Stress
Stress is our body’s response to a perceived or imagined threat, your nervous system responds by releasing a flood of stress hormones, including adrenaline and cortisol rousing 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 tackle this ‘danger’ – known as the fight or flight response that all of us have and that has been key to our survival as a species. In prehistoric times for instance, when a sabre-toothed tiger or neighbouring cannibal tribe wanted to have us for dinner, the fight-or-flight response kicked in. Instantly, we would have superhuman strength and speed, to either fight or flee.
Stress therefore is a normal physical reaction to such perceived threats that make you feel threatened or upset your well being. So, when you sense danger – real or imagined – your body's survival mechanism kicks in. This response is your body’s way of protecting you. Normally, it helps you to stay focused, active, and aware. In times of real danger, stress can therefore save your life – summoning extra strength from within you to protect yourself or making you slam on the brakes in a split second to avoid a collision in your car. From a positive point of view then this response to stress helps you ‘rise to an occasion’, it motivates you to get up to go to work, to be able to do a speech or presentation, helps you to concentrate, or gives you drive for exam revision when you'd rather be doing something else.
Of course when this ‘helpful stress’ becomes distress it can cause untold physical, emotional and mental problems in your life, because our body and mind can’t distinguish between perceived physical and psychological threats. When you’re constantly pressured over your schedule, relationship problems, bereavements, financial worries etc, we can react as if we were facing a life-or-death situation, your adrenaline is constantly flowing and therefore our emergency stress response may be “on” most of the time. It thus becomes more and more difficult to ‘switch off’ and relax.
Prolonged excessive stress can lead to depression. Both depression and stress can affect the immune system. This in turn opens you up to certain physical illness, such as the high risk of a heart attack. At times of stress or perceived stress, our adrenal glands, which are located above the kidneys, release into the bloodstream the hormones Adrenaline, Noradrenaline and Cortisol. These hormones, which are also produced by nerve cells, are very powerful, stimulating chemicals, which affect almost every organ in our body, including the intestines, appendix, eyes, bladder and tonsils. These hormones also switch off most metabolic activities, such as the digestive and reproductive systems, which are not needed at times of danger or perceived danger. The release of these stimulating chemicals into the bloodstream is essential to us. In times of danger they give us the extra energy to help us to run away, or stay and fight. (Fight /Flight) Unfortunately, in this day and age we generally have nowhere to run to; nor do we have the opportunity to fight the danger, even if we could see or understand what it is that is threatening us. Because of this we have generated a new response to danger - we freeze, both mentally and physically. Now we have fight, flight or freeze.
Some of the first signs of the onset of stress on the body include alert breathing rhythms, quickening heart rate, raised blood pressure, nerve activation, muscle tension and release of essential body nutrients. These are all designed to give the body the power to cope with danger, or perceived danger. When we go into this Freeze mode, our body finds it difficult to dissipate the excessive build up of Adrenaline etc. If we do not dissipate these hormones and their effects from our system, our ability to produce the vital defense substances known as Interferons is drastically reduced. Interferons are antiviral proteins produced by cells that have been invaded by viruses. Cells that are under attack from viruses release Interferons to provide protection for other cells that may be open to attack from the invading viruses. They also provide protection against any other organism that tries to invade the body. So, if we experience prolonged or excessive stress, not only is our body under direct attack from within, it is also far less able to defend itself from even simple external infections such as the common cold. This makes it harder for your body to cope with a wide range of illnesses. The body and mind become more vulnerable to further stress, our general health declines, and we can enter a vicious downward spiral. This can give rise to negative attitudes and actions.
Some of the numerous negative effects of Stress include:
- Minor health problems, such as upset stomach, headache, colds, flu, back pain, muscle cramps and missed menstrual periods can increase. (Caused by too much Cortisol).
- Skin rashes can appear. If you suffer from a skin complaint, such as psoriasis or eczema, it can become aggravated.
- One can suffer a loss of confidence, a loss of enthusiasm, and can gain a feeling of low self-esteem, a feeling of hopelessness and depression can set in.
- A feeling of intense fatigue can follow you about all day. Even when you wake after sleep, you still feel fatigued and tired. (Caused by too much Adrenaline). Sleep patterns can become distorted, find it difficult to go to sleep, then waking at 3 or 4 A.M.
- Indigestion and eating disorders.
- Self-blame, guilt, cynicism and a sense of total failure set in.
- Anger and resentment at nothing in particular.
- A feeling that something is missing.
- You may find an extreme reluctance to go to work builds up, making it harder to face going to work each day.
- Self-confidence is lower. Self-esteem is lower.
- Sex drive is lower, or you can feel sexually unsatisfied.
- Depression can set in. Breathing becomes shallow.
- Heart rate goes up and sometimes races.
- Blood pressure goes up.
- Blood sugar levels are increased.
- You can at times feel detached from the world, on a high (caused by too much Noradrenaline).
- Being unable to perform work or tasks as well as you used to.
- Your concentration becomes impaired, judgement is clouded.
- You can become very irritable, tearful or agitated, for no apparent reason. (Caused by too much Adrenaline).
- You may start to have a greater dependency on alcohol, caffeine, nicotine or drugs.
- Your appetite can alter to either a desire to go on a binge, especially on sweet, sugary foods, or, you may suffer a loss of all appetite.
- Short-tempered.
- Unusual clumsiness.
- Chest pains.
- With extreme stress, bowels may loosen and can add to IBS
- All over tension and excessive perspiration.
If Stress is permitted to become established, it becomes a self-reinforcing process, giving rise to more and more negative actions and attitudes. This in turn leads to further stress and withdrawal.
There is some good news. Getting help with the stress and depression, will improve your quality of life. By keeping your stress under control you will find that your health will improve. By improving your health, you will improve your ability to fight and control stress.
Don’t ignore the symptoms of stress
Worry related stress can effect people who, on the surface, appear relaxed and confident. One thing that you can be sure of is that you are not the only one suffering from stress!