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Why Stress Could Kill You

Being the most intelligent animals in the world (humans—no matter what the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy says) has its benefits. For example:

  • Our brains have around 50,000 thoughts a day.

  • We invented YouTube, where we laugh at videos of other animals.

  • We heat and liquefy sugar grains and rapidly rotate a cylinder with minuscule holes until the sugar re-solidifies into strands of air and glass. In other words, we make cotton candy.

Yes, humans are truly awesome. But having such high-functioning brains isn’t all YouTube and cotton candy. One of the greatest downsides of our intelligence is stress.

Sadly, around 70% of our 50,000 thoughts are negative and make us anxious. That’s 35,000 negative thoughts a day. As a result, humans suffer more stress-related illness than any other animal. As Stanford professor and stress expert, Robert Sapolsky, says, “Essentially, we’ve evolved to be smart enough to make ourselves sick.”

Stress isn’t just a psychological issue—it is a health threat. Some pressures are unavoidable, but chronic stress can have a greater effect than you might realize.

In order to avoid its health risks, it is important to grasp what stress is, understand the effects it can have, and learn how to handle it well.

When Stress Could Kill You

Fight or FlightStress can sometimes feel like it’s lurking around every corner, so it’s no surprise that 75% to 90% of all doctor visits are a result of stress-related illnesses.

The chances of sickness are greater when we’re habitually anxious about daily events, like traffic or work. Professor Sapolsky explains, “If you turn on the stress response chronically for purely psychological reasons, you increase your risk of adult onset diabetes and high blood pressure.”

On top of diabetes and hypertension, chronic stress is linked to heart attacks, stroke, viral disorders, autoimmune diseases, and ulcers, among many other ailments.

Originally, stress was developed as a positive response meant to keep us alive (more about that later), but we’ve replaced our ancient survival stresses with “psychosocial” anxieties. Our bodies cannot sustain a rapid heart rate, a flood of hormones, and an ineffective immune system.

Stress takes a toll on the body, but it starts in the mind, and chronic anxiety wears heavily on your brain. It is the forerunner of depression, anxiety, insomnia, degenerative neurological disorders, and even Parkinson’s disease.

These problems often begin with seemingly normal thoughts, like “Does my boss hate me?” or “Did I offend that person?” Unfortunately, these are often stressors we can’t evade. They weigh on us around the clock, so we allow our body and mind to live in a state of unease.

Often times, what is actually causing stress is less important than how we responded to it. If two people face the same stressor, one may seek social support while the other becomes antisocial and isolated. Stress may lead one person to see the challenge as an opportunity for growth, and another to avoid circumstances altogether and “blow off steam” through over-drinking and other harmful activities.

Stress can pose a serious threat to your health, but in the right circumstances, stress can actually be a great asset—even the difference between life and death.

When Stress Could Save Your Life

Stress isn’t all bad; there is an evolutionary reason our bodies respond to challenges the way they do.

Imagine you find yourself hotly pursued by a grizzly bear. Without ever seriously considering “playing dead,” you begin to run. Fortunately for you, the moment your brain registers a threat (i.e., the bear), your hypothalamus, a portion of your brain concerned with survival, triggers a number of things:

  • Adrenaline and about 30 different hormones flood the bloodstream

  • Your heart rate and blood pressure increase your blood flow

  • Your blood sugar rises as fuel for energy

  • Your digestion and immune system stop working and redirect blood to muscles in your arms and legs

  • Clotting occurs more quickly to prevent blood loss in case of injury 

All of these reactions combined are known as your fight-or-flight response, and we commonly experience the same response when we are stressed in everyday life, where the grizzly bear looks more life a work deadline: tense muscles, high blood pressure and heart rate, increased levels of glucose, and inactive digestion and immunity.

When being chased by a grizzly bear, stress isn’t such a bother. However, when non-life-threatening events trigger the same response, the long-term physical damage can be catastrophic. Chronic stress keeps your body in an ongoing state of fight-or-flight, perpetuating these symptoms and triggering physical and psychological illness.

In order to protect our health, we need to change the way we respond to stressful circumstances.

How to Handle Stress

Although our minds have abused the fight-or-flight response, it isn’t something we need to avoid altogether. Stanford professor, Kelly McGonigal, claims in her book, The Upside of Stress, that it is more important to embrace stress than reduce it. “Once you appreciate that going through stress makes you better at it,” says McGonigal, “it can be easier to face each new challenge.”

Embracing stress as part of life, and even as a tool, will make you a more emotionally stable and physically healthy person.

  • Take a step back and consider practical ways to calm your mind. Simple changes like minimizing caffeine intake, improving your sleep habits (with some of these tips), and exercising can help your body and mind unwind.

  • It’s important to remember that each stressful situation is different. One problem, like a project or presentation at work, might need to be tackled head on; another, like a personal tragedy, might require social support or working to accept it.

  • If you feel anxiety setting in, identify the cause as soon as possible. Discovering the source brings you one step closer to a solution.

  • Uncovering what really matters most to you and what makes you happiest will help keep stressors in perspective. If your job wears on you, but you are part of a great community, captain of your softball team, and have a loving family, then choosing to focus on the positive will put the difficulty of work in perspective.

  • Remember: your body is helping.If you feel your heart rate increase, remember that it is your body trying to give you the energy and strength to handle your circumstances.

Stress can either negatively weigh on your body and mind, or it can help you deal with difficult situations. Choose to see it as an opportunity to learn and grow. Give your mind the opportunity to relearn its response to difficult situations and you’ll see a change in your physical and mental health.