Stress, Yeast infection and the Exercise connection

Today I want to talk about exercise and stress release, and how this is important in successfully combatting a yeast infection. You have probably heard that exercise helps with stress. But if you are anything like me you may have been a bit vague on how. In the past I thought that its major role in stress relief was to help you be a happier person and thereby avoid getting stressed. This is an important aspect of exercise and stress release but it is by no means the whole story.

Exercise also plays a vital role in restoring your body’s chemical balance if you do get stressed.

When we become stressed our adrenals, which are situated above our kidneys release adrenaline. This is a stress hormone. Its function is to prepare us for fight or flight. It is a vital survival instinct. Some of the effects of adrenaline on the system are to prioritise where our energy, largely via our blood flow, is directed. It moves energy from essential but not urgent functions such as digestion, reproductive organs, immune function to short term urgent body parts – mostly our limbs, to be ready for action. An adrenaline rush also causes our liver to release sugar into our blood stream. ¹ If we are needing to run away from a lion this is perfect and as we run our body uses the adrenaline that is in its system, thus returning our blood chemistry to normal and ending the effects of the adrenaline on our system in good time. If you do not run away from the lion (or do anything else physical with that adrenaline) then the body thinks that the threat still remains (as you have not used the adrenaline yet) and the effects of the adrenaline remain in your system and over time can cause the essential organ functions such as digestion, reproductive organs and immune system to become damaged, thus affecting the rest of the body².

I am pretty much assuming that if you have access to a computer and you can read my blog post (ie you speak english) then you are not often needing to run away from wild animals. But I would also guarantee that many of us experience stress and therefore adrenaline releases. In the last 24 hours I personally have experienced a few possible adrenaline situations. First – last night we went to our local authentic chinese eatery– plenty of anti-yeast approved diet food here. We ordered, we waited and waited and waited. By the time it arrived our children were so tired we took it home as take away to eat once they were in bed (thankfully we had brought them separate food for their dinners). Then today I was driving along a two lane high way behind an enormous four wheel drive. He was so big he seemed to think he needed both lanes. No, actually it looked like he was trying to read a map while driving. Every time his head bent over to read the map on the passengers side he swerved fully into the other lane and then back again. I haven’t seen such bad driving since Africa or Malaysia. I stayed well behind, but somehow he pulled left and I zoomed around him. Wouldn’t you know my luck he pulled into my lane and decided to speed up. Right on my tail the worst driver I have seen in this country. Great. Could have been stressful. And then today cheeky child. Was stressful! Any of these sound familiar – stressed caused by being busy, by other peoples actions, by relationship friction etc etc. Often this stress requires no physical exertion, so no message is sent to our nervous system that the threat is past and we are left with the adrenaline running through our veins. What do we do? Exercise. If you are running late and it is stressing you out then my advice is – run to get ready. Literally. Move your muscles. Something fast – stomp your knees up and down while you are hanging out the washing if that is the best you can manage. Jog really fast on the spot like Rocky for a minute or two if that is all you have time for. But use that adrenaline for what it is for and get rid of its effect upon your essential systems. How is this important in controlling yeast infections? Well, to effectively combat yeast infections we need our digestive and immune systems to be in peak condition and we don’t really want elevated blood sugar levels either. And exercise not only removes the adrenaline it improves digestion³ and immune function above their normal levels⁴. What a winner!

photo by chmeredith