this is my life

Health lesson of the day: I wrote a 20 page paper on the HPA axis (hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal) the major part of the neuroendocrine system that deals with stress... but i'll spare you the details and give a short overview i stole off the internet

The physiological effects of stress:
Seventy-five to ninety percent of all doctors visits are due to stress-related ailments and stress-related disorders. Chronic acute stress leads to an out of balance biochemistry with elevated cortisol and suppressed serotonin. These biochemical markers of stress in turn lead to ill health and psychosocial disorders. Consequently, stress plays a major causative role in both physical and mental health.
--increased catecholamines
-- increased corticotropin
--increased cortisol
Chronic stress creates excessive levels of cortisol in the brain, impairing the function of the hippocampus, leading to neuronal atrophy and destruction of neurons, decreased short term and contextual memory, and poor regulation of the endocrine response to stress.
--neuoronal atrophy and destruction of neurons
--decreased short term memory
--decreased contextual memory
Chronic stress affects the immune system by increasing sympathetic activity and decreasing cellular immunity. Immune cells migrate to different parts of the body and can worsen autoimmune and allergic conditions. Over time, this creates a suppression of the natural positive acute mobilization of immune cells to the point of challenge.
--increased sympathetic activity decreases cellular immunity
The effects of chronic stress can create significant damage to the cardiovascular system by increasing the risk of coronary artery disease, elevating blood pressure, increasing atherosclerosis, increasing risk of myocardial infarction, increasing the risk of diabetes, and increasing the likelihood of obesity.

Basically, not only am i becoming incredibly unhealthy, i'm getting dumber as well. great.

speaking of dumb, i was doing a couple hill runs (jogs) in the parking lot tonight since it was pitch black when i got home from work (again). i had put hand weights at the top to do some bicep curls in between sets. about the fifth run up i realized i only had one hand weight at the top instead of the two i started with. i must have not put the weight back in the divet i was using to hold it in place and i guess it rolled away. only me.

side note, in case you don't get a newspaper or watch tv:
DELL ACQUIRES PEROT SYSTEMS FOR $3.9 BILLION

don't worry, we found out today they'll be paying cash. not really sure exactly what it means at this point. dell has said they aren't wanting to downsize us but every merger comes with some sort of reorganization. all i know is that by january dell will be paying my salary and my benefits. who knows, maybe i'll get a new laptop.