Is Stress Bad For Your Health?

Stress is something we all experience and while we can tell each other we “feel stressed out”, we often have a difficult time admitting or accepting it as the cause of our health concerns. Could it be so simple to say “my symptoms are caused by stress”? Stress feels like an abstract term, and while we can plot it on a curve with a 4-point salivary test, many of us are not satisfied with the conclusion of “your symptoms are caused by stress” - we, for some reason, feel unvalidated and continue a prolonged search for a better explanation. So what is stress? and Is Stress Inherently Bad For Your Health? 

This is a big question and one we want to delve into because so many of us don’t like, or are resistant to accept, the idea that stress is hurting our health and causing not only emotional turmoil but physical symptoms.

"Stress is the result of perceiving a threat"

Stress is the result of perceiving a threat. This could be as variable as seeing a bear on your weekend hike, to being called into a meeting with your boss, to needing to get your child dropped off on time to school. The key word in defining stress is “perceived”. What one person perceives to be a threat, another person may not. This differentiation in perception is why we sometimes cannot relate to another person’s stress and it could be the reason why we feel somewhat ashamed to call our own suffering “stress”. Whatever the case is, when we perceive a threat, the body responds by modulating cortisol. 

We often think of cortisol as the stress hormone and when we think of that, we think of it being inherently bad. But the truth of the matter is, cortisol is produced by the body to calm the ill-effects of stress and could then be thought to be inherently good. Perceiving a threat, or for a more relatable term, feeling stressed, mounts an immune response; this immune response creates inflammation in the body. This is true whether the stressor is physically present, or made up in our minds. As this happens, the body responds by producing cortisol. Cortisol acts to calm the immune system and inflammation. 

The reason cortisol gets a bad wrap is that, as the body produces more and more cortisol the brain can become desensitized to it. Now the hormone that was in circulation to help us deal with the present stressor, no longer exerts the same effect on our brain. This leads to dysregulation of our HPA (Hypothamalic-Pituitary-Adrenal) axis creating changes in hormone signalling throughout the entire body. 

Another important consideration is how long or how frequent is the stressor(s) present. If it is a quick and short stressor, the immune response will be mounted but it will calm quickly and there will be less inflammation. On the other hand, when the stressor is constant or recurring, there will, unfortunately, be a constant immune reaction leading to more and more inflammatory proteins and enzymes creating damage throughout our body.

We know that a great deal of the immune system is produced in the gut. When there is a mounted or elevated immune response, and increased inflammation, the gut can become very irritated. This is why we see stress as a trigger for conditions like IBS and IBD (Crohn’s and Colitis). We often find those who are diagnosed with IBS, hear that stress is partly to blame but many aren’t satisfied with this answer because it isn’t explained to them. If we stopped and understood that stress is creating an overactive immune response and inflammation in the gut; experiencing abdominal cramps, spasms, diarrhea, and constipation, actually make perfect sense. Now, instead of feeling like it’s all in our heads by being told our IBS is caused by stress, we can feel comforted in understanding how physical stress really is. It also allows us to understand why stress plays such a big role in illnesses that are particularly susceptible to increased inflammation, like autoimmune diseases, skin, and mood disorders. Another organ affected by inflammation is the brain. Stress impacts our ability to store memories and then later recall them. Being forgetful, or unable to think clearly, is a common symptom of our stressed out clients. The heart is also impacted by stress. Cardiovascular disease and stress can go hand in hand. The increased inflammation can create calcification of our blood vessels and irregular beating of the heart. Our ability to regulate our blood sugar is yet another important system that stress impacts. If we experience ongoing stress we are at increased risk for type two diabetes. 

"However, anxiety comes to play as we anticipate the outcome of the danger."

When it comes to mood, we often confuse stress and anxiety, as they can feel similar or present together. The difference is that stress is the result of being threatened by something, and as humans we sense danger in so many situations. Once upon a time it was strictly a mode of survival, but now, we actually see it in relationships, deadlines, and in our ambitions and goals. For example, if something is changing at work, or somebody is not happy with our performance, we can perceive this as danger and it will exert stress on the body. However, anxiety comes to play as we anticipate the outcome of the danger. So stress is the actual threat and when the threat is removed the stress should theoretically be gone. But when we play the idea or anticipate the stress in our mind, we create anxiety. Anxiety allows the effects of stress to live on. So if we're anticipating a work performance review, and perhaps we're anticipating that it's going to be poor, then we will live sometimes weeks or months with a perceived threat. When this is happening, the ill effects of stress, are not only exerted in the moment, but for the entire duration of anticipating the event. This means that we can live for long durations under intense amounts of stress AND anxiety. This entire time an immune and inflammatory response are exerting damage to our gut, brain, metabolic, nervous, and cardiovascular systems. 

We're living in a very busy and very demanding time. Multitasking is not only the norm, but it is expected of us. We juggle relationships with our family, friends, work, social media, and hopefully, squeeze in hobbies we love and acts of self-care. Putting a practice in place to help deal with these increasing demands is super important. It shouldn't be complicated or feel like a chore (after all the goal is to lessen stress, not add one more thing to the to-do list). 

It can include spending time with people that you love and bring you joy. Laughing is actually one way to calm the immune system and lower our perceptions of stress. As alternative healthcare practitioners, we are particularly in favour of treatments like acupuncture; we have fabulous protocols for helping induce relaxation and calm the mind. We also love vitamin drips; we can flood the body with vitamins that are being depleted by chronic stress. For example, your B vitamins. A vitamin drip not only bypasses the gut, making sure you’re actually getting the vitamins, but it floods the cells to replete tissue levels in a way that oral supplementation alone most likely can’t. We also know that exercise is a means of managing stress. Always listening to your body so that you don't ever do it is essential. Exercising itself can be perceived as a threat and it can cause a rise in cortisol, but if you are being intuitive in your exercise, not pushing yourself to extremes, and doing what leaves you feeling energized leaves and like you've dispersed negative energy then you’re on the right track.

In conclusion, understanding that stress is a perception of a threat or danger and knowing how the body responds to that threat, we can answer the question “is stress bad for you health?” with a simple, Yes. We are here to validate you and tell you yes, your symptoms could be explained by the label “stress” and no, it’s not all in your head. Stress is bad for your health. Preventing and managing stress will not only strengthen the immune system but it will decrease inflammation throughout the body, making it incredibly important to your overall health, wellbeing, and resolution of symptoms.

"We can answer the question “is stress bad for you health?” with a simple, Yes."