Chronic stress! Improving our health

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

From the point of view of science, stress is a completely normal condition for the human body. Our body is a very intelligent self-regulating system capable of maintaining a more or less stable state under the onslaught of external stimuli. This was noticed by the American physiologist Walter Cannon at the beginning of the 20th century. He introduced the concept of "homeostasis" - the ability of the body to maintain the constancy of the internal environment in a constantly changing environment.

Let's give an example: the air temperature outside today can be about 0 degrees, and tomorrow it can drop to -20 Celsius. You have only one winter jacket, but despite such a sharp cold snap, your body temperature manages to stay at 36.6 degrees (unless, of course, you forgot your hat at home and caught a cold). The body's ability to turn on self-regulatory mechanisms to maintain the desired temperature is a manifestation of homeostasis. But what does stress have to do with it?

What is stress "by nature"

The term "stress" was first used by endocrinologist Hans Seli of Hungarian-Canadian origin, who studied at the work of Walter Cannon. He proposed to call any violation of homeostasis stress, and the factor causing this violation - a stressor.

In the example above, fluctuations in air temperature were the stressor. But this is just a drop in the ocean - a person is faced with a mass of such stressors every day: on the subway, viruses and bacteria try to enter the body, after dinner, the blood sugar level jumps, and in the gym, the heartbeat increases as if you are close to a heart attack.

It turns out that stress is inevitable. However, such fluctuations - from homeostasis and vice versa - are just a routine for the body. It turns on an automatic stress response and brings its systems back to normal: it produces antibodies, releases insulin into the bloodstream, and regulates respiration. And this does not cause any harm to a healthy person.

What's more, mild stress, such as cardio in the gym, even benefits the body. It increases the adaptive capabilities of the body, and its ability to return to homeostasis after increased stress in this case strengthens the heart and blood vessels so that they can withstand more stress in everyday life. Scientists call this beneficial stress "eustress".

But if stress is so natural for the body, why are we afraid of it and blame it for all the troubles?

Chronic stress: when we're on edge

We are actually afraid of "distress" - such a violation of homeostasis, which the body is no longer able to compensate. Distress can occur, for example, due to strong and regular nervous overload, a genetic predisposition to a strong stress response, or due to a lack of certain trace elements - in particular, lithium, which comes from food in abundance only in regions with volcanic soils. Distress is what we usually call chronic stress - a condition in which, alas, a significant proportion of urban dwellers live.

And here we return to the idea of a stress response, as well as the well-known "fight or flight" reaction. This is one of the responses to stress, which has evolved as a response to a threat to life. A tribesman swung a club at you? Hit! Is the bear chasing? Run! By the way, there is another, less well-known reaction - "freeze", when it is most effective to pretend to be dead to save a life.

And the body has developed an automatic stress response for such situations. It is clear that when life is in danger, you need to act without delay - and the body's resources must be ready. This is facilitated by two hormones - cortisol and adrenaline.

Stress activates the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal system (HPA): the sympathetic nervous system signals the adrenal glands to produce adrenaline, and in parallel, the hypothalamus and the pituitary gland transmit to the adrenal cortex the task of releasing cortisol. These two hormones alter the course of many processes in the body, which is beneficial in the short term (for survival), but poorly compatible with life in the long term.

At the same time, our daily traffic jams, deadlines, disgruntled bosses and annoying spammers - this is what the body can take for a threat to life, which means - keep the HPA "inflated", constantly giving out a stressful response. And that’s what we’re so afraid of when we talk about chronic stress.

How cortisol and adrenaline harm your health

At the moment of danger, cortisol activates glycolysis - the release of glucose from glycogen stores. Thanks to this, the body receives additional energy - you can spend it to "beat or run." Also, cortisol suppresses the immune system: there is no time to fight a cold when life is in danger!

Adrenaline "turns on" the nervous system. As a result, heart rate increases, blood pressure rises, and blood rushes to the muscles - to, again, effectively "beat or run". But what if the levels of adrenaline and cortisol in the body are constantly increased, and there is no one to beat, and there is no need to run anywhere?

Pressure fluctuations are a direct path to hypertension. A constantly increased heart rate will, at best, provoke panic attacks, at worst, wear out the heart. Heart attacks of 35-year-old workaholics don't seem surprising anymore, right? Lipolysis disorders threaten obesity and diabetes mellitus, and suppression of immunity - allergies, arthritis and other autoimmune diseases. And stress hormones also affect the functioning of the brain, provoking memory problems and mood disorders - up to and including clinical depression.

How do you save yourself from distress?

We will not advise you to reduce the amount of stress in your life - such a recommendation sounds like hello from the world of ponies and unicorns. We will go the other way: let's see how you can reduce the release of cortisol and adrenaline, as well as reduce their negative impact on the body.

Let's start with food. You, of course, noticed that under stress you are drawn to sweets? And this is logical - after all, sweets quickly reduce the concentration of cortisol in response to stress. But this only works "here and now" - in the long term, cortisol will chronically increase in sweet tooths. Therefore, it is better to switch to dark chocolate - it softens the body's response to stress and reduces the release of stress hormones.

Of course, sports will also help. If you suffer from chronic stress, exercise at a moderate intensity. This will keep your cortisol levels from going up after exercise and will go down by nightfall, which will help you sleep better. Try yoga as well - it copes well with chronic stress, as well as the depression and cardiovascular diseases it causes.

Various vitamins and dietary supplements can also be useful in this unequal struggle. Fish oil (omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids) reduces the concentration of cortisol in the body after six weeks of intake. Lithium supplements help increase the release of serotonin during stress, which effectively prevents depression. Lithium also reduces the release of adrenaline and the production of cortisol, which mitigates the stress response of the body and prevents the transition of acute stress to distress. And to reduce the negative effects of cortisol, doctors advise taking vitamins C and B5.

And drink enough water - dehydration triggers a stronger stress response!

Summing up

Stress is the body's normal adaptive response to environmental changes. It becomes abnormal when your body constantly feels threatened - this is how chronic stress, or distress, arises. It over-activates the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal system, which increases the levels of the hormones cortisol and adrenaline - and this negatively affects health.

If you cannot control the amount of "bad" stress in your life, change your lifestyle so that it does not have such a destructive effect on the body. But if nutrition, exercise, and vitamins aren't helping, try cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), the only therapy that has been shown to reduce not only a person's perception of stress, but also cortisol levels in the body.