Throughout this week, we will be talking about what stress is, how to spot unnecessary stressors, and what to do about it.
Stress is a tricky beast that we can not get away from. It is an unfortunate, necessary part of our life. It is impossible to stay healthy without some amount of stress on your body. And we are well adapted to deal with stress on a daily basis…to a point.
However, most of us are subjected to massive amounts of stress every day (especially lately!) Some can be healthy. And some stress comes from positive events (like working out or exciting life events.) Too much stress (good or bad), and the systems designed to deal with stress are overloaded and shut down.
The body is hard-wired to react to stress in ways that are meant to protect you against a life-or-death situation. Fight or Flight – a couple million years ago this was absolutely necessary. Our ancestors dealt with a lot of immediate dangers – like running from a predator or trying to hunt down dinner.
When the danger passed, we were safe to return to baseline and go about our business. But, the body always had to be on high alert and ready to take action at any given moment. In our modern world, we rarely find ourselves up against predators. That does not mean that we do not face dangers – they are just subtle and constant. Think about the numerous demands that accumulate for us each day – deadlines, traffic, making dinner, paying bills, and so much more. Unfortunately, our body still recognizes and treats each one of these events as an attack on our life.
The release of cortisol (our primary stress hormone) causes a number of changes that helps to protect us in the face of a threat. Any kind of stress – good or bad, releases cortisol. So, working out (which is a great stress reliever), still causes the body to release cortisol.
Cortisol mobilizes energy in the form of glucose and increases your heart rate, blood pressure, respiration, muscle tension and the availability of substances that repair tissue (which is why working out is good – as long as you don’t overdo it…more to come on that.)
It also temporarily alters the immune system and suppresses our digestive and reproductive systems (ever feel like you have to use the restroom right before a workout, but once the workout starts you forget all about that?) Your body shuts these functions down as they are not necessary for immediate survival (i.e. running from a tiger).
In the short term, the changes we experience in response to stress are adaptive for survival. Acute surges in cortisol calm inflammation, enhance memory, focus and decision making, and efficiently increases metabolism to replenish energy reserves. (These are all GOOD things!) However, if we experience repeated stress over many weeks (we will talk about different types of stressors later) we can alter our sensitivity to stress and create a new baseline of constant low level stress on our bodies.
Frequent stress impairs the ability of your brain to turn off our stress response – resulting in an accumulation of stress hormones that wear and tear on the brain and body. While our bodies are extremely adaptable and can continue to function under very high levels of stress for a prolonged period of time, we start to do so at the expense of our other regulatory functions.
Our immune system, digestive system, and reproductive system become chronically affected (and may shut down completely.) Unfortunately, this is usually a subtle, slow build and we often don’t notice that something is wrong until we are experiencing a number of uncomfortable symptoms, many of which you probably don’t readily associate with stress.
- Trouble falling or staying asleep
- Waking up multiple times at night to use the bathroom
- NEEDING coffee to get out of bed
- Fatigue
- Brain fog, trouble concentrating, forgetfulness
- Light headedness, dizziness, afternoon headaches
- Sleepiness mid-afternoon (around 2-4pm)
- Chronic inflammation, achy joints, water retention, puffiness
- High or low blood sugar, insulin resistance
- Anxiety (especially around bedtime, middle of the night or upon waking)
- Depression, lack of motivation, burnout
- Consistently feeling beat up after you work out
- Low sex drive
- Irregular periods or periods stop all together
- Constantly getting sick, random increases in allergy or asthma symptoms
- Unexplained weight gain or inability to lose weight
- Bloating, gas, cramps, diarrhea, or constipation
- Lack of appetite
I am willing to bet that most of you have experienced at least one or two of these symptoms in the last month. While they may be common, but that does not mean that they are healthy. Do not accept them as everyday parts of life!
Your body is trying to tell you that it needs some support. Don’t let this way of living life become your baseline. Stress is part of life, and you are never going to magically wake up and be rid of everything difficult. But, we can take the first step and identify unnecessary stress triggers. Then, we can learn how to keep them in check. (More on that tomorrow!)