Transcription
Translator: Denajda Leka Reviewer: Helena Bedalli
Studying intensely for a test? Trying to finish more tasks than your time allows? Stress is a feeling that we all experience when we feel challenged or overwhelmed. But more than just an emotion, stress is an immediate physical response that travels throughout the body. In the short term, stress can be advantageous, but when activated too often or for too long, the primitive stress response of 'fight or flight' not only changes your brain but also damages many of the organs and cells throughout the body.
Your adrenal gland releases the stress hormones cortisol, epinephrine, also known as adrenaline, and norepinephrine. As these hormones circulate with the blood, they easily affect blood vessels and the heart. Adrenaline causes your heart rate to increase and raises your blood pressure, leading to hypertension over time. Cortisol can also cause the endothelium, or the inner lining of blood vessels, to not function normally. Scientists already know that this is the first step in causing the process of arteriosclerosis or the buildup of cholesterol plaques in your arteries. Together, these changes increase your chances of a heart attack or stroke.
When your brain detects stress, it activates your automatic nervous system. Along this network of nerve connections, the brain communicates stress to the abdominal system, or the intestinal nervous system. Besides the feeling of butterflies in your stomach, this brain-gut connection can disrupt the natural rhythmic contractions that move food through the stomach, leading to irritable bowel syndrome, and can increase stomach sensitivity to acidity, making you more likely to experience heartburn. Through the stomach nervous system, stress can also change the composition and function of bacteria in the stomach, which can affect the digestive system and overall well-being.
Speaking of the digestive system, does chronic stress affect your waistline? Well, yes. Cortisol can increase your appetite. It continues to tell the body to fill energy gaps with calorie-dense foods and carbohydrates, and to seek comfort in food. High cortisol levels can cause the accumulation of extra calories as deep fat in the abdominal area. This type of fat not only makes it difficult to button your pants. It is an organ that actively releases hormones and immune system chemicals called cytokines that can increase the risk of developing chronic diseases such as heart disease and insulin resistance.
Meanwhile, stress hormones affect immune cells in different ways. Initially, they help prepare for an attack on invaders and healing after injury. But chronic stress can reduce the function of some immune cells, making you more susceptible to infections and slowing down the healing rate.
Want to live long? You may need to curb chronic stress. This is because it is linked to the shortening of telomeres, the end caps of chromosomes that measure a cell's age. Telomeres cover chromosomes to allow DNA to be copied each time a cell divides without damaging the cell's genetic code, and they shorten after each cell division. When telomeres become too short, the cell can no longer divide and dies.
And as if that weren't enough, chronic stress can sabotage your health in other ways, including acne, hair loss, sexual dysfunction, headaches, muscle tension, difficulty concentrating, fatigue, and irritability. So, what does all this mean for you? Your life will always be filled with stressful situations. But what matters to your brain and body is how you respond to stress. If you consider these situations as challenges that you can control and overcome, rather than as insurmountable threats, you will perform better in the moment and be healthy in the long term.