The following paper explores the various effects of stress on the endocrine system. Many understand that being stressed can jeopardize maintaining adequate health, but what specifically happens when humans are stressed? Why does stress affect human health? This paper delves into background information, previous research, and the depths to which stress negatively affects the body. The effects stress has on the endocrine system, specifically on the hypothalamic-pituitary-thyroid axis (HPT) and hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis (HPA), is discussed, and additionally, at home de-stressing methods are researched. The study included a set of participants at Arizona State University. The method took place over the course of 2 weeks: one normal week, and the other with the implementation of a de-stressing method. The normal week involved the participants living their daily lives with the addition of a stress-measuring survey, while the second week involved implementing a de-stressing method and stress-measuring survey. The purpose of this study was to discover if there was a correlation between performing these relaxation activities and decreasing stress levels in ASU students. The results found that students reported they felt more relaxed and calm after the activities. Overall, this thesis provides information and first hand research on the effects of stress and stress-reducing activities and discusses the importance of maintaining lower stress levels throughout everyday life.

The following paper explores the various effects of stress on the endocrine system. Many understand that being stressed can jeopardize maintaining adequate health, but what specifically happens when humans are stressed? Why does stress affect human health? This paper delves into background information, previous research, and the depths to which stress negatively affects the body. The effects stress has on the endocrine system, specifically on the hypothalamic-pituitary-thyroid axis (HPT) and hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis (HPA), is discussed, and additionally, at home de-stressing methods are researched. The study included a set of participants at Arizona State University. The method took place over the course of 2 weeks: one normal week, and the other with the implementation of a de-stressing method. The normal week involved the participants living their daily lives with the addition of a stress-measuring survey, while the second week involved implementing a de-stressing method and stress-measuring survey. The purpose of this study was to discover if there was a correlation between performing these relaxation activities and decreasing stress levels in ASU students. The results found that students reported they felt more relaxed and calm after the activities. Overall, this thesis provides information and first hand research on the effects of stress and stress-reducing activities and discusses the importance of maintaining lower stress levels throughout everyday life.

An autoimmune disease is a health condition in which the immune system attacks your body due to the inability to differentiate between foreign cells and your own cells. There are over 80 autoimmune diseases that affect the human body, but we specifically want to focus on three diseases: Crohn’s Disease, Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA), and Multiple Sclerosis (MS). These three autoimmune diseases affect young adults the most and impact three integral parts of the body – the GI tract, musculoskeletal system, and the central nervous system, respectively. We would like to further research how nutrition and diet can affect individuals with these autoimmune disorders. We want to better understand the role diet plays in maintaining both the physical and mental health condition of an individual with an autoimmune disease. Stress has been hypothesized to be a factor in the triggering of an autoimmune disease and we have noticed how stress can be a major factor on a person’s daily food choices and intake. We are also interested in how we can incorporate this knowledge of the benefits of nutrition into routine patient care. Within the healthcare setting, we have both witnessed first-hand how patients were able to improve as well as maintain their physical health condition via their diet. For example, through an appropriate diet, patients were able to show improvements in their lab work and/or maintain and prevent health conditions such as autoimmune disorders. Therefore, we would like to better understand how diet can control and/or manage autoimmune disorders.