How stress affects your body Sharon Horesh Bergquist
Cramming for a test?
Trying to get more done
than you have time to do?
Stress is a feeling we all experience
when we are challenged or overwhelmed.
But more than just an emotion,
stress is a hardwired physical response
that travels throughout your entire body.
In the short term,
stress can be advantageous,
but when activated too often or too long,
your primitive fight or flight
stress response
not only changes your brain
but also damages many of the other
organs and cells throughout your body.
Your adrenal gland releases
the stress hormones
cortisol, epinephrine,
also known as adrenaline,
and norepinephrine.
As these hormones
travel through your blood stream,
they easily reach
your blood vessels and heart.
Adrenaline causes
your heart to beat faster
and raises your blood pressure,
over time causing hypertension.
Cortisol can also cause the endothelium,
or inner lining of blood vessels,
to not function normally.
Scientists now know
that this is an early step
in triggering the process
of atherosclerosis
or cholesterol plaque
build up in your arteries.
Together, these changes increase
your chances of a heart attack or stroke.
When your brain senses stress,
it activates your
autonomic nervous system.
Through this network
of nerve connections,
your big brain communicates
stress to your enteric,
or intestinal nervous system.
Besides causing butterflies
in your stomach,
this brain-gut connection can disturb
the natural rhythmic contractions
that move food through your gut,
leading to irritable bowel syndrome,
and can increase your
gut sensitivity to acid,
making you more likely to feel heartburn.
Via the gut’s nervous system,
stress can also change the composition
and function of your gut bacteria,
which may affect your digestive
and overall health.
Speaking of digestion, does chronic
stress affect your waistline?
Well, yes.
Cortisol can increase your appetite.
It tells your body to replenish
your energy stores
with energy dense foods and carbs,
causing you to crave comfort foods.
High levels of cortisol can also cause you
to put on those extra calories
as visceral or deep belly fat.
This type of fat doesn’t just make
it harder to button your pants.
It is an organ
that actively releases hormones
and immune system chemicals
called cytokines
that can increase your risk
of developing chronic diseases,
such as heart disease
and insulin resistance.
Meanwhile, stress hormones
affect immune cells in a variety of ways.
Initially, they help prepare
to fight invaders and heal after injury,
but chronic stress can dampen function
of some immune cells,
make you more susceptible to infections,
and slow the rate you heal.
Want to live a long life?
You may have to curb your chronic stress.
That’s because it has even been
associated with shortened telomeres,
the shoelace tip ends of chromosomes
that measure a cell’s age.
Telomeres cap chromosomes
to allow DNA to get copied
every time a cell divides
without damaging
the cell’s genetic code,
and they shorten with each cell division.
When telomeres become too short,
a cell can no longer divide and it dies.
As if all that weren’t enough,
chronic stress has even more ways
it can sabotage your health,
including acne,
hair loss,
sexual dysfunction,
headaches,
muscle tension,
difficulty concentrating,
fatigue,
and irritability.
So, what does all this mean for you?
Your life will always be filled
with stressful situations.
But what matters to your brain
and entire body
is how you respond to that stress.
If you can view those situations
as challenges you can control and master,
rather than as threats
that are insurmountable,
you will perform better in the short run
and stay healthy in the long run.