It’s a natural response to the experiences we encounter in our lives, triggering a range of physical and mental reactions that help our bodies initiate what’s known as a “fight-or-flight” response to potentially dangerous situations.
When encountering a difficult situation, our body kicks in with physical changes that help us cope. The body releases stress hormones, such as cortisol and adrenaline, which are meant to give us the extra boost of energy, muscle stamina, and mental alertness we would need when facing a life-or-death, fight-or-flee scenario.
The brain gets extra oxygen, which is meant to boost our problem-solving abilities. Our heart rates go up, pushing more oxygen to the muscles in the body, and our breathing rate increases to keep our blood oxygenated.
As an evolutionary mechanism, it’s ingenious. However, the fight-or-flight response wasn’t designed to be used over an extended period of time. So when our daily stresses transformed from avoiding becoming dinner while trying to catching our own to coping with unhappy marriages, difficult employers, or chronic illnesses, the evolutionary design of the fight-or-flight response has led to a number of negative effects on our overall health and mental well-being.
Statistics show how serious stress can be for our health:
● 43 percent of all adults will suffer health problems related to stress
● at least 75 percent of doctor’s office visits are for stress-related complaints or illnesses
● The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has officially recognized stress as a workplace hazard - and has given it a price tag. Stress costs American businesses more than $300 billion annually.
Among the stress-related complications:
Central Nervous System Damage
Your brain and nervous system are the central components of the body’s fight-of-flight response. The CNS tells the body what to do and coordinates the body systems, limiting blood and oxygen flow to the less important systems, like digestion, while re-routing blood and oxygen flow to the more vital systems, such as the brain and cardiovascular system.
When your stressor doesn’t go away after the short-lived rewiring, the CNS fails to tell the body to return its systems to normal. This can eventually cause the CNS to rewire the body, causing chronic anxiety, irritability, and even depression.
People with chronic stress suffer from headaches, mood problems, insomnia, or develop behavioral or substance abuse problems. Depression has also been shown to be common in those suffering from chronic stress.
Cardiovascular Wear and Tear
In addition to the CNS, your cardiovascular system is hit just as hard by chronic stress. The same hormones that are released by the body to initiate the fight-or-flight response cause the heart to pump faster and harder. The blood vessels constrict to raise blood pressure, which helps the body more efficiently deliver oxygen to the brain and heart to increase strength and energy to decide on a response and take action.
While these physical reactions are necessary if you’re about to be devoured by a hungry predator, they aren’t meant to be sustainable over an extended period of time. When you expose your body to long periods of stress, the heart becomes taxed, and your blood pressure becomes elevated as the blood vessels become damaged. This damage presents an increased risk for heart disease and related problems, including heart attack and stroke.
Respiratory Distress
In addition, the body is triggered to speed up breathing to distribute more oxygen, more quickly, to the body. If you have respiratory issues, including asthma, COPD, or emphysema, stress can cause respiratory distress.
Digestive Disaster
When the body is stressed, the liver produces and releases surplus blood sugar to give the body the extra boost it needs to react to a dangerous situation. The unused glucose is then reabsorbed by the body. In short bursts, this system is efficient and helps you escape dangerous situations. When it happens on a regular basis, your body may not be able to handle all of the excess glucose, putting you at risk for developing Type II diabetes.
And from an evolutionary standpoint, during a fight-or-flight response, the body redirects energy from less important bodily systems (such as the digestive system) to those systems that are essential in helping you determine and execute an emergency response (the CNS and cardiovascular systems). Consider this -- you don’t need to worry about that partially digested meal if you’re focused on not becoming one yourself.
However, when these responses are triggered regularly, it can cause problems with digestion over time, leading to constipation, diarrhea, or even heartburn or vomiting.
Muscular System
When your body goes into stress mode, your muscles tense up to ready you for quick action and protect you from injury. While this is meant, again, as an evolutionary design to help us escape from danger, almost all of us can relate to the tight feeling we experience in our necks and shoulders when confronted with a stressful situation.
Chronic stress keeps the muscles from being able to relax, which can lead to headaches, body aches, and back or shoulder pain. Over time, these aches and pains can cause us to shy away from regular exercise - which is actually a great stress reliever and essential to maintaining good health.
Substance Abuse
Stress has been shown to lead to poor decision-making and an increase in risky behaviors. Look no further than the last traffic jam you sat through to observe the effects that stress can have on the decision-making abilities of certain drivers, for example.
The inability to cope with stress can also cause us to turn to substances, which ranges from stimulants, like cigarettes, to depressants like alcohol and drugs. These stimulants cause the body to release feel-good hormones that may seem to compensate for the stress hormones, but which lead to immediate health threats, like drinking and driving, as well as long-term health problems, including lung cancer and cirrhosis of the liver.
While stress may seem minor, it can have some major implications on the entire body. That's why it's important to get a handle on stress before it gets a handle on you.