STRESS

Intro: Modern life’s pressures can feel like they are increasing, but science reveals that it’s the nature of the stress we suffer today, rather than the amount, that has changed

BEFORE the 1940s, the only people who talked about “stress” were engineers describing whether the struts of a bridge would hold up. Today, “stress” is a vague catchall term for all of the many challenges you might face in your life: you may have stress at home, be stressed out by work, and the anxiety you feel around hospitals or before exams can be “stressful”. If you believe the headlines, the world is the most stressed out it’s ever been – and we are fretting our way throughout life.

Pick up any stress-management book or tap into a healthy-living website and you will encounter the classic stress story that we all undergo, the “fight-or-flight” survival response and its accompanying deluge of hormones when stressed. However, the body is far more sophisticated than we give it credit for. No two “stresses” are the same: being punched in the gut triggers a different biological response to the turmoil of a feud with a neighbour or the worry over a delayed pay cheque. Each demand (or “stressor”) placed on you has its own survival response.

Different kinds of stressors cause the body’s defensive systems to react in different ways: for example, a brief stress response triggers helpful infection-fighting chemicals, whereas longer term trauma can cause virus-attacking white blood cells to stop multiplying. Your responses also vary with age, past experiences, general health, and any past or existing medical conditions. You will undergo the most drastic fight-or-flight responses if you’re threatened or physically injured.

“Stress” has become such a fuzzy term, it’s no wonder we think there’s more of it in the world. While it can be a useful way to understand our responses to mental and physical challenges, labelling every negative experience as “stress” risks impoverishing our experience of the richness of what it is to be human.

How can I deal with constant stress?

RECURRENT, relentless demands and uncertainties really can harm your health. The body’s fight-or-flight response is a primal sledgehammer reaction that was a lifesaver for fending off predators, but is now utterly out of proportion for cracking the small nuts of modern life’s trials. With your emergency systems primed for a catastrophe your body’s internal chemistry is stretched to its limits. When fight-or-flight and stress hormones surge repeatedly over many days and weeks, it can cause damage to your internal organs, and brain.

Coping strategies are often the go-to technique for dealing with repeated or long-term stress, and many of these are critical for quelling an overactive fight-or-flight response, offering you essential time to relax and reflect. They might include making to-do lists, exercise, yoga, meditation, breathing exercises, or even just “me time”. These techniques are, however, all just an ice pack for soothing the fever and are rarely the cure. The best solution to never-ending pressures is to uproot the source and reframe how you think about the underlying problem.

If relentless pressure is putting your body on high-alert then you won’t be able to see beyond the immediate crisis. By seeking advice from a trusted friend or family member, fresh perspectives and solutions often appear. There is also measureable evidence that working through problems with a professional health worker will let you unpick destructive thoughts and habits, as well as make practical steps to alleviate near-constant stress.

Can stress ever be good for me?

If you have ever felt the motivational push of stress, you’ll know it can have its benefits. There’s a fine balance, however, to be kept between “good” and “bad” stress.

THE natural “stress” hormones your body produces, and their effects on the body, are vital in providing you with the energy, strength, and single-mindedness to overcome physical and mental challenges. If your body can’t produce enough cortisol to sustain you, then you’ll be weak and fatigued. Without cortisol, your blood pressure and blood sugar will drop, you will be thirsty, and a sudden injury, infection, or bout of strenuous exercise could even lead to sudden death.

Not only is a stress response key to keeping your alive, but moderate pressure in daily life can do you good: regular pulses of adrenaline and cortisol when you’re excited, motivated, or exercising improve concentration and provide small boosts in your mind.

Constant and extreme demands will always be harmful, and if you’re always feeling ill when away from the stressor, then that stress is doing you no good at all.

Balanced demands

When life is manageable, the stress response is invigorating and sustaining. But when your demands seem to exceed your capacity, the stress response is ever-present and damaging.  

. Science Book