Stress: What it Does to Your Body and How to Cope

Stress has become a thing that is just synonymous with everyday life. We all experience it, although most people don’t fully comprehend how it affects their body. Many things can cause stress, and triggers are different from person to person.

When you are under stress your body releases a variety of hormones.  These stress hormones cause you to be in a state of fight or flight. Think about running into a bear. You see a bear and your body’s stress hormones activate. Now you must make a choice. Do you choose to fight the bear or run? I choose to run! No matter the choice, your body is going to do the following: increase your heart rate and blood pressure so you can have more blood in your extremities to run faster, slow your digestion because you don’t need to focus on digesting food and bowel movements while fighting or running from a bear, pupil dilation so you can take in more light to see and get away from the bear, increased respirations so you get more oxygen to your muscles when you run. Stress does the same thing to you as a bear attack. If you are under constant stress your body isn’t going be able to keep up the fight. The next thing you see happen are health problems.

In the 1940’s Hans Selye, known as the father of stress, identified General Adaptation Syndrome. He identified similarities in lab rats being subjected to stressful stimuli and sick people. They all displayed characteristics which he classified into 3 stages of stress.  First, the Alarm Stage which is the initial response to stress. That would be the initial fight or flight discussed above when encountering a bear. This is something your body should do when you encounter an initial danger. It means you are healthy! This should only occur for a short time after your initial encounter.  The next stage is the Resistance Stage. The Resistance Stage is where you have prolonged exposure to stress. An example might include being laid off from your job.  The initial first response of fight or flight would be there, but now maybe you are just plain worried a week later because you don’t know how you are going to pay your mortgage and put food on the table. In this stage you begin to see actual immune issues. You may start to see dysfunction in your body like digestion and blood pressure issues. The last stage is the Exhaustion Stage. This is where the resistance to stress is gone and you are tired, losing memory, have emotional imbalances, and autoimmune diseases. Some people may even be diagnosed with adrenal fatigue, which is truly just the exhaustion stage of General Adaptation Syndrome.

If any of those stages sound familiar to you, the time is now to make a change. Start taking care of yourself! You have the power to turn on or off certain genes, so don’t just accept that just because you come from a long line of Diabetes that you must get it too. Take control of your health. There are things you can do with nutrition, exercise, and mental health that can help you from becoming ill.

There are steps you can take to alleviate stress. One is to focus on the positive things more than the negative in your life. Your attitude plays a major role in stress. You must remember to not sweat the petty things and not pet the sweaty things! Someone cutting you off in traffic should not ruin your day. You have to let that go because there is nothing you can do about it. Control the one thing you can control, and that is yourself. Don’t let an unkind person have that much control over you.

Exercise helps your mood and helps you to better cope with stress when it comes later. If you walk just 30 minutes a day, you can help calm down your nervous system and get in better shape all at the same time. I walk/run for 30 minutes on most days because it helps me feel awesome. It has helped me to deal with stress and it helped me to lose weight. Thirty minutes is not that much time out of your day. If you have time to watch a TV show, you have time to walk. If you have time to scroll through the time suck called social media, you have time to walk. It won’t be easy to get going at first, but eventually you will really enjoy walking. I listen to my favorite music as I walk. That will actually help calm you down as well. Listen to music that makes you feel positive things, not the song you listened to 45 times after you broke up with your boyfriend. Listening to speed metal or hard core rap is probably not going to destress your day either. There is music you can find on YouTube with different frequencies. This sounds a little new age, but it has legitimate power to help one calm down. All sounds have a frequency, so why not use one with a pleasing tone. If you do a search for 528Hz and listen to music set to that tone, it is ridiculously calming and is associated with healing.

Getting good sleep helps with stress, but it may be hard to attain when you are stressed. The good news about exercise is when you first begin, it will make you tired enough to sleep well at night. You should silence your phone so you don’t have any distractions. Also, don’t look at your phone/tablet/computer right before bed. The blue light actually ramps up your brain making it harder to rest.

When you are under long term stress it begins to affect your breathing. You should breathe at a rate of 12-16 breaths per minute and the ratio should be 2 times as long for expiration versus inspiration. You may have to make a conscious effort to breathe in this ratio. For example, if you breathe in for 2 seconds, you should take your time and breathe out for 4 seconds. Focus on your breathing. When you breathe in, that is more sympathetic (fight or flight system) and when you breathe out, it is more parasympathetic (rest and digest system). It is better to be more parasympathetic.

If there are toxic people in your life, sometimes you may need to say goodbye to them for a time. The stress and heartache are not worth your sanity. You don’t have to be rude or ugly about it. Just let them go. No one thrives on negativity, judgement, control, or just downright nastiness. It’s okay to move on from that sort of environment. It may not even be a bad person, but just someone that brings out the worst in you or leaves you feeling less awesome. Move on. If the negative person is your spouse it’s a little trickier. I would encourage you to talk to them about their behavior and how it makes you feel. You may even need to get counseling.

On the subject of counseling, you may need to find a licensed counselor/ therapist to talk through your problems and learn some new coping mechanisms. There is no shame in doing that, and they are trained to help people in times of trouble. No one has it all figured out and you are not alone.

Diet can be a huge stressor on your body. If you are not feeding yourself the proper nutrition, your body is not going to function as it should. Think about your car. If you drive a truck that requires diesel, you can’t fill up the tank with regular gas. That would tear it up. Your body works the same way! Don’t fill it up with sodas (of any kind), processed foods, and junk in general. Lean more towards whole foods with few ingredients. I started making my own seasonings like taco and chili because they had all sorts of additives. One such additive was MSG (monosodium glutamate). The reason MSG is such a hot-button issue for people is because it crosses the blood-brain barrier. So next time you eat Chinese food and get a headache after, you now understand the reason. I could spend all day talking about diet, but I will leave that for another post. The bottom line is that your diet can cause your body stress.

Another thing you can do to help with stress is to find enjoyable activities. If you can’t think of any, it’s time to experiment. I enjoy riding my bike down the Greenway. The view is lovely and it’s fun to ride my bike. Maybe you like being near the water. Find a river, lake, pond, or beach and go relax for a while. Try to think of something that might be fun or enjoyable. Allow me throw out some examples: puzzles, card games, sewing, knitting, martial arts classes, tennis, golf, swimming, singing, dancing, biking, kayaking, jogging, wood-working, art classes, hiking, fishing, camping, learning another language, cooking, or gardening. The point is to get out there and find something you like doing.

Sometimes activities that include other people may be nice. I love board games, but I need people to play with me. No one is an island. We were created to be social. So get out of your comfort zone and be social. Make some friends. Our brain functions better with human interaction. Plus, a network of friends that build you up and encourage you is just what the doctor ordered.

Spirituality can be a big player in stress as well. When people have something bigger than themselves to believe in, it makes a difference. I believe that God is the maker of the universe and that he loves me and wants to see me succeed. When stressful times come I have peace because I know that there are better days ahead. Life is not always roses and unicorns, but I know that things are going to work out somehow. Don’t get bogged down with the how or when, just keep plugging away until then.

I have been taking some classes on functional neurology. In a nutshell, it is looking at how the brain functions and trying to address the parts that aren’t functioning properly. The cerebellum is the part of the brain for balance and coordination. This is not only inclusive of actual balance as in being able to stand on one leg and balance, but balance and coordination of emotions as well. Someone under constant stress may have a problem in the cerebellum with coordinating emotions. Try doing a one-legged stand. Can you hold that for about 30 seconds? Now try it with your eyes closed. Do you tip over immediately? Is it the same amount of time on the right versus the left side? If not, practice doing one-legged stands with eyes open and then eyes closed. Build up your cerebellum so you can have better balance and coordination in your emotions!

Another thing that can ramp up your parasympathetic system (rest and digest), is stimulating the Vagus Nerve. The Vagus nerve has an affect on heart rate, blood pressure, and respiration. There are a few ways to stimulate it. One way is to use an electric toothbrush on your tongue. The Vagus nerve picks up the vibration. Another way to stimulate the Vagus is to gargle. Make sure when gargle, that you are loud and proud! It’s more fun that way anyway. If you find that you are choking when you gargle, stop it immediately. You can also stimulate the Vagus by humming. Another way to stimulate the Vagus nerve, and perhaps the least favorite, is to stimulate your gag reflex until your eyes water. All of these things are parasympathetic and they work your nervous system to calm you down. A way to tell if it is working is to take your pulse before stimulating the Vagus and then take it after. Your pulse should be lower afterward. Remember my example about running from a bear? I talked about how your heart rate raises in fight for flight. A person without heart problems should have a pulse around 72 beats per minute, or lower if you are young and/or athletic. If it is a lot higher than that, you may need to have heart problems ruled out or it may be a sign of chronic stress. On the flip side of that. If you are 50+ and not athletic and/or overweight and your pulse is well under 72, you may still need to have heart problems ruled out. Stress is a slow killer! It’s something that many talk about and few address. The reason is because it takes time and several different approaches to deal with it. I have listed a few things you can do to help yourself get out of the cycle of stress. Try them out and see how you do. I pray you will see differences immediately. Life is too short to worry all the time and people need you. Even if you don’t think so, there is someone who needs you to fulfill your purpose in life, so they can fulfill theirs.