We all know that too much stress is bad for our health. As an osteopath I regularly see the physical consequences that daily stresses can place on people’s backs and necks. In fact, stress can manifest and exacerbate all sorts of ailments from simple muscular tension to cardiovascular disease.
But it is not just the stress itself but how we interpret it that impacts our physiology. In essence, it is a normal part of life to get stressed from time to time but I want to show how we think about that stress is what greatly affects its impact on our physiology.
The stress response is normal and healthy, it has served us well throughout evolution and still does today. We feel stress as a result of the release of the “fight and flight” hormones cortisol and adrenaline due to the stimulation of a part of the brain called the amygdala, also known as the “lizard brain”. The amygdala has been part of our brain make up for millions of years and is primarily concerned with our survival. Its response to a perceived threat is automatic and subconscious and therefore had particular significance when we had to escape from predators.
Fortunately, we are not be subject to as many life threatening situations today but the physiological responses to stress are the same whether you are being chased by a tiger or losing your temper.
- Increased heart rate
- Blood pressure rises
- Muscle tension
- Digestion slows down
- Sweating, mouth goes dry.
The problem we have is that modern society creates low to moderate levels of stress most of the time (stuck in traffic, hectic day at work, staring at PC all day, poor diet, lack of activity, not enough time). It is this chronic rather than acute volume of stress that can be so problematic to your health. We are simply not designed to cope with a constant drip feed of stress hormones on a daily basis over the longer term.
So what can we do? By thinking about the stress as a natural biological response rather than a problem in itself you can reduce the potentially detrimental effects it has on the body.
The neocortex or “modern human” part of our brain reacts more slowly than the amygdala. We have conscious control over it and can decide whether the stress response we have been feeling was appropriate to the perceived stressor. For example, recent research has shown that if you reinterpret a stress as your body getting ready to help you achieve your goal rather than the body going wrong, then you will not only perform better but it will actually have health benefiting, not debilitating, effects on your physiology.
In one study, simply being told to perceive stress as a way of the body distributing blood to vital organs in preparation for the task resulted in arterial dilation and more focus on the job in hand. In contrast, the control group in the experiment were told nothing, they focused more on the stress and experienced a vasoconstriction (narrowing) of their arteries. This narrowing is thought to potentially contribute to cardiovascular disease over time.
- Trying to reappraise a stress where possible can mitigate against its harmful physiological effects.
- We have little control over the “daily grind” and the associated stress of modern life but what we can do is change how
much we let it bother us by how we perceive it. - Put simply, try not stress about the stress!
All biological functions, such as the stress response, are meant to serve our well being and certainly from an evolutionary perspective have been vital to our survival. Unfortunately, within the context of a modern environment, these adaptations can seem to backfire, potentially contributing to ill health. But with a mindset of being aware and accepting of our normal physiology and its responses to certain situations the negative impacts of stress on our health can be minimised.
