People talk a lot about stress, but what does it mean? Stress is something that is very much personal to us, and we experience it in different ways. Stress is essentially when a situation, pressure, or change exceeds our coping abilities.
Take a rollercoaster ride, for example. You might have two people that go on a rollercoaster together; one person may take genuine enjoyment out of that experience. Other people might take a real sense of fear and anxiety. The rollercoaster itself doesn't change, but our perceptions of it will differ.
The same can be said for other stressful situations. Ultimately depends on your perception of that situation that determines whether or not you see it as a stressor. Of course, the rollercoaster example is an example of short-term stress, which in isolation may not cause any harm whatsoever. It's only when stress accumulates beyond your coping abilities, and without adequate recovery, the pressure can become a problem.
Stress is likely to occur after an accumulation of life-changing events. Those events can be both positive and negative; they might include a business realignment, a promotion at work, or even something enjoyable such as a holiday or a Christmas break.
What matters is that there's a change to your routine. When several changes to your life happen within a short space of time, that's when it can have an impact on your resilience and your stress. We all know stress can make us feel under pressure, agitated, and sometimes overwhelmed. How does stress affect our body and our mind, and what can we do about it.
Within the body, you have the central nervous system, which is the brain and the spinal cord. Within the central nervous system, you have the autonomic nervous system, which regulates things outside of your control.
Things like blinking, breathing, and your heartbeat. Within the autonomic nervous system, you have two particular branches. One is the sympathetic nervous system, that's known as the fight or flight system. The other is the parasympathetic nervous system, the rest and digest system, and although they interact, they both have different roles.
The sympathetic nervous system is responsible for increasing the heart rate, increasing blood pressure, and increasing blood sugar to help you perform when stress hits. The rest and digest system is responsible for suppressing heart rate and bringing you back down to homeostasis. DHEA is an immune system-boosting hormone. Which means it helps stave off the development of lifestyle-related diseases. The problem here is that DHEA and cortisol are released from the same body area, the adrenal gland.
This means that when someone is exposed to chronic stress, without recovering and adapting to that stress, the DHEA is not being released. This means that the risk of disease is increased. Excess cortisol and chronic stress can increase the risk of strokes and heart from happening.
The reason being when cortisol is released, it creates an inflammatory response within the arterial lining. That inflammation could then lead to increased cholesterol if that cholesterol becomes unstable and breaks off and travels down to the heart or brain's smaller arteries, which could result in a stroke or a heart attack. Stress can also affect the way that your brain functions.
Usually, when you experience a situation or a stimulus, it goes via the thalamus and then into the cerebral cortex. The outer part of the brain is responsible for high-level thinking, such as strategy, executive decision-making, and creativity. The problem is when we're under stress that the whole system is bypassed, and it goes via the amygdala.
The amygdala is very closely linked to your fight or flight response. Therefore when you are under stress, the amygdala will result in your fight or flight response, engaging more rapidly, and you don't have the outer human thinking that you would typically have. As a result, you might act in a way that you would later regret.
Now that we know a bit more about stress, the question is, what can we do to improve our resilience to improve our ability to deal with pressure?
When it comes to effective stress management, it's essential to focus on the factors within your perceived control. One factor that is particularly useful to improve sleeps quality.
Sleep deprivation can lead to increased amygdala activation, which is, of course, responsible for the increase in the fight or flight reaction. By improving your sleep quality, you help to reduce the activation of the amygdala, which of course, is linked to the fight or flight response. Furthermore, an improved sleep architecture can help to improve the regulation of cortisol.
Low to moderate exercise can be very useful for stress management. Activities that focus on muscle tension and deep breathing, such a yoga, for example, are excellent because they drive up the activation of the parasympathetic nervous system. Unlike high-intensity exercise, which drives up the activation of the fight or flight system. Therefore going for a light to brisk walk before bedtime can be a more effective stress relief than going for a high-intensity run.
Furthermore, performing regular exercise can be a good distraction from the stresses in your life. There are lifestyle factors to consider too. Nicotine, caffeine, and alcohol are often used as the de-stress technique. However, they drive up the activation of the sympathetic nervous system and, in doing so, exacerbate stress more than help it.
Therefore the casual cup of tea or the occasional glass of wine to help de-stress after a long day might not be as effective as we once thought. Taking these factors onboard and modifying your behavior will help you improve your ability to prepare for, react to and recover from stresses in your life, ultimately improving your resilience.
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