“Stress is not a  state of mind… it’s measurable and dangerous, and humans can’t seem to find  their off-switch.” These words of warning come from renowned author and  award-winning neurobiologist Robert Sapolsky in the documentary Stress: Portrait of a Killer.¹

The film, jointly produced by National Geographic and Stanford  University where Dr. Sapolsky is a professor and scholar, shows just how  dangerous prolonged stress can be.

As we evolved, the stress response saved our lives by  enabling us to run from predators or take down prey. But today, we are turning  on the same “life-saving” reaction to cope with $4 per gallon gasoline, fear of  public speaking, difficult bosses, and traffic jams—and have a hard time  turning it off.

Constantly being in a stress response may have you  marinating in corrosive hormones around the clock.

This film shows the impact stress has on your body, how it  can shrink your brain, add fat to your belly, and even unravel your  chromosomes. Understanding how stress works can help you figure out ways to  combat it and reduce its negative impacts on your health.

Monkey See, Monkey Do

Dr. Sapolsky has learned a great deal about the human  stress response and its effects on your body by studying primates in Africa.  Every year, he spends a few weeks in the Kenyan wilderness studying baboon  societies that have intraspecies social and psychological tumult that mimics  the stress of modern man.

He monitors their adrenal hormone levels, namely adrenalin  (epinephrine) and glucocorticoids (such as cortisol). The fact that baboons  live in communities with hierarchical structures led Dr. Sapolsky to one of his  most profound discoveries: baboon stress is related to hierarchy, or social  rank.

The higher a baboon’s rank, the less stress it  experiences. The lower its rank, the higher its stress. More importantly, Dr.  Sapolsky discovered that the low ranking “have-nots” of the baboon world experienced higher  heart rates and blood pressure than the “haves.”

Arteries in the “have-not” monkeys filled up with plaque,  restricting their blood flow and increasing their heart attack risk. This was  the first time stress was scientifically linked to deteriorating health in wild  primates. As it turns out, the same is true for other primates—for example, us!

Mortality Rates Follow a Social Gradient

Professor Sir Michael Marmot performed a 40-year long  stress study in which he followed 18,000 men occupying various positions with  the British Civil Service. His findings paralleled what Sapolsky found for the  baboons: the higher your status, the lower your risk for stress-related  diseases.²

Marmot found that men in the lowest employment grades were  much more likely to die prematurely than men in the higher grades—there is in  fact a “social gradient” for mortality. Subsequent studies involving women had  similar findings. But why would this be—what does your status have to do with  your stress?

It’s All About Your Locus of Control

Dr.  Sapolsky explains how psychological distress may turn on your stress response  in this short video clip.  If the link does not work for you, you can access it on the Stanford University website (click on “Related to this Story” in right column, then the tab “More on Stress”). Sapolsky explains how you are more vulnerable to stress if the following factors are true:

• You feel like you have no control
• You’re not getting any predictive information  (how bad the challenge is going to be, how long it will go on, etc.)
• You feel you have no way out
• You interpret things as getting worse
• You have no “shoulder to cry on” (e.g., lack of  social affiliation or support)

Like baboons, people at the top of the social pyramid feel  a greater sense of control because they are the ones who call the shots, as  well as typically having more social connections and resources at their  disposal. This results in less stress, which over the long run translates to  lower rates of disease.
Stress is also closely related to the experience of  pleasure, related to the binding of dopamine  to pleasure receptors in your brain. The brains of “primate CEOs” light up  brightly in PET scans, whereas the brains of subordinate monkeys do not,  indicating that life is less pleasurable for the subordinates.

Like primates, people of lower socioeconomic status appear  to derive less pleasure from their lives. Perhaps this is why laughter therapy  is so effective!^{3, 4}
Overall, men and women suffer from the same stress-related illnesses, but they differ  in the types of situations they experience as most stressful. The genders also  experience stress differently. For example, women suffer more stress-induced anxiety  and depression than men.⁵ One thing is known to be true for both  genders: higher stress equates to a shorter life expectancy.

Are You a Stress Junkie?

The paradox here is that humans have essentially become  addicted to stress. There is “good stress” (eustress) and “bad stress”  (distress)—meaning, you experience certain stressful experiences as unpleasant  and seek to avoid them, but others you may actually seek out because they’re fun. For example, snowboarding, skydiving, rollercoasters, and scary  movies are experiences that may flip your thrill-switch—and your body responds  to those stresses in the same way as if a tiger were chasing you.

Your muscles  tense, your heart pounds, your respirations increase, and your body stops all  of its non-essential processes.This can be pleasantly exhilarating, and for some rather  addictive… you might know someone whom you could describe as an “adrenalin  junkie.” A thrill is simply the relinquishing of a bit of control in a setting  that feels safe. But when you’re in that heightened state of arousal 24/7,  stress takes its toll on your body—whether you perceive the stress as “good” or  “bad.”

Stress Takes a Toll on Your Brain and Adds Inches to  Your Waistline

Science has established that stress can lead to  cardiovascular disease, but did you know that it can also lead to weight gain—of the worst kind? Stress-induced weight  gain typically involves an increase in belly fat, which is the most dangerous fat  for your body to accumulate, and increases your cardiovascular  risk. Stress alters the way fat is deposited because of the specific  hormones and other chemicals your body produces when you’re stressed.

Prolonged stress can also damage your brain cells and make  you lose the capacity to remember things. The brain cells of stressed rats are  dramatically smaller, especially in the area of their hippocampus, which is the  seat of learning and memory. Stress  disrupts your neuroendocrine and immune systems and appears to trigger a degenerative  process in your brain that can result in Alzheimer’s disease. Stress can also accelerate  aging by shortening your telomeres,  the protective genetic structures that regulate how your cells age. In the  words of Dr. Lissa Rankin, author of Mind  Over Medicine:⁶

“Our bodies know how to fix broken proteins, kill cancer cells, retard  aging, and fight infection. They even know how to heal ulcers, make skin  lesions disappear and knit together broken bones! But here’s the kicker—those natural self-repair mechanisms don’t  work if you’re stressed!”

According to Dr. Sapolsky, the following are the most  common health conditions that are caused by or worsened by stress:

Cardiovascular disease	Hypertension	Depression
Anxiety	Sexual dysfunction	Infertility and    irregular cycles
Frequent colds	Insomnia and fatigue	Trouble concentrating
Memory loss	Appetite changes	Digestive    problems and dysbiosis

The Dutch Famine Study

The Dutch Famine Birth Cohort Study (Hungerwinter Study)  shows that stress in utero might be followed by a lifetime of poor health.  Survivors of the Dutch famine are now in their 60s, and those conceived during  the famine have higher rates of cardiovascular disease and diabetes and are in  poorer overall health than those conceived after the famine ended. Researchers  postulate that stress hormones in the blood of those pregnant women triggered  changes in their babies’ developing nervous systems as they battled against  starvation. Decades later, their bodies still “remember” this prenatal stress.⁷

The Dutch Famine Study is not the only scientific research  to show that your mental and physical health can be permanently affected by childhood  stress and trauma. The Adverse  Childhood Experiences (ACE) study is an ongoing research project that  analyzes the relationship between stressful childhood experiences and health  outcomes later in life. There is a very  strong correlation between  childhood stress and many diseases, including cancer, depression, and heart  disease.⁸

Cortisol Can Be an Important Health Challenge

The stress hormone cortisol, released by your adrenal  glands as part of the “fight-or-flight” response, is the master hormone that  regulates many aspects of your body’s stress response. However, cortisol levels  are typically elevated across the board in today’s culture, to the detriment of  mental and physical health. The impact stress is having on society as a whole  is so profound that Psychology Today calls cortisol “Public Enemy Number One:”⁹

“The ripple effect of a fearful, isolated and stressed out society  increases cortisol levels across the board for Americans of all ages. This  creates a public health crisis and a huge drain on our economy.”

For example, elevated cortisol levels are a potential  trigger for mental illness and reduced resilience, especially among  adolescents. Evidence of the societal affects of unmanaged stress is disturbingly  evident on the evening news, with seemingly ever-increasing episodes of  bullying, suicides, and mass shootings, which are unfortunate, albeit extreme  examples of what happens when people cannot cope. When you have effective  stress reduction tools, you and your children are mentally and physically  healthier, more resilient and less likely to be depressed, sick, or violent.

Is It Time to Send Yourself to Cortisol Rehab?

Sapolsky’s baboons prove that stress is not inevitable.  You can change  your environment and your responses. And as you learn how to effectively decrease  your stress level, your cortisol will stabilize, your blood pressure will drop,  and your health will improve in just about every way. It’s important to realize  that stress management isn’t something you save up to do on the weekend—it  needs to be done on a daily basis, because that’s how often stress rears its  ugly head. There are many different stress reduction techniques, and what works  for you may not work for another.

One may enjoy meditating, but another may feel calmer by  cleaning house! Stress management is a highly individual thing, and the last  thing you want to do is be stressed by your supposedly stress-busting activity.  You’ll have to find what works best for you. Of course, making good food  choices will support your overall health and increase your resiliency. Be sure  to get adequate sleep as sleep deprivation dramatically impairs your body’s ability to handle stress.  Several more stress management approaches are suggested in the following table.

Regular physical activity	Meditation: Taking even 10 minutes to sit quietly, such as during work breaks, can help decrease your feelings of stress and anxiety
Mindfulness    training and breath work	Yoga: Health benefits from regular yoga practice have been shown to decrease stress,    improve sleep and immune function, and reduce food cravings, among other things
Social connectedness	Laughter and levity
Spend time in nature	Music
Have more fun	EFT: Emotional Freedom Techniques

Emotional Freedom Techniques  (EFT): Some of the Most Powerful Tools for Managing Stress

When it comes to managing stress, the Emotional Freedom  Technique (EFT) deserves special mention. EFT is a group of energy psychology  techniques that involve tapping on several of your body’s acupressure points  while focusing on and making specific verbalizations about the issue at hand—in  this case, stress. Like acupuncture,  EFT is based on the fact that your body is an electrical system, and vital  energy flows along invisible channels known as meridians. When you’re stressed,  anxious, traumatized, or sick, your energy flow can become blocked, which EFT  can help reverse—without the needles used in acupuncture!

EFT has been scientifically shown to calm your central  nervous system and significantly reduce cortisol levels. In 2012, a triple  blind study conducted by Dr. Dawson Church (who can be credited for the  majority of current research on Clinical EFT), found EFT reduced cortisol  levels and symptoms of psychological distress by 24 percent—more than any other intervention tested.^{10, 11}

Tapping can help your body repair emotional “scarring” and  reprogram the way it responds to stressors. Since these stressors are often  connected to physical complaints, many people find that pain and other physical  symptoms will improve or completely disappear. There are many styles of EFT, but  Clinical EFT¹² is the one I have the most experience with and is the best established and best  supported by scientific research. If you are interested in experiencing EFT for  yourself, please refer to the video demonstration of EFT for stress relief  above.

Although the basics of EFT can be learned quite easily,  for serious issues I recommend your seeking the help of a qualified EFT  practitioner.¹³ There is an art to these techniques and having an expert guide you—someone who  has spent years training in these skills—will accelerate your progress. Working  with an expert will also prevent you from falsely concluding that EFT doesn’t  work, when you simply need a little coaching and support, especially if you are  working on deeper issues such as trauma or post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).  The beauty of EFT is that it can actually reprogram your body’s  reactions to the unavoidable stressors of everyday life, providing a lasting  effect.

As Sapolsky’s baboons have  shown you, stress is an extremely significant player in your overall health. The  better you get at managing stress on a daily basis, the better your health will  be.

 

Source for Story:

 

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2014/07/05/stress-effects.aspx?e_cid=20140705Z1_DNL_art_1&utm_source=dnl&utm_medium=email&utm_content=art1&utm_campaign=20140705Z1&et_cid=DM51735&et_rid=575094347