Overall, short-term stresses are quite positive for mental health: stressing ourselves with challenging goals makes life more interesting. It's a driver for our motivation to learn or do new things.
The problem arises with chronic stress, after weeks and months of emotional or physical strains! In the 30s, Hans Selye discovered that a surprising number of 'stressors' can make animals very sick. He observed that rats in his laboratory were developing symptoms where exposed to some conditions, for example injections, or staying in crowded cages.They lost weight, they became more susceptible to infections, and their autopsy showed a high proportion of stomach ulcers. He was the first scientist to make the hypothesis that many and various tensions against the organism weaken its internal balance. Tensions start to produce excessive amount of adrenal hormones which produces a number of unwelcome events in the entire body. It particularly targets the immune system, but 80 years ago, the fluids composing the immune system were not yet discovered!
Nowadays, there is still a lot to be discovered on the relationship between stress and immune functions, but we are starting to know a bit more. When the stress is intense and repetitive, there is then a constant rush of cortisol in the blood, getting to the brain as well. And the problem is that one of the cortisol's jobs is to shut down immune response, and over time the immune system becomes desensitized to cortisol. After weeks or months of an intense stress regimen, the body and mind may reach exhaustion.
If this happens to you, you become less able to defend yourself against a common cold or flu, but more critically you can develop serious diseases, in particular heart diseases. Studies have shown that stress reduction techniques (through social support) can actually help the immune system of patients infected by HIV virus (the virus responsible for the AIDS disease in the long-term) and also augment life duration in patient suffering from cancer. It doesn't mean that stress reduction cures those diseases, but reducing stressors influence the ability of the body to cope better when it's under 'attack' by various infections.
At the psychological level, chronic stress affects mental health, and in particular long-term intense stress periods can be followed by depression and burn-out. Burn-out is a psychological and physiological reaction when the body and brain can't adapt properly to the demand anymore: the body doesn't seem to be able to respond to small stresses any longer. The cortisol is always very high. Burn-out occurs when stress has been intense, for example it's often seen in very stressful jobs (nurses and teachers have high rates of burn-outs).
Some extreme examples of stress are seen in people suffering from post-traumatic stress syndrome such as survivors, holocaust survivors, war survivors, people who have been raped or mugged. It also exists, though less intensively, in many other conditions. A work place can be stressful. The most powerful stressors are the loss of the loved one (especially the spouse), a divorce, and the loss of a job. Basically, chronic stress targets anybody who's experiencing changes or many difficult tasks to do at the same time and for a long time: working full-time while taking care of children or taking care of a parent with Alzheimer.
So moving to a new country is also of course an important source of chronic stress! It seems odd to compare the stress of moving to traumas like being a war veteran or loosing a spouse, because there doesn't seem to be a lot of distress and emotional turmoil to moving. But a move and especially a move to another country could lead to burn out, physical and mental exhaustion, diseases, because of the constant demand to adapt over many months. It's not initiated by a trauma, and we definitely made the decision to be there... but it's the result of a high number and accumulation over time of many daily 'small' and not-so-small stresses (dealing with issues in a foreign language, the unknowns, the fears of making wrong decisions, sometimes fears for our safety, loss of most of our familiar social contacts, loss of career opportunities…).
Our job is to help our bodies to avoid the chronicity of stress, the permanent state of being and feeling under constant pressure to get things done.
The respiratory system is connected to the cardio-vascular system: when you inhale, your heart accelerates slightly, and when you exhale it slows down slightly. It is also related to our ability to regulate emotions and to our immune system. This is why a basic stress reducing technique is deep breathing and relaxation!
But stress is also very easily generated by our own thoughts! As Robert Sapolsky explains in his fabulous book "zebras don't get ulcers", many of the stresses come from our worries and feelings and exacerbated by life style and things like our lack of physical activity, overwork, or social isolation. We evolved to deal with very short-term stresses like running or hiding from predators to avoid being the next course on their menu. Evolutionary, we are not prepared to being stuck in traffic jams on Monday mornings with our baby crying in the back seat and worrying we will be late at work. So another important aspect of stress reduction, besides working on relaxing the body, is to reduce the amount of negative thoughts that invade our mental life.
Body and mind, not one or the other. Both are strongly connected, and it's never as obvious as for scientists whose job is to study stress!
Sources:
Robert Sapolsky. Why zebras don't get ulcers. 2004 (everything you ever wanted to know about stress by a very entertaining author!)
Elizabeth Sternberg. The balance within, the sience of connecting health and emotions. 2001.
A good workbook to reduce stress: Martha Davis, E. Robbins Eshalman & M. McKay. The relaxation and stress reduction workbook. 2008.
1 comment:
Great article Catherine.
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