Why Is Stress So Dangerous?
- Linda Andersen
- Dec 1, 2024
- 5 min read
Stress lives in your deepest thoughts. It's born from uncertainty, self-doubt, insecurity and trauma. It feeds on demanding schedules, toxic relationships and financial crises. If it's not managed, it can have lasting, detrimental effects on your brain and body.
Christmas is just around the corner and let me tell you, my stress levels are creeping up. Don't get me wrong – I love this holiday. It's my absolute favorite! But I always overcommit to something, and before I know it, I'm armpit deep in craft projects, decorating and hosting dinner parties. Add a bunch of work-related deadlines in there and suddenly I’m running around with my hair on fire. Maybe you can relate.
This season can be a hugely stressful time of year for many people, especially if you're already running on empty, burning the candle at both ends...add more clichés here...and basically just wound up tighter than a loaded spring from all of life's responsibilities since January. Maybe you're smart and you’ve booked a couple of weeks in Maui – good for you! Not all of us have that luxury though. The cumulative effects of stress are doing you more harm than you probably realize. So let's take a look at what stress is, how it can be harmful to your brain and body, and why it's so important to properly manage it.
WHAT IS STRESS?
Stress is simply your brain's response to any sort of demand. In keeping with the Christmas theme here, some examples are 1) numerous social commitments, 2) increased financial pressures, 3) visiting relatives taking over your home, 4) unsolvable family issues, etc.
Not all stress is bad though. It can be wonderfully productive in small doses, but the longer the duration and the higher the intensity, the more harmful it becomes. Prolonged stress is referred to as "chronic" or "toxic", which can cause significant harm to both the brain and body.
PHYSIOLOGICAL EFFECTS OF THE INITIAL STRESS RESPONSE ON YOUR BRAIN
The initial stressful event activates the area of the brain responsible for processing emotions – the amygdala. Makes sense, right? Stress is emotional. But the amygdala is connected to the thalamus (via the hypothalamus), which is like the Grand Central Station of your brain. It's the hub for connecting all areas of the brain together and pretty much everything gets routed through the thalamus. So what does that mean? Well, when the emotional area of your brain sends a signal (through the hypothalamus) to the areas of your brain that controls the "fight or flight" response, the result has an immediate effect on your body. Adrenaline is released into your bloodstream causing increased oxygen intake, a higher heart rate, and heightened senses. This is an energetically expensive response, so your brain also sends a signal to your adrenal glands (sitting right on top of your kidneys) to release cortisol, which is a hormone that helps to restore your body's functions to a balanced state. It's typically referred to as the "stress hormone" because it regulates the stress response. When cortisol levels are increased, it provides the energy that your brain and body need in order to deal with the "threat", and when the threat is no longer present, the levels decrease, returning everything to a more normal state. At normal levels, cortisol is good for you; it regulates your blood sugar and blood pressure, suppresses inflammation, and helps control your metabolism. It also plays a significant and beneficial role in your brain by increasing connectivity in a region called the hippocampus, helping you remember emotional experiences even better when your stress response is activated.
CHRONIC STRESS
So not all stress is bad. But - when it's continuous (chronic), it can have some pretty significant impacts on your health. The problem starts when your brain is constantly on 'high alert' and the levels of cortisol are not allowed to return to normal. Understandably, the constant drain on your brain depletes energy reserves and impairs your brain's ability to function normally. Then, these permanently high cortisol levels start to lower a brain hormone called dopamine. Dopamine is important because it helps serotonin bind to its receptors. Serotonin is the 'feel good' hormone in your brain, but without dopamine, it can't properly do its job. This chain reaction of hormonal imbalances can leave you with brain fog, impaired memory and reduced socialization skills.
Have you ever noticed that when you're stressed, you aren't as good at socializing, or you simply avoid being around other people altogether? That's because during chronic stress, increased cortisol in the hippocampus is harmful. Remember I mentioned that the hippocampus is important for memory? Well, it's also important for cognition. When neurons in the hippocampus cannot communicate properly, your memory and cognitive functions are disrupted which impairs your ability to socialize and think properly.
To make matters worse, the loss of connections between brain cells can reduce the size of your prefrontal cortex, further contributing to poor memory and cognitive impairment.
And finally, another area of the brain that's closely connected to the hippocampus – the amygdala that helps regulate your emotions including stress and fear - increases in size, which can make your brain even more susceptible to stress. Connections between cells become strengthened with continued use. This is why stress is cumulative. Unfortunately, you don't get better at handling stress with more exposure to it – it's just the opposite.
Stress can undermine the cognitive benefits of a mentally active lifestyle.
Practicing lifestyle strategies that challenge your brain does something called 'building a cognitive reserve'. This is like putting money in your bank account for later – or another analogy is bulking up your muscles. Having this reserve means that you'll have a better, stronger brain, which benefits your memory and overall cognition. A 2024 study published in The Journal of the Alzheimer's Association concluded that high cortisol levels reduced this benefit. Higher cognitive reserve scores also were associated with better working memory in participants with healthier cortisol levels, but not among participants with cortisol levels that indicated a high level of psychological stress.
Increased cortisol levels have a direct negative impact on your ability to learn and remember.
Yikes! Do you want all that benefit going to waste by not managing your stress? Stress management should always go hand-in-hand with existing lifestyle strategies for delaying or preventing dementia.
CUMULATIVE STRESS
Have you heard the phrase "Your body keeps track"? Similar to chronic stress where you're in a continual state of hypervigilance, cumulative stress refers to the accumulation of effects over many years. It has an additive effect, meaning it builds up and is compounded if it's not managed effectively.
CHRONIC STRESS PUTS YOUR HEALTH AT RISK
I know I'm all about the brain, but I wouldn't be telling the whole story if I didn't at least mention the additional potential harm of chronic stress on the rest of your body:
-Increased risk of stroke, heart disease and diabetes
-High blood pressure
-Impaired digestive and immune system functions
-Risk of exacerbating existing illnesses
-Increased susceptibility for psychiatric illness
Chronic stress also leads to burnout, which is somewhere you don't want to go. Trust me on this. It's a long road to recovery and, well, it's just better to avoid it if possible. But that's a subject for another article.
I encourage you do everything you possibly can to get a handle on any stress in your life. Literally, your health depends on it.
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