Physiological Effects of Stress

Nobody likes the feeling of stress. The butterflies in your stomach, racing thoughts, and feeling the weight of intense pressure. It feels bad. But beyond just that “bad” feeling, what actually happens in the brain to make us feel this way? 

First of all, we have to understand what exactly stress is. When you are in a situation where you perceive harm, your body acts to prevent injury or other negative effects. Stress is your body’s reaction to the “threat.” This threat can be something like a big test coming up, sports tryouts, moving to a new school, or many others. 

In reaction to this feeling, a part of the brain called the hypothalamus triggers a bodily response. The hypothalamus regulates many physiological processes, like hunger, mood, and stress-response, to keep the body in a state of stability. After the brain perceives a stressful situation, the hypothalamus releases hormones that stimulate the adrenal glands. The adrenal glands release more hormones, like adrenaline and cortisol. 

What do adrenaline and cortisol do, though? How do they contribute to the symptoms of stress that we feel? Well, adrenaline prepares the body for the fight-or-flight response. Because of this, you may feel your heart racing, blood pressure rising, and feel a lot of “nervous energy” in your muscles. 

Now let’s look into cortisol. Cortisol is the primary stress hormone. When it is released, your blood sugar levels increase, you start to sweat, and you may get headaches. In addition to that, cortisol overpowers processes in the body that would slow down the fight-or-flight response. This includes the immune system, digestive system, and growth processes. Overall, it also impacts your mood and feelings, like irritability and fear.  

These hormones are meant to help our body overcome stressful situations. Once the stressor goes away, your body should go back to normal. Adrenaline and cortisol levels drop back down, your heart rate steadies, your blood pressure drops, and the overpowered processes resume their regular activities. 

But when this doesn’t happen, the body can get stuck in a constant state of fight-or-flight. That means that the cortisol and stress-response hormones keep being released. When someone is exposed to high levels of cortisol for a long time, it can harm their body mentally, as well as physically. For example, this can cause health problems like anxiety or depression, aches, sleep problems, weight gain, and trouble with memory and focus. That’s why coping with the stress, bringing down cortisol levels, and remembering to stay positive is so important. 

Understanding the physiological effects of stress can help you recognize the symptoms so you can take calming actions to reduce your cortisol levels. Keeping time to relax and destress is necessary, and using positive coping strategies to manage your stress can really go a long way.