Stress
It's the way of life, it seems. We wake up to it at dawns first reveille and wade through it until we finally lay our weary heads down to sleep(if we ever do.)
Stress has been called the scourge of the modern world. According to the American psychological association, one-third of Americans deal with extreme stress; and nearly half of all Americans report feeling stressed throughout the day. Cost of living in America is going up, which means Americans will have to work harder in order to live. This can only mean one thing for average stress levels.
Stress is by no means a bad thing. Not too long ago, our ancestors would have stood no chance of surviving without it. The system in charge of our stress response incredible, as we'll see.
The autonomic nervous system is branched into two parts: The Para-sympathetic, and the sympathetic. The para-sympathetic is often called the “rest and digest,” while the sympathetic is referred to as “fight-or-flight.”
Imagine you're outdoors one day for a walk, strolling leisurely along a footpath when you see a lion. In an instant, you're irate. Your breath quickens, and your muscles become tense. You can feel your pulse in your head, and smell sweat that suddenly materialized on your skin. You run faster than you've ever imagined, and you climb a tree(which you hadn't been able to do since you were a child) What happened? The answer is your sympathetic response. You see, you have a part of your brain called the amygdala, and it's constantly scanning your environment for threats. When it spots one, it signals the brain, by way of the HPA axis, to release adrenaline and cortisol. These neuro-chemicals have top-down control of your body. When they release, blood flow is immediately diverted from your organs to your muscles, as well as to your hindbrain where movement and reaction are concerned. In this state you can think on your feet, you can fight; or if things become really bad, run like hell from the situation all together. It's a very useful tool when you're braving the wilderness each day in search for survival.
Fast forward about 10,000 years since agriculture and the world has changed: We live in relative peace, the wars are fought by others thousands of miles away, the lions are in the zoo, and you can go to the supermarket if you want food. The biggest existential threat you face every day is driving your car through traffic on the way to work(and despite the fear-mongering on the news, you have very little chance of dying from this.) So why the stress?
The problem is that your brain and its' corresponding neuro-circuitry developed over vast aeons of time, and most of that time was spent on the savannah, in the forest, the mountains, and upon the plains. Your system is hard-wired for existential threats, but the fear center of your brain can't tell the difference between a genuine threat to your survival, and the fears that exist in your own head. Something that threatens your way of life: If your business goes under, if you lose your job, if your spouse leaves you, if you get evicted, will elicit the same response as if it is an actual existential threat. Imagine yourself on the street, your children going hungry, your spouse leaving you for another that is more capable. Go ahead and visualize this for a minute or two. I guarantee your heart rate will spike.
Enter Chronic stress. The lions in your head are far more numerous than those you could encounter in the wild. Lounging comfortably in your imagination, they are always near by. This keeps you in a low-grade, and chronic sympathetic state, where your brain continues to drip cortisol and adrenaline. This is the state of the average American, and it's a large reason why we choose to eat bad food, why our sleep quality goes down, and why we're projected by the age of 60 to have some form of pre-existing condition(diabetes, heart disease, cancer, etc).
The irony is that to avoid chronic stress, we actively need to pursue the right kind, known as acute stress. We do this through a process called "Hormesis." The idea is that things that would kill you in large doses can actually be beneficial for you in small doses. Hormesis included things like: Working out, fasting taking a cold shower or ice bath, Sauna, heavy breathing exercises. By doing any of these things, you move stagnant energy around the body, release feel-good neuro-chemicals, and you recalibrate your stress bucket.
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