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Bickering political parties, holiday strife, the next deadline at work. Stress in life is ubiquitous and subjective. To me, a day in Disneyland is a treat; to my partner, a nightmare. Identifying what in your life causes stress is critical to changing the patterns of reactivity the stress creates.
Research consistently reports that stress and the stress chemicals they produce can be toxic to your brain. But like most things in your body, there is a continuum. Studies show that mild levels of stress can actually help you improve your cognitive capacity. The release of adrenaline wakes up nerve pathways that allow you to focus and concentrate better. However, once you reach some magic and individually specific level of stress, the system turns on you and the same chemicals that allowed more focus just a minute ago, cause you to feel anxious and panicky.
The varied roles of the stress response system make sense evolutionarily. Imagine you are a caveman, scanning the environment for danger. Being just alert enough to keep the scan going is a crucial part of your survival. Off in a distance, you see a mountain lion on the prowl. The adrenaline is simmering in your body and you remain alert and attentive but not reactive. After ten minutes you notice the mountain lion seems to be moving closer and closer to your cave, this releases more adrenaline in your nervous system and now your heart is starting to beat faster, your breath becomes shorter, your body is making the switch from scanning and evaluating to preparing for battle. Your testosterone also rises to fuel the belief that you could tear the mountain lion apart. If you are a cavewoman, you might be getting a hit of oxytocin along with the adrenaline as the lion is approaching. Oxytocin tells you to gather members of your tribe, particularly the children, to keep them safe.
Your stress response can and should be your friend and ally, helping you navigate a complicated and too often dangerous world. Because human beings are social animals, friends and allies should be your strongest protection against stress. However, cultures that believe in separation over connection and competition over cooperation can fuel unhealthy levels of stress and undermine the development of the essential neural pathways needed to form healthy connections. The smart vagus nerve is one such pathway that literally sends inhibitory signals to the sympathetic nervous system when you are interacting with a friend in a safe way. Your smart vagus nerve helps keep your stress response in check so that strong connections prevent you from being in a state of high arousal all the time.
People who develop post-traumatic stress disorder from childhood abuse, domestic violence or even war experience live a life where the sympathetic nervous system is running full blast much of the time – it is incredibly destructive. The chronic cortisol released to try to counter the high levels of adrenaline can be toxic to the hippocampus – a crucial area of the brain that stores memories. It can also help create a cascade of physical destruction leading to the development of chronic health problems from diabetes to autoimmune disorders. And of course, having an overactive stress response system that leaves you perpetually on guard makes it even harder to build healthy relationships that might help you feel calm.
For all of these reasons, if you are spending much of your life in a culture that actively undermines the neural pathways of connection, it is essential that you balance the excessive stress response with some activity that reduces stress. If you are someone who can not add another scheduled activity in your day, you can start by simply focusing on your breath throughout the day. When you are stressed, your breathing becomes more superficial and rapid which leads to less oxygen to your brain which, in turn, can lead to more irritable neurons and ultimately more stress. To counteract this, you might try pausing to take ten deep breaths. You may be amazed at how quickly you feel the impact of increased oxygen to your brain. The beauty of this is that you can do it anytime, in a meeting or at your desk, selling coffee or driving a van. Depending on the level of stress in your life, you might want to add a structured program for stress reduction. There is now abundant research on the benefits of stress reduction on the mind and body and many, many options. The important thing is to pick something you can commit to because rebalancing your sympathetic nervous system, like all brain change, requires repetition.
Meditation, yoga, guided imagery, relational mindfulness are popular because they are particularly good at decreasing stress and changing neural pathways, but if these aren’t for you, think of something you know helps you feel safe and out of the stressful world, then build it into your day. If going for a run at lunch allows you to change your chemistry and de-stress than build it into your day. Remember, the goal is to give your sympathetic nervous system a break from the chronic stimulation of living in a culture that undermines your most powerful way to reduce stress – engaging in healthy, mutual relationships.
