Bullying Can Cause Inflammation in the Body and Brain
comfortableNight4463
September 17th, 2022
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The onset of inflammation
If you are daily coming into contact with a boss, a teacher, a coach, or even a colleague or peer who bullies you, your brain predicts that the situation is one of fight, flight, or freeze and this causes your body to release the stress hormone cortisol more often and in greater amounts than you need. When you have a buildup of cortisol in your body from the chronic stress of bullying and abuse, coupled with the stress response to fight, flight, or freeze, inflammation flares up. This inflammation can drain your energy, cause a fever, and make you susceptible to viruses.
How does inflammation affect your body and brain?
You become inactive to preserve what’s left of your depleted self. This can negatively impact eating, sleeping, and exercising. You may gain weight which makes the inflammation worse intensifying the whole vicious cycle. Just as bullying and abuse can cause chronic stress and body budget imbalance, resulting in inflammation, empathy and compassion can reduce stress and support the balancing of the body budget, reducing inflammation. It can negatively impact your ability to focus and remember.
How to reduce inflammation
- Extensive research documents the repairing and restoring power of mindfulness. When you close your eyes, breathe slowly and purposefully. Focus on your breath and being in the present.
- Extensive research documents the repairing and restoring power of aerobic exercise. Physical movement prevents the harmful effects of stress and helps the body and brain repair when stress has occurred.
- Extensive research documents your ability to regulate your emotional response to situations. If your brain has been wired to anticipate and predict threat and harm, you need to work hard to rewire it. Experiencing the present in a mindful, proactive, responsive way helps balance the body budget and keeps inflammation at bay."
Reflection:
What are your thoughts on this article?
#Bullying #Inflammation #Stress
globalBraid3744
September 17th, 2022
@comfortableNight4463
I love how educative is this article! I think lots of us do not realize that these things can lead to reduced immunity and can result in inflammation. It is really helpful to read about ways to reduce it at the end of the article. I especially like an emotional response strategy, as I believe that this is a very helpful approach and can be applied to any situation!
sunnyWriting4806
September 17th, 2022
@comfortableNight4463
To that sense anything that causes negative emotions or causes extended release of cortisol can be causing us chronic inflammation. Bullying definitely has more consequences than we thought!
