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Of all the factors that contribute to worsening health and premature death, stress is the most harmful.
In the past the stress response was a vital function that allowed us to flee predators and secure prey.
Today, however, the same reaction comes with fear of public speaking, dealing with problems with a difficult boss, and in traffic jams.
Countless stressful situations we must face daily make it difficult to shut off the stress response.
We are constantly exposed to the destructive power of stress hormones, which can have serious consequences such as accumulation of abdominal fat, increased blood pressure, and a predisposition to heart attack.
How stress affects our body
To better illustrate, imagine you are experiencing acute stress — whether real or imagined, because the body cannot tell the difference — your body produces stress hormones (such as cortisol) that prepare it for attack or flight in that stressful situation.
Heart rate increases, the lungs take in more oxygen, blood flow increases, and parts of the immune system are temporarily suppressed, which reduces the inflammatory response to pathogens and other foreign invaders.
If the stress is chronic, your immune system becomes less sensitive to cortisol, and because cortisol partly regulates inflammatory activity in the body, this reduced sensitivity increases the inflammatory response and allows inflammation in the body to get out of control.
Conversely, inflammation is a characteristic feature of most diseases, from diabetes to heart disease and cancer.
Elevated cortisol levels also affect your memory by causing gradual loss of synapses in the prefrontal cortex.
Stress can even trigger the onset of dementia. One study found that 72% of patients with Alzheimer’s disease (nearly 3 out of 4) experienced intense emotional stress during the 2 years before their diagnosis was made.
Stress as a factor in polycystic ovaries
As Chris Kresser recently noted in his article, stress can be a factor in polycystic ovaries (PCOS), which are caused by increased levels of androgens, male sex hormones.
It can affect the menstrual cycle, fertility, weight, and more.
This occurs especially when:
- you do not eat enough and engage in disproportionately intense training to improve your figure
- your weight is normal or below normal and you do not have issues with insulin resistance
The article goes into much greater detail about hormonal fluctuations that can ultimately lead to PCOS; however, briefly put, stress triggers the body to produce more hormones, starting with adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH), which stimulates the adrenals to produce stress hormones like cortisol and adrenaline.
ACTH also triggers production of adrenal hormones, including androstenedione. This is one of the two primary androgenic hormones that cause PCOS symptoms in women.
Chronic stress can increase male sex hormones in women
Clinical experience points out that insulin resistance plays an important role in PCOS and that limiting non-fiber carbohydrates to less than 50 grams per day can help significantly.
Still, stress also plays a significant role.
The revised article states:
“Women who are in chronic stress not only have a greater chance of elevated ACTH, and thus increased androgens, but their hormones may also begin to react to stressful situations inappropriately.
Do not get me wrong: there are many women whose PCOS was caused by an improper diet, excessive exercise, a very high intake of refined carbohydrates and sugars, and an overall unhealthy lifestyle.
But if you are trying all sorts of things like consuming a low-carb Paleo diet, doing CrossFit 5 to 6 times a week and yet gaining weight, having an irregular menstrual cycle, growing hair in odd places and having adult acne…
Or you simply feel every morning as if a steamroller ran over you when you wake up, these symptoms and hormonal fluctuations may be caused by chronic stress.”
Why we gain weight under stress
Weight gain and/or generally problematic weight loss are common problems associated with stress.
Worse yet, if we gain weight from stress, fat tends to accumulate in the abdominal area, which is the most dangerous place to store fat because it increases the risk of cardiovascular disease.
When you are stressed, the way fat is stored is affected and changed by specific hormones and various chemicals produced by your body.
Recent research has found that chronic stress stimulates the body to produce betatrophin — a protein that blocks the enzyme responsible for breaking down body fat.
As Epoch Times reports:
“…mice that experienced metabolic stress produced significantly more betatrophin and their fat-burning processes slowed markedly.
Such observations are important because they shed new light on the biological mechanisms linking stress, betatrophin, and fat metabolism… The results provide experimental evidence that stress makes it harder to break down body fat.”
Developing resilience to stress can mitigate its consequences
It is obvious that stress is part of life and cannot be avoided — but it should be noted that how you cope with it will influence its later (non) manifestation in health problems.
As a recent article on stress published in the New York Times states, the stress response should subside as soon as possible after the perceived danger has passed.
There is a scientific term for this — resilience — meaning “your body’s ability to immediately return to a normal physical and mental state after a stressful situation”.
Some people are naturally more stress-resilient than others and scientists have long wondered why that is.
One speculation is that more resilient people have better learned to listen to what their own body tells them. In an experiment with elite adventure athletes and special forces soldiers, these individuals were placed in brain-scanning devices.
They wore a mask on their face that prevented them from breathing when a researcher pressed a control button.
They found that these people were able to closely monitor the signals their own body was sending. Even after recording growing panic, they were able to suppress their physical reaction.
Simply put, they were very aware of their biological stress response but did not overreact.
The same test was later taken by “ordinary” people.
Those whose results indicated a high degree of resilience showed similar brain activity to the earlier group of soldiers and athletes.
On the other hand, people whose results pointed to low stress resilience reacted oppositely. As the New York Times reports:
“At the threat that the mask would close on their face, they showed surprisingly low activity in parts of the brain that monitor bodily signals. When breathing became difficult, they exhibited high activation in parts of the brain that increase physiological arousal.
Subsequently they did not pay sufficient attention to what was happening inside their bodies. They waited until their breathing became difficult, and when they felt threatened, they overreacted.
Such brain responses, according to scientists, weaken resilience to stress because it is hard for the body to return to a calm state…
Improving internal communication with your own body can be achieved simply; even a few minutes of focused breathing daily is enough,” says Dr. Haase.
“Quietly pay attention to purely the inhalation and exhalation. Over time this exercise should teach you to change your breathing when you feel anxious and detach from those sensations,” says Dr. Haase, “which can help improve your reaction to a stressful situation.”
Breathing exercises can help reduce stress and strengthen stress resilience
There are many breathing techniques and practically all of them can help you connect with your body and calm your mind. One popular method is the 4-7-8 breathing exercise taught by Dr. Andrew Weil.
He recommends using this technique “whenever something worrying is happening — even before you react” and “whenever you feel inner tension”.
In this exercise it is key to remember the numbers 4, 7, and 8. You don’t need to focus on how much time each phase of the breathing takes, but rather on their correct ratio.
You can do this exercise any number of times during the day, but during the first month it is not recommended to do more than four full breaths per session.
Later you can work up to eight full breath cycles at once. If you commit to it, you will be pleasantly surprised how quickly and easily you come back into balance and feel content.
Here is the breathing exercise procedure:
- Sit up straight and place the tip of your tongue behind your front teeth. Keep it there throughout the breathing process.
- Inhale quietly through your nose while counting to 4.
- Hold your breath while counting to 7.
- Exhale through your mouth while counting to 8, making a audible “fuuu” sound. This completes one full breath.
- Repeat the cycle three more times to make four full breaths (after a month of practice you can gradually increase to 8 full breaths in one session).
- Exercise to suppress stress caused by altered breathing
- Besides becoming more aware of your physical and internal state, breathing exercises can help suppress stress triggered by altered breathing.
If you are in chronic stress and also have poor posture, you are likely to breathe high in your chest. This type of breathing can trigger the stress response or lock you into it.
In a related CNN Health article it says:
“If you are tense or restless, the sympathetic aspect of your nervous system (fight or flight) turns on, which speeds up your breathing and heart rate, raises blood pressure and stimulates production of stress hormone.
Uncontrolled, rapid chest breathing feeds the ‘fight or flight’ response, and even when other stressors are not present, the sympathetic system can trap you in a stress state caused by altered breathing.”
In this article, author Dana Santas, a yoga trainer for more athletic teams, offers these two breathing exercises:
1. Turn frustrated sighs into sighs of relief
“If you catch yourself sighing in frustration, recognize it as a signal from your autonomic nervous system and turn your sighs into sighs of relief.
It is a simple way to listen to your parasympathetic nervous system and avoid letting the situation become overwhelming.”
In this exercise inhale through your nose while counting to 5, and exhale through your mouth as if sighing with relief while counting to 7 (or more). Repeat for at least 90 seconds.
2. Exhale the tension
The way we breathe under stress reduces diaphragm function and reinforces poor posture, which results in pain, loss of mobility, and migraines.
Proper breathing helps restore correct diaphragm function, improves posture, and eliminates pain.
Lie on your back or sit in a chair. Relax your shoulders and place your hands on the lower part of your ribs. On the inhale feel your ribs expand outward and your hands move apart.
On the exhale engage and press with the main muscles to completely empty the lungs. Pause briefly and continue with the next inhale.
Beat stress with energy psychology
In addition to breathing exercises there are many other useful ways to manage stress. Another popular method is Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT).
Energy psychology can help you reprogram your body’s responses to everyday stress, thereby reducing the risk of its adverse effects on your health.
It is similar to acupuncture, which is based on the flow of life energy through the body’s system of energy pathways — meridians.
EFT stimulates various meridians in your body by tapping them with your fingertips while simultaneously repeating the problem statement out loud.
You can do it yourself or under the supervision of a qualified therapist.
This reprograms how your body reacts to emotional stressors. Since these stressors are usually associated with physical problems, many people experience improvements in health and reduction or disappearance of other symptoms.
Other stress management techniques
Stress is widespread in today’s world like a pandemic, but it is not necessary to suffer its destructive consequences. Much depends on how you respond to these everyday stressors.
If you learn to effectively lower your stress levels, your health will improve.
There are many different techniques for reducing stress. Try to find out which are best for you and follow a daily program to eliminate stress.
One of the key strategies is to ensure adequate sleep, because lack of sleep significantly worsens your body’s ability to handle stress and is another risk factor for heart attack.
In addition, other stress management strategies include:
- regular physical activity
- building resilience
- social connections
- spending time in nature
- time for fun
- meditation: Even 10 minutes of quiet sitting, for example during a work break, can help reduce feelings of stress and anxiety
- yoga: Regular yoga practice has been shown to have beneficial effects on health — it reduces stress, improves sleep and immune function, and
- reduces cravings
- laughter and lightheartedness
- music
- aromatherapy
