So, when things are tough, what do you think is actually happening to you? Or IN you might be the better question.
The short version of tough: good stuff!!
The long version of tough: bad stuff…
Yes, I meant what I said.
The human body is so immensely adaptable to stimulus and environment that we are still figuring out exactly how the body reacts and responds to pretty much everything we can throw at it. Exercise, work, relationships, aging, diet, and a lack or over abundance of all those things.
Stress is the word we use to describe this stimulus to adaptation. But, what’s all that about? And why is it actually good and bad?
Well, our systems are old. Like, stupid old. Potentially 350 million years old. Maybe not in this exact version, but roughly. More monkey shaped, anyway. Part of what these systems are for is to respond to the world around us, which boils down the something called our sympathetic nervous system. You’ve probably heard of flight or fight responses, and this is where it comes from. There’s two more on that list now by the way. Freeze, like a deer in head lights, or façade, like a dude bro at the gym with invisible lat syndrome (you know the guy… arms held out from his body like he’s MASSIVE, but is actually unlikely to put dent on the scales even when soaking wet).
All of these things are a response to acute stress. How you feel when there’s a bully/mongol horde/sabre tooth tiger in your vicinity. Your body is getting ready to deal with the threat in a particular way ie. Kick arse, bolt, play dead or act tough. So your systems flood the body with adrenalin and cortisol, priming you to react and move energy around the body to do what it needs to do. Adrenalin spikes the central nervous system to assess threat, then act quickly and decisively. Cortisol to mobilise energy stores (fat and sugars) and raise blood pressure to move it with. Slightly more complicated than that, but this is roughly how it works.
Now, this acute stress is really awesome when it comes to immediate survival, or exercise, or performance. All the good stuff. It allows us to adapt and overcome the circumstances we find ourselves in. Think of those stories you heard of mums lifting cars off their baby. Stress for the win right there!!! But, the point is that we eventually switch it off and move into the parasympathetic nervous system, which is all about recovery. Rest and digest and sleep and stuff. This is when stress is good for us. An example like exercise even allows us to adapt to the stimulus and stress to become more capable at dealing with and responding to it. But that only happens when we get to rest and recover afterwards. Otherwise we can’t adapt, because our sympathetic system won’t let us have the time off to do it…
Which then becomes a conversation about chronic stress. Which is bad. Proper bad. Systems offline because it is trying to deal with a threat that isn’t there anymore bad. Can’t shut off and actually enjoy life bad.
Ever found yourself overthinking at night when you’re trying to sleep, and your brain just won’t shut the hell up? Sympathetic nervous system.
How about finding yourself looking at something that realistically was very small and not a big deal, but you’ve spun it out of control in your head and now you’re waiting for the cops/hitman/zombies/obnoxious child at schools' parents to knock on the door to “have it out with you”? Sympathetic nervous system…
The problem is, its not your fault. Your brain is built for threat detection. All it wants to do is make you safe and right (more on that stuff in another post). What’s happened is that you, and parts of your life that ARE stressful, have forgotten to leave that shit at the office so to speak. And the crappy thing about that is that if we let that just stay that way, our stupid damned brain turns that sympathetic system response up to 11. That adrenalin STAYS ON, keeping you hyper vigilant and looking for anything it can to focus on that may possibly, one day, in a way, potentially, in a certain light, when it all plays out, but maybe not just yet but eventually, a problem. Or turns little things into big things. And this keeps the body wanting energy floating around to use, on…. Well, nothing in the end. Insulin gets thrown into the system to open up our cells in our muscles to use that energy, but they don’t have anything to use it on, so they send it away for storage (you know what that means….) and are less likely to open up next time. Insulin resistance. Not good…
When you add excessive cortisol into this, it ends up doing the reverse of what it was originally supposed to do. Constant threat mode tricks the body into wanting to store more energy for that rainy day that the overthinking is telling us is coming. And it takes even the baseline parasympathetic functions and downregulates them (Think of driving on the freeway, at the speed limit, in second gear. Yep, exactly that bad). So, you’re tired due to no sleep from overthinking and aren’t using energy effectively or thinking properly. Which means you go looking for sugar and caffeine (because that will fix everything…) And you make the problem worse.
Who’s having fun yet?
Look, I appreciate that I may well be ironically making someone’s day that much more stressful by writing this. What I need those people to understand is that this is something you CAN do something about. Which stress you choose to engage with matters, what stress you realise is always going to be there and do your best to overwrite with methods to engage your parasympathetic systems more (diaphramatic breathing, meditation, grounding, sleeping, diet – all of which I will be progressively talking about. Promise.), how you choose to view yourself in relation to that stress. It all counts. I haven’t even talked about the inflammation caused and compounded by stress… That's where this stuff gets extra fun.
In a nutshell: If any of this sounds like you, invest some time in figuring out exactly what is stressing you, how that’s affecting you, and how real it actually is. That chronic stress didn’t just fall out of the sky to land on you in a brown puddle of your own version of hell. Look at the thoughts and behaviours that seem to come with it. Pay attention!!! It matters. Especially if they spin you in circles.
Be kind, be smart, be your best you. No bar fights.
“It’s not stress that kills us, it’s our reaction to it” Hans Selye
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