Why worry about managing stress?

Evolutionarily, your body is well designed to handle life-threatening situations. It instinctively knows exactly how to respond when you run across, say, a bear in the woods. Your body’s stress responders automatically react with a complex series of physiological reactions that help you to survive the immediate physical threat before you.

Happily, most of us don't encounter wild animals on a regular basis; unfortunately, our body's stress handling mechanisms respond to common psychological and emotional stressors with the same intense physiological response as they would to a bear.

And while some days, you may feel like your boss is a bear, in reality your boss is not a life-threatening emergency, even when s/he hands you yet another impossible deadline to meet, NOW.

When you perceive such interactions as stressful, your body can’t tell the difference between your boss and the proverbial bear. Your body responds by asking you to resolve this stressful situation by either fighting or fleeing. Regrettably, neither of these choices work effectively in a work situation.

So what do we do instead? Most of us tend to stuff the stress into our body and carry on with our work. Our bodies are then left “holding the bag” and we walk away with muscle tension, elevated blood pressure and fluctuating blood sugar levels.

Modern life is filled with chronic situations that activate our physical stress response. Unruly traffic, hectic family commitments, over-scheduled days, and unrelenting responsibilities at work and at home are just a few of the pressures that most of us deal with on a daily basis.

When our body responds to these normal life experiences as if we were in mortal danger, our entire body goes out of balance. If we keep this up, over time we damage our bodies in real and significant ways.

Excessive, long-term stress can:

• disrupt sleep

• cause heartburn, ulcers and colitis

• cause mal-absorption and other digestive problems

• depress your immune system, increasing your risk for colds, flu and cancer

• reduce your sex drive

• lower your fertility rate

• cause weight gain

• increase your risk for high blood pressure, heart disease, stroke and diabetes

• cause depression or high levels of anxiety

• lead to adrenal fatigue

• increase irritability

• increase your chance for food allergies and chemical sensitivities

• greatly compromise your overall health, productivity and sense of vitality.

The good news is there is hope. You can learn to handle your stress in a healthy manner by learning new skills.

To learn more about how stress affects your life click here:

• Dr. Hall’s PCC article

• Stress article library

• The American Institute of Stress

Further reading:

• Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers by Robert Sapolsky

• Full Catastrophe Living by Jon Kabat-Zinn 

Return to Taming the Bear: Take the Bite out of Stress Class informational page