How Stress Affects You Physically

Imagine this: You and your friend are walking home from school. As you pass by a house you notice a large dog lying on the step outside of the front door. You’ve never seen this dog before, and you start feeling just a little bit nervous because it doesn’t look like the dog is tied to any thing. All of a sudden, the dog charges off the step and runs at you and your friend, its teeth bared and snarl­ing. You and your friend scream and take off as fast as you can, even after you can see that the dog stopped at the edge of its yard and isn’t chasing you. You and your friend are both so scared that you’re practically crying, and it’s a long time until you can fully relax. You vow that you’ll never walk past that house again, and the next day you find a new route home from school.

What happened during that incident was that you and your friend experienced a full dose of physical reaction to stress. Stress, as it refers to your body’s response to particular situations, occurs when something happens that causes you to change course or that demands extra awareness. You felt stress in the form of intense fear and you responded with an intense physical reaction.

In this post we’ll examine that physical reaction to stress, and how stress affects the body. Nearly everyone experiences some stress on a regular basis, and, hopefully, our bodies are able to deal with that stress and then rebound back to normal. When stress becomes chronic and long term, however, it can result in a variety of physical problems.

Consider the charging-dog scenario described above, and try to imag­ine how you really would feel if you experienced a menacing dog running at you, looking as if it intended to attack. Chances are that you’re feeling a little bit nervous just thinking about it! When you encounter a somewhat stressful situation, such as a having to cross a busy street, or shoot a foul shot during a close basketball game, or present a book talk in English class, you’re likely to experience a physical reaction. You might feel a bit of perspiration under your arms, or your face gets hot, or your palms are sweaty; you feel a little anxious and nervous in general. These responses give you a little extra energy, help you to feel more alert, and generally keep you on your toes. When everything is working properly, a reverse procedure will occur when the stressful situation ends, and your body will return to a relaxed state.

In a serious situation such as a snarling dog running at you, how­ever, your body goes into “fight-or-flight” mode, which prepares you to try to protect yourself from the dog by either standing your ground and dealing with it, or running as fast as you can to get away from it. Several physical reactions occur when this happens; they are known collectively as the stress response.

When your body responds physically to stress, several actions occur. Your brain sends a quick message down your spinal cord to the adrenal glands, signaling the glands to release a good dose of a hormone called adrenaline. Adrenaline increases blood pres­sure and blood sugar levels and makes your heart beat faster, all of which are advantageous in the event that you need to fight or flee.

While your adrenal glands are working hard to produce adrenaline, a central area in your brain called the hypothalamus and the pituitary gland also are working to trigger the release of hormones, including an important one called cortisol. Stress isn’t the only trigger that causes cortisol to be released into the bloodstream, but cortisol has become known as the stress hormone because it occurs at higher lev­els during stressful situations. Cortisol helps the body to metabolize glucose, regulate blood pressure, maintain blood sugar levels, boost immune function, and respond to inflammation. It also helps your body to maintain its internal balance (this is called homeostasis), and it regulates fluid and electrolyte levels.

During times of stress, cortisol, like adrenaline, helps your body to get ready to do what it needs to do in order to protect yourself or someone else, by making sure that your blood sugar remains high and your blood pressure is elevated.

When you’re faced with a stressful situation, your body responds by preparing your brain and muscles to deal with it. Your body’s stress response, as it prepares itself for “fight-or-flight” mode, includes a number of responses:

> Your heart pumps at two to three times its normal pace, send­ing increased amounts of blood into the muscles of your arms and legs.

> Your eyes dilate, enabling you to see better.

> Your blood pressure increases dramatically because the tiny blood vessels just under your skin shut down. This inhibits bleeding in the event that you are wounded.

> Your digestive and reproductive systems shut down so that energy can be diverted to other areas of the body. Excess waste may be expelled so that you can run faster.

All of these changes give you an edge and enable you to be stronger and faster than you would be under normal circumstances. It’s thought that this is why people are sometimes able to perform extraordinary feats, such as lifting a car off of a person who is trapped or setting a new world’s record in the high jump. These responses to stress and danger have helped humans to survive and prosper.

If the thought of a snarling dog seems frightening, imagine that you’re a caveman or cavewoman, minding your own business and picking some berries one day, when a large, angry beast emerges from the bushes, intent on finding itself a meal. There’s nobody else around, so you’re going to have to handle this situation on your own. Luckily, your body automatically responds in a manner that might allow you to escape the beast and live to tell the tale. Scientists think that the fight-or-flight response is an important fac­tor in the evolution of man, and an important tool in the fight for survival.

Those who escaped the wild beasts would head back to their caves, where they would take a long nap, resting and enabling their bodies to return to a normal, relaxed state. Survivors were able to produce offspring with even more developed fight-or-flight responses, which allowed them to deal even better with dangerous situations and con­tinue the evolutionary process.

A physical response to stress is a necessary and useful feature that has served humans well for thousands of years. But sometimes our stress response can be a bad thing. Early humans were surrounded by danger and stress. In addition to wild beasts, there were periods of famine, threats to offspring, environmental stressors such as heat and drought, and other factors that required humans to constantly be on guard and able to react to danger.

In some parts of the world, humans still face those sorts of condi­tions because of war, or inequitable food distribution, or tyrannical leaders, or other factors. In our society, however, most of us don’t face these sorts of perils on a daily basis. Sure, you experience stress when you ask somebody you like to go to see a movie with you, or when you don’t have your homework finished and the teacher calls on you to explain how you solved a problem. And every now and then a snarling dog might run at you, or you’re involved in a car accident, or you experience some other serious situation.

The problem is that even though we no longer often need the physical responses that saved us from being mangled or devoured in the past, they keep on kicking in. So when the teacher calls on you and you know you’re in trouble, your heart beats faster, your blood pressure increases, blood gets pumped to the muscles in your arms and legs, and all those other responses kick in to prepare you to fight or flee.

Your teacher, however, isn’t interested in fighting you, although he or she may want to know why you didn’t do your homework. And running out of the room would certainly be overly dramatic and unnecessary. So, you sit there with your face red and your heart pounding, sweating, and your stomach churning, unable to act on your instincts to do something more.

Worse still, if you also didn’t do your homework for your next class either, the same thing could repeat itself just a half hour or hour later—meaning that your body would maintain that high level of alertness and readiness to fight or run.

If this happens frequently and over a period of time, it can have a negative effect on your body, both short term and long term. Short-term effects of stress include fatigue, an inability to concentrate, sweating, an increased heart rate, abdominal pain, irregular bathroom habits, and anger.

It’s important to understand that people react differently to stress, and experience a variety of physical reactions when confronted with stress. Jamal, for instance, has a problem with heavy perspiring when he becomes stressed and anxious, while Megan’s stress presents physically as intestinal problems.

Jamal has always been shy and awkward in social situations. He’s fine when it’s just him and his family, or when he’s just with a couple of close friends, but he’s very uncomfortable around people he doesn’t know. Because of this, he works hard to avoid calling attention to himself and tries to stay in the background. Sometimes, however, that’s impossible, and Jamal finds he must interact with others in social settings. The thought of having to deal with social gatherings is so stressful to him that he becomes quite anxious and worried.

As soon as he begins to feel anxiety associated with social occa­sions, Jamal starts to perspire. He understands that this is an inherited characteristic, because his father has the same condition, but that doesn’t make it easier for him. Once he starts to perspire, he becomes even more anxious and worried because he’s afraid that other people will notice the problem. Jamal experiences a vicious cycle of worry­ing, which leads to sweating, which leads to even more worry. On several occasions Jamal has experienced full-blown panic attacks as a result of this condition.

Like most teens, Megan worries about dating and social situations. This is perfectly understandable because forming and developing personal and romantic relationships is a new set of circumstances for teens, and it can be uncomfortable and stressful. What sets Megan apart is her physical reaction to this stress, which shows up in the form of intestinal problems. When she worries that her boyfriend is going to cheat on her or break up with her she experiences cramps, diarrhea, and problems with gas. By her early teens she had already developed irritable bowel syndrome, which caused even more anxiety and angst.

As soon as she begins experiencing symptoms she retreats to her room, which means she’s missed some school and a number of activi­ties that she would have liked to participate in. That makes her even more upset, which only makes the problem worse.

Jamal and Megan experience similar feelings of stress and anxiety, but their physical reactions are different. Someone else might respond physically to stress with a headache, or increased incidence of acne, or trouble sleeping.

While stress is the cause of a variety of short-term problems, it also has long-term effects, which can be extremely serious, ranging from cardiovascular disease to some kinds of cancers. Long-term stress also can lead to anxiety, depression, gastrointestinal disorders, ulcers, coli­tis, and sleep disorders. High stress levels also are linked to immune system–related problems such as frequent colds and infections, and higher incidences of migraines and asthma. People who are exposed to frequent or constant stress, such as those who are being physically or sexually abused, suffering from a serious illness, living in fear of violence in their homes or neighborhoods, or experiencing poverty are more prone to these long-term physical problems. You’ll learn a lot more about the long-term effects of stress in this post, Long-term Physical Effects of Stress .

For now, let’s consider some of the short-term physical effects, some of which you may have already experienced, and which could be early symptoms of problems resulting from stress over a long period of time.

Gastrointestinal problems. It’s not hard to understand how stress is related to gastrointestinal problems. Did you ever start feeling sick in your stomach when you were nervous or anxious? You might have heard someone say that they had “a knot in their stomach” due to being nervous or under stress. Children sometimes develop stom­achaches when anticipating an unpleasant situation. Stress has been linked to gastrointestinal disorders such as irritable bowel syndrome, stomach ulcers, and colitis. Short-term effects include stomach cramps, diarrhea, gas, and irregular bowel movements.

Sleeping problems. It’s hard for most people to get to sleep when they’re really worried or anxious about something. Furthermore, researchers believe that, in addition to mental activity that makes it difficult to sleep, stress hormones designed to rev up the system in preparation for flight or fight contribute to sleeping problems for people who are experiencing a lot of stress. One problem is that someone who is having trouble sleeping at night is likely to be more stressed during the day, which leads to even more sleeping problems at night.

Skin problems. It’s clear that stress contributes to skin problems, including acne, hives, eczema, psoriasis, rosacea, and alopecia (loss of hair). Again, stress hormones are thought to have the ability to increase oil production, possibly trigger the body’s autoimmune reaction, and otherwise affect the skin, causing problems that range from occasional flare-ups of problems to chronic situations. You may have noticed that your face is more likely to break out when you’re anticipating final exams, or the basketball game against your school’s top rival, or a visit to traffic court after you were pulled over for speeding.

Perspiring. Excessive sweating is not an uncommon reaction to stress, and it can lead to even greater anxiety. The condition of excessive sweating is called hyperhidrosis, and it’s estimated that 2 to 3 percent of the general population are affected by it. Some people with this condition experience underarm sweating, while others sweat excessively from their hands or feet. While stress can contribute to this condition, there can be other medical reasons for it. Hyperhidrosis can be treated with certain over-the-counter antiperspirants, prescription antiperspirants, or medication. In rare cases, a doctor will recommend endoscopic thoracic sympathec­tomy, a surgery that removes or blocks the nerves that cause sweat­ing in order to inactivate them. While it is considered an effective treatment for hydrosis, and less-invasive surgical techniques have greatly minimized its risks it is not considered as a first line of defense.

Immunity issues. Did you ever notice that you seem to be more susceptible to getting sick when you’re under a lot of stress? That’s because you really are. High stress levels are linked with problems with the immune system, which, when functioning properly, enables you to fight off colds and other problems. Researchers think that stress-related hormones interact with substances in the body that trigger the immune system, causing the system to be less effective. This makes it more difficult to fight off conditions like the flu, a cold, or an infection.

Headaches. Stress can contribute to migraine headaches as well as the more common tension headaches you may have experienced. The hormones that prepare a person for flight or fight also can cause changes in blood vessels that result in migraines. Tension headaches occur either occasionally or on a regular basis. Occasional tension headaches are known as episodic headaches and can be caused by one stressful occurrence or by stress that builds up over time. Usually they are of short duration and can be treated with over the counter pain relievers. Continual headaches are called chronic tension head­aches and may require treatment in the form of stress-management counseling, biofeedback, or medications.

Sexual dysfunction. When someone is under a lot of stress, the hormones that regulate the reproductive system can be inhibited, leading to sexual dysfunction.

> A physical reaction to stress can help you to perform bet­ter by providing extra energy and increased awareness and alertness.

> Physical response to stress includes increased heartbeat and blood pressure, dilated pupils, greater blood flow to muscles, enhanced memory, and a temporary shutdown of the digestive and reproductive systems, preparing the person for a fight-or­flight response.

> Hormones, including cortisol, get released into the body dur­ing times of stress.

> The body’s physical response to stress has evolved over time, and it was extremely useful to humans who were sur­rounded by constant danger and stresses such as drought or hunger.

> While physical response to stress can be valuable and neces­sary, it often occurs even when it’s not needed.

> Different people respond physically to stress in a variety of ways, such as headaches, stomach problems, or excessive sweating.

> There are both short- and long-term physical responses to stress, and short-term responses can be early symptoms of long-term problems.

> Long-term or constant physical response to stress can cause problems and illnesses such as cardiovascular disease, gastro­intestinal disorders, headaches, sleeping problems, and skin problems, among others.