Let's Talk About Stress! Part One: Acute and Chronic Stress

We all experience stress from time to time; it’s a normal part of being human.  But if you’re struggling to switch off at the end of the day, or anticipate there being a lot of stress in your life moving forwards, this two-part series might help you to cope with it differently. This post is about the differences between acute and chronic stress, and the next post will be about ways to manage stress.

What is stress?
 
In the dictionary, stress is defined as:
 
“A state of mental or emotional strain or tension resulting from adverse or demanding circumstances.”
 
When your body identifies something as stressful or threatening (like a tiger hiding in the bushes, waiting to attack you) it releases hormones into your bloodstream that activate a response known as “fight or flight.”  This prepares you to do one of two things: fight the tiger, or run away from it.  Within this post we will be focusing on the fight or flight response, but freezing is also a common response to threatening things and can also happen to people - we don't always get much choice as to how our body responds to threat.

​Here comes the science part…
 
Stress affects your autonomic nervous system.  This system tends to act without you having to do anything, and regulates a lot of things in the body such as digestion, breathing, heart rate and arousal.  The autonomic nervous system controls the flight or flight response, and is made up of two parts: the sympathetic nervous system (SNS) and the parasympathetic nervous system (PNS).  They are in control of a variety of different processes, but the most important thing for us is that:
 
The SNS ACTIVATES the fight or flight response, and
 
The PNS DE-ACTIVATES it (by activating other responses, such as those needed to rest, and to digest food).

---

What happens in fight or flight?
 
When the fight or flight response kicks in, different hormones (such as ACTH, adrenaline and cortisol) are released by the brain, which result in the body preparing itself for action (to fight or run away).  When this happens, the things that you might notice happening to your body include:

• Increase in heart rate – feeling your heart beating faster
• Breathing heavier and more shallowly – this can make you feel dizzy and light-headed
• Digestion slows down as you don’t need it to run away or fight – this can lead to feelings of nausea or sickness
• Muscles tensing up to get ready for action – you can feel more aches or discomfort due to this, and it can lead to headaches as the muscles in your neck and back tense up
• Salivation is inhibited as it is unnecessary for fight/flight purposes – you might notice that your mouth is dry

It is important to remember that this is an ACUTE STRESS RESPONSE. That is, this is designed to happen when we experience something that is imminently threatening or stressful (like the tiger I mentioned above). The problem is, your body doesn't know the difference between a tiger and the things that are threatening in your life every day (like deadlines, rushing for the bus, giving presentations in meetings, etc), and for many reasons – including how you think and feel about things – your body will keep responding to these things as though they are really dangerous. Over time, CHRONIC stress responses can develop.

---

What is chronic stress?
 
When the body has been put under stress for a long time (through a situation that isn’t changing such as a stressful job, or a health condition such as chronic pain), you may notice symptoms of chronic stress occurring.  These symptoms can include:

• Feeling unable to concentrate
• Struggling with your memory
• Being more indecisive, particularly for small, everyday decisions
• An increase in headaches, nausea, or general aches and pains
• Feeling generally run-down
• Your body taking longer to heal from wounds
• An increase in depressive thoughts and feelings
• An increase in anxiety and worry, including panic attacks
• Your thoughts racing more often
• Struggling to sleep and feeling tired all the time
• Avoiding social situations due to mood or anxiety
• Drinking alcohol or taking drugs to cope
• Being more moody or snappy with others, easily frustrated
• Changes in how much you eat (eating more, or eating less, than you used to)
• Being clumsier, tripping or dropping things more often

 
So that's the bad news...

The bad news is that stress is something that we can’t get rid of completely – it is likely that there will always be some stress in your life.  The good news is that we can learn different ways to manage stress so that it no longer has such an impact on us.

Next week we'll be thinking about the ways in which we can manage stress. If this post has been useful to you, let me know in the comments.