Do you experience stress?
I can answer that question for you. Of course you do!
Everyone experiences stress.
However, not everyone experiences the same level or frequency of stress.
What is stress?
Our body's natural response to change and challenge.
"What you feel when life's demands exceeds your ability to meet those demands"
(Talboot. S., 2007).
Any physical, psychological or physiological force that disrupts your body's homeostasis.
What counts as a stressor?
This is a very long list. To sum it up, a stressor is anything that challenges your being in any way. Including:
Physical Stress: exercise, hard labour, giving birth.
Chemical Stress: pollution, drugs, alcohol, pesticides, nicotine, caffeine.
Mental Stress: High responsibility, working long hours, anxiety, worry.
Emotional Stress: Anger, fear, frustration, betrayal, bereavement.
Nutritional Stress: nutrient deficiencies, protein or fat deficiencies or excess, allergies.
Traumatic Stress: Infection, injury, burns, surgery, extreme temperatures.
Psycho-Spiritual Stress: Relationships, financial or career pressures; life goal issues, unhappiness.
The stress response:
Let’s look at a few scenarios that initiate the stress response:
a) Your child is playing in the yard, the ball goes out into the street and your child heads out after it. You hear a car coming. Your stress response turns on so you have the energy and speed you need to get over to your child as quickly as possible.
b) You encounter a cougar on your hike. Your body initiates the stress response so that you have the capacity to fight or flight. Giving you your best chance at survival.
In both of these scenarios, you quickly reach a conclusion. You get to your child before the car does, and you kick that cougar's butt. You are no longer being challenged so your body can disengage the stress response and you can go back to normal. Wow thank goodness for the stress response right?
Unfortunately it isn’t that simple. I have a few more scenarios for you:
c) You suddenly lost your job. Your body turns on the stress response to help you handle this situation. It takes a few months to look for a new job. You are going from interview to interview with no success. Your bills are piling up because you have been without a job for 3 months.
d) Your child is sick. Your stress response turns on because your child's life is being challenged. You are taking them from appointment to appointment looking for answers. They are diagnosed but will require treatment to stabilize their condition.
In both of these scenarios your stress response turned on to help you deal with this change or challenge which is really helpful. However, there was no conclusion. There was nothing telling your body “we are okay now, there is no longer a stressor, we can disengage”. That means that the stress response had been firing consistently for months.
Unfortunately this is very common in our society. We have very busy lives and there is a lot expected of us in order to be successful in this thing called life.
You are probably wondering “what’s so bad about having the stress response turned on so much?”. In order to answer that question, we have to talk about what exactly happens during the stress response. Don’t worry, I won’t get too scientific here.
What happens in your body when you experience stress?
When you encounter a stressor, your brain perceives a stressor, some fancy communication occurs between different parts of your brain.
Your brain sends a distress signal to your autonomic nervous system, which controls your involuntary body functions such as breathing, heart rate, blood pressure, pupils, dilation of vessels.
Your autonomic nervous system has two components:
parasympathetic nervous system = rest and digest
sympathetic nervous system = fight or flight
Your sympathetic nervous system (fight or flight) is activated because your brain perceived a stressor.
Your sympathetic nervous system tells your adrenal glands (they sit on top of your kidneys) to release adrenaline. This causes:
Pulse to increase
Glucose (sugar) and fats are released from your body’s temporary storage
Breathing to increase
Blood pressure to increase
This response allows for blood, oxygen and nutrients to flood your body so that they have access to the resources they need to make you strong, alert, smart, fast, etc.
This response happens even faster than your visual center can interpret what you have seen.
These four steps are what happens in an acute stress response. This response is amazing, and we want it to happen so we can avoid life threatening stressors.
However, what happens if the stressor continues? This is where we run into issues.
5. The initial rush of adrenaline subsides and the second component of the stress response kicks in. This results in the release of cortisol. A small amount is essential in order to maintain energy levels after the initial stressor, however we can quite quickly go beyond the healthy level and begin to run into issues.
Effects of too much cortisol:
- Destruction of brain cells
Cognitive decline
Depression
Cardiovascular disease
Hypertension
Fatigue
Impaired immune system
Mood swings
Reduced libido
Increased appetite and food cravings (your body wants you to refuel to prepare for the stressful event)
More severe menopause symptoms
Increase PMS symptoms
Decreased bone density
Decreased muscle mass (cortisol causes amino acids in your muscles to breakdown in order to help you in the stressful event, therefore decreasing your muscle mass)
Weight gain: At first the cortisol causes the breakdown of fat and sugar so that it can be used by the body. However, if we don’t use those fuels then our body will store them around our abdomen so that they are easily accessible for the next stressor. When we continue to experience stressors that don’t reach a conclusion, we continue to store these un-utilized fuels in our abdomen, causing weight gain.
Interesting fact: Excess weight held in the abdomen is linked to an increased risk of heart disease, diabetes and cancer.
Additionally: We won’t get into this too much because it is quite complicated, but the more fat you hold, especially around your abdomen, the higher your cortisol levels.
Are you too stressed?
Interestingly enough, the people that are the most stressed may not know they are stressed.
When you experience stress you will be able to notice uncontrollable changes in your body: increased heart rate, alertness, breathing rate, sweat secretion. This is a natural response. Your response may look a little different than my response, but generally they are quite similar.
Some people don’t experience that response, although they are very stressed. This is because their cortisol levels are consistently elevated, and therefore their body doesn’t respond to a stressor normally. Their body is constantly in that stress response. As my stress response may go from 0-100% throughout the day, as I experience stress on and off, this person would be consistently at 50-80%. Someone that is this stressed may feel constantly busy. Depression is also a physiological response to this high level of stress.
The first step to being able to manage your stress, is acknowledging your stress.
How stressed are you?
Take my Stress Quiz to find out how stressed you are.
Now that you are an expert on stress and the stress response,
we can move onto my article “combating stress” to help you manage your stress.
Sources:
Cleveland Clinic medical professional. (Jan 28, 2021). “Stress”. https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/articles/11874-stress
Harvard Health Publishing, Harvard Medical School. (July 6, 2020). “Understanding The Stress Response.” https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/understanding-the-stress-response
Talbott. S. (2007). The Cortisol Connection. Hunter House Inc
If you have any questions or concerns about the content, you will have an opportunity to ask questions this month during one of the two video chats. Otherwise, please feel free to comment on the chat board, the coinciding Instagram post or contact me directly via email or Instagram.