\n<\/p>\n
Y<\/span>ou wake up later than planned, so it\u2019s a rush to get everything sorted out ahead of the school run. While you\u2019re waiting for the toaster, idiotically, you check your phone. Something has happened, and your timeline is a scalding-hot mess of the worst takes imaginable. One of your children has left their shoes somewhere unfathomable, and there\u2019s an envelope on your doormat scolding you for driving in a bus lane.<\/p>\n You\u2019re undeniably stressed, and your body\u2019s likely to respond by ramping up the same biological systems that evolved to deal with inter-tribe disputes and mammoth attacks. But is there a downside to being stressed \u2013 and having these systems switched on \u2013 all the time? Take a calming breath, and let\u2019s dig into the science.<\/p>\n \u201cThe most immediate effect we see in a stressful situation is a surge of adrenaline causing an increase in heart rate, blood pressure and breathing,\u201d says Prof Kavita Vedhara, a specialist in stress and behavioural medicine at Cardiff University. \u201cThis is your fight-or-flight response, and it\u2019s designed to prepare you to address the challenge you are facing.\u201d<\/p>\n Within about 30 minutes of this rapid response, you\u2019ll also experience a rise in cortisol, often (somewhat reductively) known as the stress hormone. \u201cAgain, this is very useful in supporting the fight-flight response because it regulates blood pressure, suppresses inflammation and increases the availability of blood sugars to increase energy,\u201d says Vedhara.<\/p>\n <\/span>\u2018It can be useful to stop coping strategies that aren\u2019t helpful\u2019.<\/span> Photograph: Posed by model; Ekaterina Goncharova\/Getty Images<\/p>\n This was all very useful centuries ago when most of what life threw at us was physical challenges. But now it\u2019s fairly rare that we need to literally run away from \u2013 or physically fight \u2013 the source of our stress, and very easy for us to start worrying about someone being mean to us on the internet, or spend hours ruminating on an argument with our partner. The problem with this, broadly speaking, is that when your body diverts all its resources to fight or flight, it\u2019s moving them away<\/em> from areas such as digestion, repair and the immune system (sometimes referred to as the rest-and-digest systems). This is fine if it happens occasionally \u2013 it\u2019s how we\u2019ve evolved to operate \u2013 but if we\u2019re chronically stressed, the body never gets time to catch up.<\/p>\n \u201cPerhaps the most well-known issue associated with chronic stress is poorer immune function, which can increase risk of infections, make vaccines work less well, impair wound healing, and so on,\u201d says Vedhara. \u201cBut chronic stress has also been shown to increase the risk of obesity, depressive illness and progression of neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer\u2019s.\u201d<\/p>\n Another issue is that all of this can create an unhealthy feedback loop. \u201cBecause of the complex physiological nature of the stress response, we often experience a range of changes in the body,\u201d says Dr Jo Daniels, a senior lecturer in psychology at the University of Bath. \u201cThis in itself can become alarming for some people: why is my heart beating so fast? This can then trigger increased attention to what are essentially normal bodily variations, which effectively amplifies those physiological sensations, adding another layer of stress and anxiety.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen we\u2019re in a stress response, we\u2019re hypervigilant, so we\u2019re more likely to consider normal variations in our bodily sensations to be threatening \u2013 and because we are flooded with stress hormones and we are using that ancient part of our brains that is programmed for survival, our decision-making is also likely to be impaired, so we might respond in ways that are unhelpful.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIf you\u2019re feeling a little on edge, for instance, perhaps you won\u2019t go out, because it feels like your body is saying, \u2018Something\u2019s going on here that we need to protect ourselves against\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n How badly stressed \u2013 and how frequently \u2013 do you have to be for all of this to be a concern? This is a question scientists are still working on. \u201cIt\u2019s an elastic system \u2013 it\u2019s designed to respond and recover,\u201d says Vedhara. \u201cHow bad is it genuinely? It\u2019s certainly true that the experience of stress has such wide-ranging effects on our physiology that there is potential for it to take a very real toll on our health and wellbeing \u2013 but that\u2019s only true for long-term and enduring stressors.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/span>\u2018Catch your stress response early\u2019.<\/span> Photograph: Posed by model; EF Volart\/Getty Images<\/p>\n One near certainty is that more challenging lifestyle factors make stress more of a threat. In a landmark study in the 90s, for instance, researchers recruited almost 400 healthy volunteers, exposed them to the common cold and found that being stressed was heavily correlated with a tendency to become ill. Older adults, dealing with an immune system that\u2019s already declining, might see worse effects from being chronically stressed than people in middle age. But a complicating factor is that we seem to differ hugely in our ability to tolerate stress. \u201cA lot depends on your life experiences,\u201d says Daniels. \u201cPeople who have been affected by trauma might have a lower threshold for stress response \u2013 while other people seem to seek out stressful careers and thrive in them. It is also influenced by learned resilience and ability to manage and respond to stress \u2013 though over the long term, as we saw during the Covid-19 pandemic, everyone has their limit.\u201d<\/p>\n So what can<\/em> you do to get better at managing stress? One of the most evidence-backed options, perhaps surprisingly, really is learning to just stop, take a moment and slow your breathing. \u201cWhen people are stressed or anxious, they tend to breathe in a more shallow and rapid way, which reinforces the threat response, keeping the physiological loop going,\u201d says Daniels. \u201cIf you breathe slowly, you\u2019re giving your brain the message that everything is OK, you are safe \u2013 essentially inducing the relaxation response. So something as simple as regulated breathing really can make a difference and head stress off at the pass. The same is true for exercise, which can help reduce the excess adrenaline buildup caused by high-stress responses.\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s important to understand that this is most useful in acute (ie, temporary) stress situations \u2013 serious and disabling stress can\u2019t be solved by just having a breather. If the stress is more prolonged and frequent, another option is evidence-based psychological therapies including cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT). \u201cWhen stressed and overwhelmed, we often jump to thoughts like, \u2018I can\u2019t cope with this,\u2019\u201d says Daniels. \u201cBut is this true? Thoughts are not facts. A helpful strategy can be to sit down and assess the evidence \u2013 have you coped before? And with worse? Can you survive the worst-case scenario if you are late for school drop-off and forgot to feed the cat? It can also be useful to stop or phase out coping strategies that aren\u2019t helpful and contribute to the problem \u2013 for example, some people tend to work longer or harder to try to solve a work-related problem, which is likely to contribute to increased stress over time.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/span>\u2018Exercise can help reduce excess adrenaline buildup\u2019. <\/span> Photograph: Posed by models; Xavier Lorenzo\/Getty Images<\/p>\n With mindfulness-based stress reduction techniques, the focus is different: you\u2019re taught skills to enable you to step back from unhelpful thoughts rather than challenge them.<\/p>\n One option is to experiment with both, depending on the nature of what it is that\u2019s stressing you out: negative thinking patterns and unhelpful coping strategies are often best tackled with CBT, while mindfulness-based stress reduction might be better for coping with the unavoidable.<\/p>\n Avoiding stress completely, <\/em>of course,<\/em> isn\u2019t a realistic option. Even the 6% of people in the UK who say they\u2019re never stressed are probably just better able to manage challenging situations than the rest of us. The best thing to do, if you\u2019re concerned that you are suffering from high levels of stress all the time, is to understand and address the things that are causing it: this might be as simple as not going on social media first thing in the morning, or as difficult as changing your job or having difficult conversations with your family.<\/p>\n \u201cCatch your stress response early, and you have a good chance of reversing it using simpler strategies \u2013 but for chronic stress, modifications to lifestyle, accessing social support and developing helpful coping skills are key,\u201d says Daniels. \u201cI would suggest people seek help when they are experiencing stress most or all of the time, or if they themselves are concerned about their stress levels.\u201d And remember: while you can\u2019t always control the mammoths charging at you, you can control how you respond to them.<\/p>\n Check the list of NHS resources for dealing with stress.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" You wake up later than planned, so it\u2019s a rush to get everything sorted out ahead of the school run. While you\u2019re waiting for the toaster, idiotically, you check your phone. Something has happened, and your timeline is a scalding-hot mess of the worst takes imaginable. One of your children has left their shoes somewhere<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":49498,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[1285,2249,337,1651,4006,891],"class_list":{"0":"post-49497","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health","8":"tag-big","9":"tag-bodies","10":"tag-life","11":"tag-problem","12":"tag-stress","13":"tag-style"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49497","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=49497"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49497\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/49498"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=49497"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=49497"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=49497"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}