Stress & Physical Health

What is stress?

Stress is a normal physical response to events that make you feel threatened or upset your balance in some way. When you sense danger—whether it’s real or imagined—the body’s defenses kick into high gear in a rapid, automatic mobilization process known as the “fight-or-flight” response.

This response is the body’s way of protecting you. When working properly, it helps you stay focused, energetic, and alert. In emergency situations, stress can save your life—giving you extra strength to defend yourself, for example, or spurring you to slam on the brakes to avoid an accident.

Stress can also help you rise to meet challenges. Stress is what keeps you on your toes during a presentation at work, sharpens your concentration when you’re attempting the game-winning free throw, or drives you to study for an exam when you’d rather be watching TV.

But beyond a certain point, stress stops being helpful and starts causing major damage to your health, your mood, your productivity, your relationships, and your quality of life.

How your body responds to stress

The latest research into the brain shows that, as mammals, we have three ways of regulating our nervous system and responding to stress:

• Social engagement or social communication is our most evolved strategy for keeping ourselves feeling calm and safe. Since the face and heart are wired together in the brain, socially interacting with another person—making eye contact, listening in an attentive way, talking—can calm you down and put the brakes on defensive responses like “fight-or-flight.” Social engagement is how you clear up misunderstandings, ask others for help or forgiveness, and calmly handle daily interactions. When using social engagement, involuntary body functions such as breathing, blood pressure, heartbeat, and digestion work healthily and the body is able to repair and grow new cells uninterrupted.
• Mobilization, otherwise known as the fight-or-flight response. When social engagement isn’t an appropriate response and we need (or think we need) to either defend ourselves or run away from danger, the body prepares for mobilization. A flood of stress hormones including adrenaline and cortisol are released to rouse the body for emergency action. Your heart pounds faster, muscles tighten, blood pressure rises, breath quickens, and your senses become sharper. These physical changes increase your strength and stamina, speed your reaction time, and enhance your focus—preparing you to either fight or flee from the danger at hand. At the same time, the body functions not needed for fight or flight—such as the digestive and immune systems—stop working and the repair or growth of body tissues slows. Once the danger has passed, your nervous system then calms the body, slowing heart rate, lowering blood pressure, and winding back down to its normal balance.
• Immobilization. This is the least evolved response to stress and used by the body only when social engagement and mobilization have failed. Immobilization is associated with people who have experienced some sort of trauma and find themselves “stuck”—in a reflexively enraged, panic-stricken or otherwise dysfunctional state—and unable to move on.  You become frozen, your nervous system shuts down, and you can’t do anything. In extreme, life-threatening situations, you may even faint or lose consciousness, enabling you to survive high levels of physical pain. However, until you’re able to arouse the body to a mobilization or fight-or-flight response, your nervous system may be unable to return to its pre-stress state of balance.

When stress becomes a problem

Ideally, we’d respond to stress most of the time using social engagement or, when alone, using sensory quick stress relief techniques.  While mobilization  or  fight-or-flight can protect us from danger, the body does a poor job of distinguishing between threatening experiences and minor, daily stressors. If you’re stressed over an argument with a friend,  traffic jams, or a mountain of bills, for example, the body can still react as if you’re facing  life-or-death situation. When you repeatedly experience the fight-or-flight stress response in your daily life or, in cases of trauma or immobilization, never fully return to a normal balance after a stressful situation, it can take a toll on your wellbeing and cause serious health problems.

How do you respond to stress?

It’s important to learn… how to recognize  when  your  stress levels  are out of control.          The most dangerous thing about stress is how easily it can creep up on you. You get used to it. It starts to feel familiar, even normal. You don’t notice how much it’s affecting you, even as it takes a heavy toll.

The signs and symptoms of stress overload can be almost anything. Stress affects the mind,  body,  and behavior in many ways,  and everyone experiences stress differently.      Not only can overwhelming stress lead to serious mental and physical health problems,     it can also take a toll on your relationships at home, work, and school.

Stress doesn’t always look stressful

Internally, we all respond to the fight-or-flight stress response the same: blood pressure rises, the heart pumps faster, and muscles constrict. When stressed, our bodies work hard and drain our immune system. Externally, however, people tend to respond to stress in different ways:

• In “fight” mode you may appear overexcited. You tend to become angry, agitated, keyed up, overly emotional, or unable to sit still.
• In “flight” mode you appear underexcited. You may pull away, space out, show very little energy or emotion, or become depressed.

Similarly, with the immobilization or frozen stress response, your external appearance may also be very different from what’s going on inside. On the surface, you look paralyzed but inside you’re extremely agitated and feel “stuck,” unable to do anything to help yourself.

Signs and symptoms of stress overload

The following table lists some of the common warning signs and symptoms of stress. The more signs and symptoms you notice in yourself, the closer you may be to stress overload.

Keep in mind that the signs and symptoms of stress can also be caused by other psychological or medical problems. If you’re experiencing any of the warning signs of stress, it’s important to see a doctor for a full evaluation. Your doctor can help you determine whether or not your symptoms are stress-related.

How much stress is too much?

Because of the widespread damage stress can cause, it’s important to know your own limit. But just how much stress is “too much” differs from person to person. We’re all different. Some people are able to roll with the punches, while others seem to crumble in the face of far smaller obstacles or frustrations. Some people even seem to thrive on the excitement and challenge of a high-stress lifestyle.

Your ability to tolerate stress depends on many factors, including the quality of your relationships, your general outlook on life, your emotional intelligence, and genetics.

Things that influence your stress tolerance level

• Your support network – A strong network of supportive friends and family members can be an enormous buffer against life’s stressors. On the flip side, the more lonely and isolated you are, the greater your vulnerability to stress.
• Your sense of control – It may be easier to take stress in your stride if you have confidence in yourself and your ability to influence events and persevere through challenges. If you feel like things are out of your control, you’re likely to have less tolerance for stress.
• Your attitude and outlook – Optimistic people are often more stress-hardy. They tend to embrace challenges, have a strong sense of humor, and accept that change is a part of life.
• Your ability to deal with your emotions – You’re extremely vulnerable to stress if you don’t know how to calm and soothe yourself when you’re feeling sad, angry, or overwhelmed by a situation. The ability to bring your emotions into balance helps you bounce back from adversity and is a skill that can be learned at any age.
• Your knowledge and preparation – The more you know about a stressful situation, including how long it will last and what to expect, the easier it is to cope. For example, if you go into surgery with a realistic picture of what to expect post-op, a painful recovery will be less traumatic than if you were expecting to bounce back immediately.  Supplementation?