Stress. It is everywhere these days. Whether it be traffic on the Beltway, a big presentation at work, or caring for an acutely sick child or elderly parent, one cannot get through the day without having to navigate through situations that trigger our anxiety. Tomorrow morning when you wake up, start noticing every time your heart rate goes up in response to a stressful, unwanted, or unplanned situation. How long do you stay in this state? Where else in your body do you hold these feelings of stress? If you are still wondering if stress can affect our body’s basic functions, this realization should be proof that yes – it can!
Science has shown us over and over again that stress impacts the way our bodies fight disease in a number of ways. In situations where our body needs to protect itself from a perceived dangerous situation, stress hormones (such as cortisol) are released instead of hormones that promote healing (such as serotonin). There are also certain genes that we know get turned “on” (or “off”) in response to stress, toxins, and other environmental triggers that can impact how disease arises in our bodies. We are just starting to understand the role that our gut biome plays in keeping our immune systems working properly, and also how inflammation can impact our health and wellbeing. And the more time we spend in stressful situations can negatively impact all of this.
To understand this better, we need to get to know the role that the Autonomic Nervous System (ANS) plays in keeping us alive and healthy. The ANS regulates all of the automatic functions in our bodies that we don’t even think about such as our heart rate, temperature regulation, and digestion. This complex system also acts as a surveillance mechanism or a “scanner” for threats to our body and controls the “fight, flight, or freeze” response that is around to keep us safe. This system is supposed to turn “on” when needed and then “off” when the danger has passed. Though with repeated and/or constant stress, the system can get stuck in an activated mode. This dysregulated state can be very unsettling and cause symptoms such as fatigue, heart rate and blood pressure irregularities, and even chronic pain.
Stressful events can also lead to trauma in individuals. I like to think of trauma as something we experience in our bodies but not necessarily the event itself. Children who experience and then carry trauma throughout their lives can suffer greatly in regard to their future wellbeing. This was shown by The Adverse Childhood Event Study (ACES) conducted between 1995-1997 which explored the impact that trauma had on the long term health of individuals. It concluded that disease states such as heart disease, diabetes, cancer, depression, and obesity were much higher in this population. Life expectancy in some cases was reduced by as much as 20 years! All of this is directly correlated with having experienced trauma as a child and includes such varied events as emotional/physical/sexual abuse, natural disasters, war/violence, neglect, childhood medical procedures, and even poverty, just to name a few.
So how can we heal from this? The key may lie in “fixing” our dysregulated Autonomic Nervous System, the system that is just trying to protect us but doesn’t know how to “turn itself off” anymore. Research is pointing to regulating activities such as yoga, being in nature, and gratitude/helping others as ways to help the ANS feel “safe” again. Furthermore, being with
others who are emotionally healthy has been shown to act as a mirror for our system and together we can co-regulate one another. A sign of a healthy nervous system is one that can travel fluidly between being activated and being calm, and you can know you’re getting better when you feel more flexible and resilient. Think of it as your new “magic pill” to use to combat the harmful effects of stress on our health and wellbeing.