How stress affects the body
A Brief History of Our Brain
Imagine you are living in the year 2,000 B.C.
You are picking berries from a bush nearby your village. Suddenly, you hear the leaves behind you cracking and you look up to find that you are surrounded by a pack of bloodthirsty wolves. Your heart starts racing and your breathing becomes heavy. You get a burst of adrenaline and you know you need to act fast - so you sprint to a nearby tree and climb up its branches, where the wolves cannot reach you. They lose interest and leave the scene. You then calm down and make your way back to your village.
What you experienced in this situation is exactly why we are evolved to experience stress. When faced with an immediate danger, the body’s stress response is what has allowed humans to survive for hundreds of thousands of years. Our paleolithic ancestors were constantly faced with decisions that had an immediate impact on the present moment, such as finding shelter during a storm, or where they would get food for the day. Scientists have coined this type of environment an “Immediate Return Environment,” and human brains evolved over thousands of years to solve problems in this type of environment.
Stress & Anxiety in Today’s World
Today, our brains still have roughly the same structure as they have for the past 200,000 years. The only problem is that we no longer live in an immediate return environment. Rather, we live in a society called a “Delayed Return Environment,” which means that most of the choices we make do not yield us immediate benefit.
It is predominantly in the last hundred years that we have shifted to this type of environment. In the past century we have seen nearly every technological advancement that defines our way of life, and our brain has simply not caught up. The types of stressors that we now face are very different from our ancestors 200,000 years ago.
Immediate Return Environment: The environment for which our stress response was evolved. When our bodies sense an immediate threat or stressor we can take immediate action towards relief. For example, a storm rumbles in the distance > your stress response heightens as you perceive danger and need shelter > you find shelter > your stress response is relieved.
Delayed Return Environment: We live in a delayed return environment. This means many of our threats or stressors will not be solved with this immediate action, which keeps our body in a constant state of heightened stress response. For example, if you save money now > you’ll have enough for retirement later in life.
We are humans living in a Delayed Return Environment with brains and nervous systems designed to exist in an Immediate Return Environment. This helps us to understand not only why we experience chronic stress and anxiety but also how to manage it.
What is Stress?
Stress is defined as the “internal cognitive appraisal whereby an individual perceives and responds to events as overwhelming or threatening to one’s well-being”. In other words, stress is really just our bodies responding to a potential threat. Stress can manifest itself in many different ways, some of the most common symptoms of chronic stress are anxiety, depression, tension headaches, new or worsened digestive issues, increased heart rate, rapid breathing and can even impact one’s ability to recover from injury.
Stress responses allow us to quickly protect ourselves from perceived threats or dangers. You have now probably heard of the term “fight or flight response.” Our fight or flight response is our immediate physiological response to a perceived danger or stressor. This refers to when our ancestors encountered emergency situations and were required to either fight the danger or flee for their lives. Our bodies react the same way to our modern-day problems as our ancestors did when faced with a pack of wolves in the night. No wonder why we get such intense physical manifestations of stress.
What is the biology behind stress?
Understanding our central nervous system (CNS) is integral to understanding what is physiologically occurring when we get stressed or anxious. Our CNS is split into two parts: the sympathetic nervous system (SNS) and the parasympathetic nervous system (PNS).
Our SNS is the driver of our “fight or flight” response, while our PNS has opposing effects on the body, to return us to our pre-emergency state of relaxation. According to the American Psychological Association, the SNS notifies the adrenal glands to release the threat response hormones: adrenaline (epinephrine) and cortisol. These hormones then communicate with various systems throughout the body and lead to; increases in heart rate and respiration, dilated blood vessels in the arms and legs, and changes digestive processes so that higher glucose levels (sugar energy) can be brought into the bloodstream to prepare for an emergency. Similar to the CNS, the endocrine system is a regulatory system that responds to environmental input.
Our endocrine system is comprised of a series of glands that secrete hormones which control various functions throughout our body such as metabolism, respiration, reproduction, sensory perception, movement and sexual development. When faced with stress, our brains are wired to activate a series of events carried out by the endocrine system. What this ultimately means is a flooding of stress hormones throughout the body, namely, you guessed it - cortisol.
Cortisol is a main player when talking about stress and anxiety. Its evolutionary purpose is to provide the necessary energy to deal with the given emergency. But that was the only time it was needed in our bodies -- for emergencies. When a body is chronically stressed, that means it is chronically flooded with excess amounts of stress hormones like cortisol. Again, this traces back to the overarching problem with stress, an evolved biological response taken out of its environment and put into use to deal with today’s problems.
What are “normal” amounts of stress?
When our stress response is triggered, the sympathetic nervous system heightens blood glucose levels for a burst of energy. However, our glycogen reserves can only provide short-term energy and will run out after a couple hours. While small amounts of everyday stress and the occasional response to stressful events is normal, maintaining a state of chronic stress without relief can trigger dangerous health conditions including onset of chronic illness.
When our bodies do not get relief from stress, they exit “fight or flight” mode and enter into a long-term stress response. This stage is called the “stage of exhaustion.” During this stage, we may begin to feel depressed, experience fatigue, and notice suppressed immune responses. Chronic long term stress can lead to serious health risks such as cardiovascular dysfunctions, diabetes, cancer, autoimmune syndromes and mental illnesses such as depression and anxiety disorders (The Future Science OA).
What can Happen if I’m chronicAlly stressed or anxious?
Those who are chronically stressed are at a higher risk of health problems, including weight gain, high blood pressure, thyroid issues and higher risks for infection, fatigue, insomnia, depression, anxiety and gastrointestinal problems such as diarrhea and constipation. Mood swings, irritability, and a decrease in libido may also occur, which can cause interpersonal problems.
Chronic stress causes long term wear and tear on our bodies, because human brains aren’t meant for enduring long term stress responses. Being in a constant cycle of overactive SNS and PNS drains our body and weakens our immune systems, making us more susceptible to infections and disease.
How Can I Manage Stress?
There are many ways to manage stress - from diet and exercise to mediation and more. Identify your stressors and focus on what you can do in the present moment to manage them. Finding small ways to create immediate return environments for ourselves can help our bodies function at a healthy cadence. For example, if you are stressed about saving enough money for retirement, set daily, weekly or per paycheck savings goals that can provide immediate relief when accomplished.
How Bluedoor Can Help
We believe that stress and anxiety are at the core of so many physical ailments that we see as an urgent care. Because of that, we have structured our practice to not only treat the symptoms but also work to treat that root cause. This extends into every aspect of what we do - from the therapies we offer, to the ease of the visit, to the way the office looks, feels, smells, and sounds.
