under these circumstances, the already existing diseases will be aggravated; immunity of the body is decreased; the resistance of the body to pathogen factors from the environment and its capacity to eliminate cancer cells are decreased as well.

At the level of the digestive system, there is threat of gastric or duodenal ulcer, of ulcerative colitis and of irritable bowel. The circulatory system is exposed to arrhythmias, tachycardia and myocardial infarction. In the female reproductive system, stress causes disorders of conception, female sterility, and cycle disorders, such as: amenorrhea, dysmenorrhea. In men, the action of stress upon the endocrine system triggers erectile disorders, impotence, premature ejaculation or male sterility.

Treatment

Worldwide, physicians and specialists have recognized the efficiency of acupuncture: it makes the nervous system relax and it fights the effects that negative stress has upon the nervous system and upon the entire body as a matter of fact. In our centre of traditional medicine, the specific acupuncture procedures and the phytotherapeutical formulas employed prevent and treat the harmful effects of stress, assuring best health as well as an emotional and affective balance that allows the patients to perform their professional activity and their social duties with increased efficiency.

The acupuncture procedures employed reduce the adrenalin and noradrenalin secretions; they increase the secretion of endorphin (a neurotransmitter with strong analgesic action that relaxes the nervous system and gives the patients a feeling of comfort) and serotonin. At the same time, it regulates the dopamine secretion. The diameter and caliber of the narrowed blood vessels in the areas of cerebral vasoconstriction is restored. The normal blood flow is restored as well, so the processes of cerebral oxygenation are recommenced. The medicinal herbs have the additional role of eliminating metabolic produces deposited in the respective areas and of intensifying the processes of cerebral oxygenation, so that the dysfunctional areas of tissue may be regenerated or replaced by healthy cells. An increased cell oxygenation is achieved by means of a catalyst that helps the oxygen molecules penetrate into the cells of the body. The respective catalyst can only be found in the spontaneous flora. It is only there because of the environment conditions nowadays and of the high level of pollution. In the past, it used to be present in the entire atmosphere of the planet, close by the oxygen molecules.

The treatments involve also discussions between physician and patient. They help the patient reorganize his life style, detach and find solutions for stressful events; accept their faults and failures and build a new perspective of their own person. The patient is guided to achieve balance in his life style by adopting certain rules of work, rest and relaxation, hygiene and diet. Their role is to maintain the health of the body, to allow a better adaptation to the requirements of the environment, but also to provide the patient with emotional comfort, teaching him how to dose his energy rationally in the everyday activities.

In order to feel accomplished, each person needs love and satisfaction. The alert rhythm of life and the speed of the modern society exhaust the human being, who no longer has time to live or to express his feelings. Too concerned with the safety of the next day and with the survival in the urban jungle, people forget they are not alone. They also forget that their feelings of isolation and loneliness are born only from the lack of a good communication with their fellow men, while they are too concerned with getting material or professional advantages.