Cortisol overdrive People caught in really stressful
Life’s a Mess? Lower Stress.
situations often find themselves with more physical energy and mental focus than they had just moments earlier. That’s because you have a lightning- fast stress response. How exactly does your body respond? Let’s look at an example of a high-stress situation. Say you’re driving on an icy road and your car starts sliding. You have to act now! Your amygdala, located on the lower part of your brain, sends a signal to your hypothalamus, also part of your brain. In turn, your hypothalamus triggers your adrenal glands to release adrenaline. That adrenaline causes your heart rate and blood pressure to rise, your lungs to take in more oxygen, and your body to release blood sugar, sending extra energy all over your body. In an eyeblink, your “fight-or-flight” response is triggered, helping you react quickly and regain control of the car. But you’re still on an icy road! Time for your HPA axis—consisting of your 1 hypothalamus, pituitary gland, and adrenal glands—to take over. Your hypothalamus triggers your pituitary gland, which in turn triggers your adrenal glands to release cortisol, a powerful hormone that gives you energy while dampening your immune system to keep pain from stopping you. You slow down and focus on the road until you’re able to exit safely. Only now do your cortisol levels decrease. That’s your body’s normal response to a stressful event. But what if the stress doesn’t go away? These days, most of us deal with prolonged, low-level stress. If you keep feeling stressed, your HPA axis keeps producing cortisol. That cortisol prompts your body to store fat for
Everybody feels stress. It’s an unavoidable part of life. Our bodies are designed to deal with occasional stressful events. But in our hectic modern lives, the stress keeps building—and it sticks around.
This continual buildup of stress is a trend that’s been rising for decades! But recent events have caused more North Americans than ever to feel unabated stress. All our everyday worries—plus worries about the economy, war, illness, and personal finances in particular— have sent our stress levels skyrocketing over the past two years. For instance, stress about money is the highest it has been in seven years according to the American Psychological Association. 1 No wonder! Record-high inflation brings not only pocketbook problems but a constant sense of uncertainty. Stress about our health and wellness has exploded too. More and more, we’re worried that our personal health and well-being are out of our control. 1 All that stress doesn’t just put us in bad moods. Chronic stress can have a significant impact on our health.
1. Carolyn Crist, “Most Americans Report Overwhelming Stress Levels: Poll,” WebMD, March 10, 2022. 2. “Stress Effects on the Body,” American Psychological Association, November 1, 2018
50 MAY 2022 | MELALEUCA.COM
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