WTF is the Stress Response?

Why do we respond to stress the way we do? Well, for thousands of year, we needed this response for survival. You’ve heard of fight or flight, right….or more recently they’re calling it fight, flight, freeze or fawn? This is a physiological response-meaning this is the body’s normal functioning response to an apparent threat.

Let’s say you see a bear running toward you. Before you can say, “Shit!” your body has already released the adrenaline into your bloodstream that increases your heart rate and blood pressure, opens smaller airways in your lungs and increases your breathing to prepare you to run. Oxygen increases to the brain to make your senses sharper and the adrenaline even dumps sugar and fat stores into the bloodstream for energy.

This is pretty remarkable. And once you’ve (fingers-crossed) escaped the bear, your body will automatically calm itself back down because the threat has passed.

But what if this hypothetical bear is your tense relationship with your spouse? Or the medical bills piling up on the counter? Even when these modern stressors are out of sight, we have the ability to bring about the stress response just by thinking or perpetually worrying about them. And what happens then?

Well, the body has a secondary response that keeps the fight or flight response going using cortisol. So, if these two hormones that are meant to increase blood pressure, maintain energy stores (through increased appetite), increase heart rate and divert the oxygenated blood to your extremities instead of your organs just stay in your blood, it becomes a pretty big problem.