What Happens When We Stress

You’ve likely heard that excessive stress can have negative impacts on our health. In fact, many of us have associated the word stress with something harmful. But is stress truly as bad as everyone says it is?

What Is Stress?

Seems like a basic question, but stress is a physiologic state of activation in our body. Stress is classified as anything that signals to our body that we are threatened in some way. This can be anything from emotional overwhelm, danger, heights, tests, meetings, assignments, relationships, irritation, food, or even running late for an event. As mentioned, stress is anything that puts our bodies into a state of high alert.

It's also important to understand that stress can be acute or chronic depending on what it is that is activating our stress response. For example, stressors such as work, school or our relationships can cause stress on a consistent basis whereas things such as heights or rollercoasters can activate that same stress response acutely. Part of understanding our body’s relationship with stress is understanding where our stress is coming from. Are we functioning with a chronic level of stress everyday or is our stress response being activated acutely?

What Happens When We Stress?

Whether acute or chronic, in times of stress our body responds both mentally and physically to prepare us for an impending danger or threat. It does this through the release of our stress hormone cortisol.

Cortisol is released from two small glands located on top of our kidneys known as our adrenal glands. The role of cortisol is to prepare our body for what is known as “fight or flight”. This state means exactly what it says. Cortisol literally prepares the body to either fight against this perceived threat or to run away from it so that it can’t harm us. It does this by decreasing the function of all of our nonessential organ systems and increasing the function of the organ systems that will either help us to fight or help us to run away.

How Cortisol Impacts The Body

acute impacts of cortisol on the body

Decreases the functioning of organ systems not needed to help us immediately survive and increase the functioning of ones that are needed
Shuts off the parts of our brain - the part of the brain that tells our body to calm down - so that we can continue to be in an alarmed state
Eliminates nutrients including magnesium that calm down our bodies/nervous system
Shuts down the digestive system decreasing hunger in the moment as well as our ability to digest
Increases elimination causing us to empty our bowels - has been referred to as “nervous poops” - after this, cortisol decreases elimination possibly resulting in constipation
Shuts down our immune function making it hard to fight of illnesses
Increases the mobilization of sugars from our storage so that it is rampant in our blood stream and ready to provide our cells with extra energy if needed - results in an immediate increase in blood sugar
Causes us to retain salt in order to maintain blood pressure and energy
Increases the breakdown of protein in the body to be used as fuel
Sharpens senses to our external world short term

Chronic impacts of cortisol on the body

The short-term changes that help us function acutely lead to changes in the functioning of our body long-term that can actually predispose us to disease and discomfort. This includes:

Retention of too much salt can lead to changes of the distribution of fluids in the body - this causes swelling and increases in blood pressure
Breakdown of protein can lead to muscles breakdown and muscle weakness long-term
Sharpening of senses acutely can lead to nervous system exhaustion and trouble concentrating, brain fog, and headaches long-term
Changes in immune function can lead to increases in inflammation including autoimmune conditions, increased infections, and decreased ability to fight off illness
Impacts on elimination systems can lead to chronic diarrhea, constipation or both
Decreases in digestive function lead to symptoms such as bloating, cramping, trouble absorbing nutrients and changes in the movements of our intestines including the speeds at which we are able to digest
High cortisol prevents the sleep hormone melatonin from rising which can result in changes to our sleep wake cycle and sleep in general
Depletes resources used to make reproductive hormones resulting in hormone imbalances
Increases stimulatory neurotransmitters that lead to changes in mood and increases anxiety
Depletion of our bodies resources and over-worked adrenal glands leading to extreme exhaustion

So Is Stress Really That Bad?

The thing about stress is that it does serve an adaptive purpose and can even be a positive thing in appropriate doses and under the right circumstances! In healthy amounts stress can be something that gives us energy, motivates us, and helps us to function optimally on a day to day.

Unfortunately, one of the fundamental things about our North American society is that it is perceived as ‘normal’, expected, and even desirable to have a high baseline level of stress. What this means is that our normal state of functioning is one of a chronic state of stress.

As you could probably gather from the above information, chronic stress can have damaging impacts on our mental and physical health and well-being.

What Can We Do To Change This Cycle?

To help mitigate the impacts of stress on your body the most important thing is to create boundaries. This first involves acknowledging and noticing the way that you are in an activated state even when you don’t necessarily feel “stressed”. When our baseline is to be stressed it becomes “normal” and we don’t even register that this is a state that we are in on a regular basis. When we can see the stress in our lives this is when we can start to change the stress we are in.

Luckily, when we are in times of stress there are some effective tools that can help support our body deal with stress’ physiologic impacts. Our body needs nutrients such as magnesium, vitamin C and all our B vitamins to make our stress hormone cortisol. When we are under stress, we will need more of these nutrients to ensure that we are able to continue to produce stress hormones and not become depleted.

In addition, Adaptogens are plants that can be taken in various forms that help to regulate cortisol levels especially when we are under chronic stress. Each of the various herbs in this category have different actions on regulating cortisol. Some help to calm the adrenal glands and nervous system down, some help the body to more efficiently use the cortisol it has already produced so it doesn’t have to make more, some help to support and nourish the adrenal glands, but all of them help the body to deal with chronic stress and recover from it.

For our chronic stress response, supplements and herbs can be very supportive especially when we are stuck in this stress cycle, but they do not solve the problem. Only by acknowledging and decreasing the stress in our lives can truly make lasting changes for the support of our nervous system.

A Final Word

If you’re looking for mental health or stress support, there is so much we can do to support you! If you would like to learn more about how naturopathic medicine can help support your stress management and resiliency, you can book a complimentary consult with me here.