Noel McDermott highlights Mental Health Awareness Month

Mental Health Awareness Month runs throughout May and with the world economy crashing yet again and the potential changes augured by the Trump presidency, it’s to all practical purposes not possible for most of us to avoid anxiety about the situation.

When threatened our bodies are flooded with two principle hormones/chemicals. One is adrenaline, which increases our heartbeat among other things, and another is cortisol, which goes into our major muscles to give us explosive energy bursts (the sort needed for hitting, kicking, sprinting etc). Have you noticed when you are anxious your muscles tense and then ache? That’s the cortisol in them. Cortisol also messes with our appetite and our immune systems. Hence the effects of stress or lots of colds, aches, other illnesses, inflammation, appetite problems and so on. Long term cortisol also messes with our moods, bringing on anxious and or depressive states of mind. Also, cortisol doesn’t burn itself out of our system in the same way that adrenaline does.

Aston spoke to psychotherapist Noel McDermott.