“Stress is becoming more and more a part of everyday life,” says Alka Gupta, MD, chief medical officer and cofounder of Bluerock Care in Washington, D.C. It’s likely that just checking the news on your phone can be enough to get your heart pounding — and not in a good way.
Why We Feel Stressed All the Time
According to the American Psychological Association’s (APA) 2022 Stress in America survey — its annual review, which included 3,200 adults in the United States — Americans cited major stressors coming from multiple directions: financial pressures from inflation, rising crime and violence, and a loss of faith in government amid ongoing political divisions. Our wired culture also contributes to more of us feeling out of control more of the time, Dr. Gupta says. “People are working longer hours courtesy of their digital devices,” she says. “That means it’s harder to break away to exercise, relax, or spend time with loved ones — all of which can help relieve stress.”
How Stress Helps Us Survive
Stress can also give you an appropriate awareness of when you’re in danger. “It’s essential to your survival as a human being,” says Jennifer Haden Haythe, MD, a cardiologist and the director of the cardio-obstetrics program at NewYork-Presbyterian Columbia University Irving Medical Center in New York City. That healthy vigilance relies in part on the body’s fight-or-flight response: When something stressful happens, stress hormones like cortisol and adrenaline course through your body, says Dr. Haythe, amping up your energy and enabling you to, say, get a loved one out of a burning car before you’ve noticed that you’re injured yourself.
When Stress Turns Unhealthy
But when stress becomes chronic, or when you find that you’re constantly having an outsize reaction to small stressors, that’s when stress can be less than beneficial and impact your emotions, cognition, and physical health in a negative way, says Gupta. Stress may even contribute to serious illness down the line, be it heart disease, lowered immunity, or changes in the brain. But while it’s impossible to banish stress entirely, every one of us can learn coping strategies that help manage its effects. Whether it’s listening to soothing music, dabbing your favorite calming essential oils on your pulse points before bed, or closing your eyes and having a sensory experience, it’s possible to put stress aside when you need to. Here’s what you need to know to calm your nervous system, keep stressful events in perspective, and continue to feel good, whatever life throws your way. “It’s more about your resilience and ability to cope than it is about a particular stressful event,” says Michelle Dossett, MD, PhD, MPH, a researcher at the Benson-Henry Institute for Mind Body Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.
What Is the Difference Between Stress and Anxiety?
The words “stress” and “anxiety” are often used interchangeably. Though the symptoms can feel similar, psychologically they are different. “Sometimes anxiety is triggered by a stressful situation; the two often go hand in hand,” says Dr. Dossett. “But it’s also possible to feel stressed without feeling anxious.” So what’s the distinction? “Anxiety is more closely associated with consistently worrying or ruminating about things, even when nothing much is going on,” she explains. Sometimes, anxiety can be part of a syndrome known as generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), a constellation of symptoms that involves uncontrollable worry and physiological signs of stress, such as feeling on edge or having trouble sleeping. You may experience GAD even when the outside world is at its calmest. Stress, on the other hand, tends to be a person’s response to a situation or event, like giving a presentation in front of a crowd, says Gupta. The causes of stress can also feel more amorphous. You may experience stress when you feel that you’ve lost your purpose in life or that you’re not relating to friends or a spouse. “The triggers really vary widely,” she says.
Stress and Politics, Health, and Violence
Studies have shown that politics is also a major source of stress (no surprise). The 2022 APA survey found that 64 percent of Americans feel that their rights are under attack. Over three-quarters of adults (76 percent) say that stress has a significant effect on their health, while roughly the same number (73 percent) say that mass shootings are a significant source of stress — up from 62 percent in 2018.
The Role of Stress Hormones
“Stress can come from any number of sources, whether relationship issues, actual trauma, or a dialogue in your own head,” says Dossett. “Whatever the cause, your brain has a specific pathway by which stressors get processed, which involves the activation of the hypothalamic, pituitary, and adrenal axis, followed by the release of cortisol and other hormones that affect every single organ in your body.” Stress also turns on the sympathetic nervous system, which leads to the release of epinephrine and norepinephrine — the same chemicals involved in responding to an actual physical threat. That’s why it’s so important to be able to manage stress effectively, so you can save that all-hands-on-deck response for the situations that really count. Learn More About the Most Common Causes of Stress “It’s hard to say with absolute certainty that stress directly causes these diseases,” says Dossett. “Usually, there are a number of factors at play. But I do know that people can get high blood pressure in response to stress, or heart arrhythmias; others will have problems in the gastrointestinal tract, like acid reflux or inflammatory bowel disease. I have patients with multiple sclerosis who say that their symptoms started after a particular stressful event,” she says. Stress may not be the primary trigger for these disorders, she adds, but it can be a contributing factor. Learn More About How Stress Affects Your Body Learn More About How to Build a Stress-Busting Diet At Mass General’s Benson-Henry Institute, Dossett teaches her patients evidenced-based mind-body skills to reduce anxiety, ranging from mindfulness meditation (apps like Headspace and Calm make it easy to learn), yoga, and breathing techniques. Getting social support is also crucial; there’s nothing like calling a sympathetic friend who can offer you support and provide a fresh perspective, Dosset says. Even squeezing a stress ball or playing with your child’s stuffed animal can make you feel good, reduce anxiety, or at least momentarily distract you from what stresses you. “When we’re feeling stressed out, it’s natural to want to withdraw from life, but a more beneficial way of dealing with it is to use coping skills and tools that work for you,” says Gupta, “whether that’s problem-solving or focusing on your breathing. Once you have these skills under your belt, you’ll be able to pull through the next stressful situation more easily.” Learn More About How to Manage Stress
