Cramming for a test? Trying to get more done than you have time to do? Stress is a feeling we all experience when we are challenged or overwhelmed. But more than just an emotion, stress is a hardwired physical response that travels throughout your entire body.
In the short term, stress can be advantageous, but when activated too often or too long, your primitive fight or flight stress response not only changes your brain but also damages many of the other organs and cells throughout your body.
Your adrenal gland releases the stress hormones cortisol, epinephrine, also known as adrenaline, and norepinephrine. As these hormones travel through your bloodstream, they easily reach your blood vessels and heart. Adrenaline causes your heart to beat faster and raises your blood pressure, over time causing hypertension.
Cortisol can also cause the endothelium, or the inner lining of blood vessels, to not function normally. Scientists now know that this is an early step in triggering the process of atherosclerosis or cholesterol plaque buildup in your arteries. Together, these changes increase your chances of a heart attack or stroke.
When your brain senses stress, it activates your autonomic nervous system. Through this network of nerve connections, your big brain communicates stress to your enteric, or intestinal nervous system. Besides causing butterflies in your stomach, this brain-gut connection can disturb the natural rhythmic contractions that move food through your gut, leading to irritable bowel syndrome, and can increase your gut sensitivity to acid, making you more likely to feel heartburn.
Via the gut’s nervous system, stress can also change the composition and function of your gut bacteria, which may affect your digestive and overall health.
Speaking of digestion, does chronic stress affect your waistline? Well, yes. Cortisol can increase your appetite. It tells your body to replenish your energy stores with energy-dense foods and carbs, causing you to crave comfort foods. High levels of cortisol can also cause you to put on those extra calories as visceral or deep belly fat. This type of fat doesn’t just make it harder to button your pants. It is an organ that actively releases hormones and immune system chemicals called cytokines that can increase your risk of developing chronic diseases, such as heart disease and insulin resistance.
Meanwhile, stress hormones affect immune cells in a variety of ways. Initially, they help prepare you to fight invaders and heal after injury, but chronic stress can dampen the function of some immune cells, make you more susceptible to infections, and slow the rate you heal.
Want to live a long life? You may have to curb your chronic stress. That’s because it has even been associated with shortened telomeres, the shoelace tip ends of chromosomes that measure a cell’s age. Telomeres cap chromosomes to allow DNA to get copied every time a cell divides without damaging the cell’s genetic code, and they shorten with each cell division. When telomeres become too short, a cell can no longer divide and it dies.
As if all that weren’t enough, chronic stress has even more ways it can sabotage your health, including acne, hair loss, sexual dysfunction, headaches, muscle tension, difficulty concentrating, fatigue, and irritability.
So, what does all this mean for you? Your life will always be filled with stressful situations. But what matters to your brain and entire body is how you respond to that stress. If you can view those situations as challenges you can control and master, rather than as insurmountable threats, you will perform better in the short run and stay healthy in the long run.
It is important to note that everyone has different ways of coping with stress and what may work for one person may not work for another. However, some ways to manage stress include:
Managing stress is a continuous process and requires a combination of self-awareness, self-care, and perspective. It is essential to find healthy ways to cope with stress and to seek help if necessary.
Test your understanding of how stress affects the body by taking this quiz. You will be asked questions about the role of adrenaline and cortisol, the brain-gut connection, and the impact of stress on weight and the immune system. This will help reinforce the concepts discussed in the article.
Research and present a stress management technique not mentioned in the article. Explain how it works, its benefits, and how it can be incorporated into daily life. This will help you understand different ways to manage stress and its effects on the body.
Keep a stress diary for a week. Note down any stressful events, how you felt, and how you responded. At the end of the week, review your diary and identify any patterns or triggers. This will help you understand your personal stressors and how you react to them.
Participate in a role-play activity where you and a partner act out a stressful situation. Afterwards, discuss how you could have handled the situation differently to reduce stress. This will help you practice stress management techniques in a safe environment.
Create a poster that illustrates the effects of stress on the body. Include information about the short-term and long-term effects, as well as ways to manage stress. This will help you consolidate your understanding of the topic and share it with others.
Cramming – to study intensely, usually at the last minute, before a test or exam.
Example: “She always ends up cramming for her exams”
Hardwired – built-in or innate; not learned or acquired.
Example: “The response to stress is hardwired in our bodies”
Overwhelmed – to bury or drown beneath a huge mass; suppress; to overcome with emotion; to overpower.
Example: “She felt overwhelmed by the number of tasks she had to complete.”
Primitive – relating to the earliest stage of a particular development or development in general; characterized by an undeveloped or outmoded technology or design.
Example: “The primitive stress response of fight or flight”
Adrenaline – a hormone that is secreted by the medulla of the adrenal gland in response to stress and that increases heart rate, blood pressure, and the availability of glucose.
Example: “Adrenaline causes the heart rate to increase”
Hypertension – abnormally high blood pressure, typically above 140/90 mm Hg.
Example: “Chronic stress can cause hypertension”
Atherosclerosis – a disease in which the inner lining of an artery thickens as a result of the accumulation of fatty materials such as cholesterol.
Example: “Stress can cause the process of atherosclerosis”
Cholesterol – a steroid alcohol, present in all animal tissues, that is an important component of cell membranes and is used to synthesize hormones, bile acids, and vitamin D.
Example: “Cholesterol plaque build up in your arteries”
Endothelium – the cells that line the interior surface of blood vessels and lymphatic vessels, forming an interface between circulating blood or lymph in the lumen and the rest of the vessel wall.
Example: “Cortisol can cause the endothelium to not function normally”
Irritable Bowel Syndrome – a disorder of the large intestine characterized by recurrent abdominal pain, bloating, and constipation or diarrhea.
Example: “Stress can lead to irritable bowel syndrome”
Enteric – relating to the intestine.
Example: “The big brain communicates stress to your enteric nervous system”
Composition – the way in which something is made up.
Example: “Stress can change the composition of gut bacteria”
Visceral – relating to the viscera.
Example: “High levels of cortisol can cause you to put on those extra calories as visceral or deep belly fat”
Cytokines – a class of protein molecules that are important in cell signaling.
Example: “Visceral fat releases hormones and immune system chemicals called cytokines”
Telomeres – repetitive nucleotide sequences at the ends of chromosomes that protect the ends of the chromosomes from degradation.
Example: “Chronic stress can shorten telomeres”
Resilience – the ability of a substance or object to spring back into shape; elasticity.
Example: “How do you stay resilient when faced with stress?”
Complementary – serving to complete or enhance something else; supplementary.
Example: “Complementary therapies like yoga, meditation, and acupuncture can help in stress management”
Insurmountable – too difficult to overcome or achieve; impossible to accomplish
Example: “If you can view those situations as challenges you can control and master, rather than as insurmountable threats”
Dampen – to make less active or intense; to weaken.
Example: “Chronic stress can dampen the function of some immune cells”
Sabotage – to harm or weaken (a person, organization, or system) from within.
Example: “Chronic stress has even more ways it can sabotage your health”
