Written by: Tracy Tredoux, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
Most of us are familiar with the expression ‘stress kills.’ Yet it is this very same stress response that has, over time, enabled us humans to escape life-threatening situations, thereby ensuring the survival of the species. This article examines how stress in the 21st century has mutated from ‘friend’ to ‘foe’, obstructing many people’s ability to achieve optimum health and, more importantly, what we can do about it.
What exactly is stress?
Almost everyone today is familiar with the word ‘stress.’ When asked what causes a person to feel stressed, the answers vary: family, finances, career, relationships, health, exams, deadlines, world politics, competing priorities, public speaking, traffic jams etc. Younger and younger people today are also able to identify with the feeling of being ‘stressed.’ Yet most people struggle to define exactly what stress is and have little understanding of how detrimental to health stress can be. Many people believe stress to be an emotion – ‘I feel happy, sad, excited, angry, stressed.’ However, stress is way more than just an emotion. Stress is a response to a real, or a perceived threat which, in turn, results in a physical response pattern, more commonly referred to as the ‘fight or flight’ reaction. It is the physical response to stress that can have either beneficial effects or can trigger health issues.
It was in 1978 that researcher Hans Selye’s work uncovered the physical ways the body responds to stress. Selye’s General Adaptation Syndrome describes how stress, real or imagined, can trigger a cascade of physiological events in the body, such as:
Increase in heart rate, blood pressure and respiration
Heightened muscle tension
Increase in metabolism
Release of glucose from the liver into the bloodstream for fast energy
Decrease in digestive energy and stop to peristalsis (resulting in constipation)
Pupil dilation for sharper eyesight
Stress as friend
The ‘fight or flight’ response served us very well in our evolutionary past, enabling us to flee from a predator, hunt and chase a wild animal for food or repel an attack by a rival tribe. The physical response, which triggers the release of stress hormones (such as cortisol and adrenaline), serves to prioritise those functions necessary for survival, whilst simultaneously shutting down non-essential functions such as the immune system, digestion, and synthesising hormones.
This stress response was characteristically short-lived, enabling the ‘parasympathetic’ arm or ‘relaxation response’ of the autonomic nervous system to help restore the body to equilibrium within about 15 minutes. Once the chase, or the fight was over, the body would return to a more relaxed state, and the ‘hunter’ would resume the role of ‘gatherer,’ collecting nuts, berries, and plants for food, gathering firewood etc. This short-term response is referred to as ‘acute’ stress and, fast-forwarding to the 21st century, remains an important and beneficial human reaction, helping the body to operate and cope more efficiently when under pressure. In fact, many people believe that it is when they are stressed that they ‘outperform’ themselves, producing more work in less time and of better quality.
Stress as foe
One of the factors that distinguish the stress experienced by our neolithic ancestors from that which we often experience now is the duration of the response. Today, stress is often chronic, i.e., relentless, all day, every day. For a lot of us, stress starts as soon as we wake up in the morning – getting children up, dressed, fed and off to school; getting to work on time, battling public transport or traffic; work deadlines; financial pressure; relationship issues; replying to e-mails long after the office closes. Modern technology means we are constantly bombarded in our daily lives, with many today addicted to their smartphones and social media, impacting our relaxation and sleep, and resulting in a cycle of stress accumulation. Moreover, even though the nature of the stressors has changed, the way our body responds, has not. The stress response is inbuilt, instinctive, and part of the autonomic nervous system. We have no control over the cascade of events that takes place even though we are no longer running away from a saber-toothed tiger. Our mind has not evolved to distinguish between different initiators of the stress response pattern; the pattern remains the same.
It is this cascade of events, whilst beneficial in short spurts, that erodes our health in the long run. As the saying goes “anything in excess is poison”, and so never-ending, relentless stress will ultimately have a negative impact on your health.
Signs that your stress is harming you
A heart-pumping harder and faster increases blood pressure, getting glucose to muscle and brain cells to fuel alertness and enough energy to deal with whatever emergency has arisen. In the event of a lack of glucose, the cortisol hormone helps convert stored glycogen into glucose, essentially flooding the bloodstream with sugar. Elevated cortisol also inhibits glucose uptake in certain cells (which over time start to become insulin resistant), prioritising uptake in muscle and brain cells. Where this all goes wrong today is that we are not running anywhere, yet the stress response has set our nervous system into overdrive. We are most likely not even moving much in today’s more sedentary lifestyle, with the stress response likely being activated by worrying about a public speaking event, work deadline, meeting with a boss etc. The excess glucose is not being used up but ultimately, once liver cells are full, is stored in adipose tissue as fat. The result of this is:
Weight gain which can lead to obesity
High blood pressure leads to cardiovascular disease
Excess glucose and insulin resistance leading to diabetes
Insomnia due to being on ‘high alert’
In addition to upgrading certain systems, chronic stress also suppresses those bodily functions not regarded as essential when addressing a ‘fight or flight’ situation. Chronic stress, over time can result in:
A suppressed immune system- making one more susceptible to colds, flus, and other illnesses
Increased inflammation- resulting in inflammatory issues such as rheumatoid arthritis, Hashimoto’s, and Ulcerative Colitis
Decreased thyroid hormones- Raised cortisol has been shown to result in decreased levels of T4, T3 and TSH. Thyroid hormones are one of the most important aspects of health and performance, playing a large role in cognitive function, metabolism, gut health, immunity, heart function, libido, and many other facets of the body.
Lack of sleep- which, unbeknown to most, is the mother of many health problems
Depression- elevated cortisol makes us less sensitive to the happy hormone serotonin as well as affecting our serotonin levels.
Gut issues- stress harms the gut, resulting in intestinal inflammation, digestive issues, constipation, bacterial overgrowth, bloating, flatulence, increased gut pain, intestinal permeability (‘leaky gut” which itself triggers a myriad of health issues) and food sensitivities.
Increased blood glucose levels- triggering weight gain and worsening metabolic health. Acute and chronic stress can cause insulin resistance, make you hungry and crave sugar, reduce your ability to burn fat, increase belly fat and make your liver fatty, increase the rate at which you store fat and raise your levels of fat and triglycerides in your blood.
A damaged heart - stress hormones, including adrenaline, damage the heart during prolonged exposure. Stress is associated with low heart rate variability, higher blood pressure, higher resting heart rate and overtime, an increased risk of heart disease.
Impaired cognitive function
Lower brain regeneration
Lower levels of beneficial hormones and hormonal imbalances
Lower libido
Fertility problems
Disrupted circadian rhythm
Bone loss- cortisol decreases osteoblasts, leading to decreased bone density
Reduced beneficial minerals in the body- cortisol acts as a diuretic leading to sodium retention and water and potassium excretion. Cortisol decreases calcium uptake and increases magnesium excretion. As it is, most people are deficient in important minerals, such as potassium and magnesium, and the loss of these minerals due to stress can be especially harmful
Burnout- excessive and prolonged stress can result in physical, emotional, and mental exhaustion, especially when the body becomes resistant to, or depleted of, the stress hormones.
It’s time to address your stress
If you have one or more of the above-mentioned health issues, and you recognise that you are stressed, without addressing your stress, your ability to heal is compromised. Obviously, removing the stressors from one’s life is the best option, but for most people, this is not realistic. It is therefore more about implementing stress coping mechanisms. This is achieved by choosing to increase factors in your life that counteract the stress response thereby reducing the impact that stress has on your body and mind. These factors include:
Meditation
Yoga
Massage therapy
Regular dancing
Music therapy
Positive social encounters
Good nutrition and sleep habits
Spending more time in nature
Substance avoidance such as alcohol, tobacco, caffeine, and other drugs which can exacerbate the effects of stress and increase your risk of developing long term health conditions
Seeking professional help from a therapist or counsellor for strategies to help avoid and moderate the source of your stress as well as to manage your response to stressful situations.
Conclusion
We are living in times way more stressful than those of our ancestors. Most of us are dealing with one or more ‘stressors’ daily. In addition, we have all felt the impact of the worldwide pandemic. One positive outcome of the pandemic is that it forced the world to step off the conveyor belt of life, affording many the opportunity to reassess their lives and to realise they did not want to ‘bounce back,’ to where they were. Instead, they used the time to grow, evolve and move forward, recognising that they had been caught in a cycle of stress accumulation, with no time to stop and reflect on their lives. This article has touched on the numerous systems in the body that can be disrupted by stress, indicating that if we fail to address our stress response, our long-time ‘friend’ can indeed become our ‘enemy.’ However, proper management techniques and proactive strategies go a long way to preventing stress from doing long-term harm.
Tracy Tredoux, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
Tracy Tredoux is a fully qualified Nutritional Therapist and Zest4Life coach, who consults in London, UK. Tracy believed her life career would be in law, becoming a partner in a top South African law firm at 28 and subsequently qualifying as a solicitor in the UK. However, Tracy's husband's health deteriorated soon after they married and over the years he was diagnosed with numerous chronic health conditions. Fuelled by a desire to support her husband, Tracy sought to study the interaction between nutrition and the body on a cellular, biochemical level. Tracy studied for 4 years at the Institute for Optimum Nutrition, UK, to become a registered Nutritional Therapist. When Tracy is not consulting with clients on a 1 to 1 basis, she is writing health articles for health magazines and websites, providing the research for educational webinars, giving health presentations, running online group programmes, and is currently co-authoring a recipe book with a medical doctor and a well-known TV chef. In addition, Tracy is continuing her studies to become a fully qualified Functional Medicine practitioner.
