Hoopoe
Senior Member (Voting Rights)
The other day I learned that exercise is a strong trigger of the release of various hormones and signalling factors that we might label as stress signals.
Some of the after effects of exercise that I experience feel exactly like my body continues to be stressed for hours afterwards, or even becomes increasingly stressed as time passes. This is visible in heart rate measurements as well. I'm pretty sure this is not how it should be: after exercise we should be able to relax and recover. But my body seems to have difficuly entering that state. Therefore one could say that exercise appears to trigger an abnormally long stress response with a failure to enter the appropriate rest-recovery phase. And PEM after a night of unrefreshing seems to be the typical result of this.
Now I wonder if this is reflected in blood levels of these stress signals remaining high. What kind of problem could prevent the switch to a rest-recovery phase? The proposed dynamic ("difficulty switching off after activation") seems to have some similarity to how ion channel dysfunction might manifest. Is there any evidence in ME/CFS of these stress signals remaining high, and/or of ion channel dysfunction affecting the hypothalamus/endocrine glands?
An alternative interpretation could be that the stress response continues because there's a continued emergency of some sort, perhaps some kind of hypoxia related damage to some tissues, or immune cells being irritated by exertion and doing some damage.
Or that there is a metabolic failure to enter that rest-recover phase and so the repair and cleanup that should begin does not happen and the stress response continues.
Some of the after effects of exercise that I experience feel exactly like my body continues to be stressed for hours afterwards, or even becomes increasingly stressed as time passes. This is visible in heart rate measurements as well. I'm pretty sure this is not how it should be: after exercise we should be able to relax and recover. But my body seems to have difficuly entering that state. Therefore one could say that exercise appears to trigger an abnormally long stress response with a failure to enter the appropriate rest-recovery phase. And PEM after a night of unrefreshing seems to be the typical result of this.
Now I wonder if this is reflected in blood levels of these stress signals remaining high. What kind of problem could prevent the switch to a rest-recovery phase? The proposed dynamic ("difficulty switching off after activation") seems to have some similarity to how ion channel dysfunction might manifest. Is there any evidence in ME/CFS of these stress signals remaining high, and/or of ion channel dysfunction affecting the hypothalamus/endocrine glands?
An alternative interpretation could be that the stress response continues because there's a continued emergency of some sort, perhaps some kind of hypoxia related damage to some tissues, or immune cells being irritated by exertion and doing some damage.
Or that there is a metabolic failure to enter that rest-recover phase and so the repair and cleanup that should begin does not happen and the stress response continues.
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