Benefits of Changing Your Response to Stress

Applying the Goldilocks Principle to Stress 

Stress is nature's gift.  Every species needs just the right amount of it for healthy growth. 

Seedlings defy the stress of gravity, pushing out of the dirt to rapidly grow towards the sky.  Chicks break out of their egg shells, thrusting into a new world of breath and sunlight.

At any moment, too much stress would sap their early life.  Strangely, too little stress often means they don't develop well enough to survive.

Just the right amount of stress is needed for every living thing to remain in healthy balance with the natural world.  When stress levels are "just right" we call this the Goldilocks Principle of Stress.  

Getting a better understanding of how stress effects our health is the first step to boost our wellness.       

How Do Our Bodies Regulate Our Hormones to Respond to Stress?

We live in a society telling us that stress is bad for us.  This perspective is not entirely true.  Maintaining homeostasis, which is keeping internal equilibrium and balance, our bodies produce a form of stress to change our internal state using hormones.  Keeping us within healthy limits, homeostasis effortlessly maintains a steady state of internal, physical, and chemical reactions. Homeostasis is the Goldilocks principle, governing every metabolic function in our bodies.  

Our bodies maintain homeostasis by responding to a variety of external stressors—creating a cascade of metabolic responses.  Many of these directly alter the levels of hormones.  For example, our bodies induce a form of stress to wake us up in the morning.  By spiking the hormone levels of cortisol, we wake up and have the energy to get out of bed. When there is too little "stress" hormone cortisol, we continue to sleep.  When we do eventually wake up, we feel groggy and fatigued.  We've described these symptoms of how too much or too little of the hormones cortisol, and its counterpart melatonin, in a past article: Your Sleep Disturbances May Be Hormone Related. 

We suggest the first step to responding better to stress is to consider one's attitude about it.  Our health will improve when we adopt an understanding that stress is nature's way of promoting growth and change within us with just the right amount. 

When we believe stress is happening to us, we tend to stay stuck in a stress response.  Stress then results in the feeling of being overwhelmed, with either mental or emotional pressure.  At this point, we often escalate the stress response by compulsively thinking about the stressor.  Believing we have no options or no solutions, we spiral downward. 

When our perspective is that stress is happening for us, we discover stress isn't the problem; instead, our response to it is the problem.  We learn ways of letting it go. 

How Do Different Stressors Affect Different Hormones?

Hormones play a vital role in our emotions, as do the quality of our diet, sleep, and exercise. Behind every worthwhile ambition, desire, and pursuit there is a hormone driving our passions.  Hormones powerfully influence the thrills we experience in life as well as our downward emotional response to life's disappointments. 

What are the Symptoms of Prolonged Stress?

When we are healthy, homeostasis is a quick response to stressors.  Unfortunately, when the body is exposed to long-term chronic stress, often from our inability to practice letting it go, the conditions it creates can be cardiovascular disease, cognitive impairment, diabetes, gastrointestinal problems, obesity, skin rashes, asthma, arthritis, and depression.   

The following changes may be signs that an individual is overly stressed:

• Changes in appetite or weight
• Changes in sleep patterns
• Loss of interest in activities previously enjoyed
• Restlessness
• Sadness, guilt, or feelings of irritability
• Thinking negatively

How Does Stress Affect the Body?

Chronically high levels of stress may suppress immunity, leaving you vulnerable to more serious conditions listed below.

Immune Health

Stress can increase levels of cortisol.  High cortisol levels may reduce natural killer cell activity, immune cells that limit the spread of certain viruses and tumors. 

Heath Health

Chronically high cortisol levels may increase blood pressure, blood sugar, cholesterol, and triglycerides—all factors that can increase your risk of hypertension, stroke, and heart attack.

Gastrointestinal Health

Stress may cause GI symptoms such as heartburn, indigestion, nausea and vomiting, diarrhea, constipation, or belly pain. 

Epilepsy

Stress may trigger a seizure in individuals with eipilepsy. 

Diabetes

If you have diabetes, stress can inhibit insulin production, potentially contributing to more diabetic complications. 

Inflammation

Stress may lead to a manifestation of atopic dermatitis (an inflammatory skin condition), asthma, or allergies. 

How to Better Manage Stress? 

Coping with stress will look different depending on the individual.  However, the following strategies may be helpful for reducing stress levels:

• Identify what is causing you stress.
• Consider a mindfulness practice of letting it go. 
• Talk to others about how you’re feeling (e.g., friends, family, coworkers, a therapist).
• Consider taking a course or class on stress management.
• Consider participating in physical and mental exercise such as walking, running, or meditation.
• Work on improving your nutrition with the assistance of a qualified healthcare practitioner.
• Participate in a hobby that you enjoy.
• Don’t be too hard on yourself and take things one day at a time.

Stress is a natural and helpful bodily reaction, yet, chronic stress may negatively affect health and lead to or exacerbate more serious health conditions related to a suppressed immune system and chronic inflammation.

Stress management techniques and coping mechanisms such as therapy, exercise, meditation, a healthy diet, and participating in hobbies can help reduce stress levels. Speak with your integrative healthcare practitioner if you’re feeling stressed and to receive advice on how to reduce stress levels.