Fun With Stress 2.1
Intro Part 2: Acute vs Chronic Stress
Reading time: 5 minutes
Screaming can be characteristic both in cases of acute and chronic stress. Image: Tumisu
Having concentrated in the first part on the different forms and levels of input we encounter, and which ones have the capacity to push our buttons; in part 2 we’ll particularly zoom in on the happenings in our body when a stress response occurs. We’re going to find out why our stress response is wanted and desirable with acute, life threatening stress, and why it becomes detrimental in cases of chronic, emotional stress. By way of introduction we’ll paint a picture of what happens when we’re getting involved in a real life-threatening situation, also known as acute stress.
On a weekday afternoon, we’re driving home from work when all of a sudden the car in front of us brakes hard and comes to a full stop before we have a chance to hit the brakes ourselves. We collide right into it and immediately a car behind drills itself into our car, and quickly we realize to be caught in a pileup. Then we see flames coming out of the hood of the car in front of us, and the driver jumps out and runs away. In response we try to open our car door, only to find out that it’s jammed because the length of our car has been reduced by three feet. We scream in frustration and bang with all our might against the jammed door. After three blows the door swings open and we run as fast as we can towards safety. Having run a few hundred yards, we turn around to look at our car and the burning one in front of it. Subsequently we begin to shake and are trying to figure out just what happened in the past fifteen seconds.
Our stress response often proves an invaluable tool to rescue ourselves from life-threatening situations. Image: Pixel-mixer
Let’s now break these fifteen seconds down into input, which is external physical input from the pileup and burning car, and output in the form of our stress response, to find out what pushed our buttons and subsequently take a look at the events that took place in our body.
The moment we realize to have been caught in a pileup combined with the possibility of the car in front of us exploding, pushes our fear-of-dying buttons hard and sets off our stress response. We wish to flee away from that place as soon as possible, and we try to open the car door. Upon realizing that it’s jammed, our anxiety turns into frustration and rage, and now our anger buttons are pushed hard. Hopefully the triggered stress response as the result thereof provides us with the power we need to fight the car door until it opens.
Our stress response has many groovy and highly adaptive ways to get us out of harm’s way in cases of acute stress. It diverts fuel (energy) from storage sites throughout our body to the muscles that need it the most; in this case to our chest en arm muscles in order to push the car door open. Simultaneously, since all of a sudden we need those muscles to produce maximal power in the shortest amount of time, our heart rate, blood pressure and breathing rhythm increase dramatically, bringing fuel and oxygen as soon as possible to those muscles for maximal performance. At the same time our pain perception is blunted, our body gets better at clotting a wound if necessary, our immune system activates and our brain is on hyper alert mode, thereby processing information more acutely and automatically starting much needed actions when necessary. Moreover, energy consuming processes like cell growth, reproduction and digestion, are being temporarily shut down. There’s a time and place for everything, and being caught up in a life threatening situation is not a good moment for digesting our cheese sandwich; we can do that later – if there is a later.
The stress response can give us the idea of superhuman strength. Image: Schäferle - Pixabay
As soon as the door slams open, fuel and oxygen delivery are being instantly diverted from our chest and arm muscles to our leg muscles so that we can run towards safety. Only when we feel to be out of harm’s way, the perceived stressor stops providing input and our body gets a chance to relax and regain balance. Furthermore, shaking all over the body can arise in response to the maximum contraction of muscles without any kind of warm-up.
From the moment we realize to be in the pileup until we’ve found a safe space, by far most of our body processes happen outside of our conscious awareness. Consciously we are aware that we want to get the {bleep} out of the car, yet all the processes set in motion by the stress response happen automatically, outside of our free will, and immediately highlights its protective function when we’re in an actual life threatening situation, because then swift action must be taken without lengthy deliberations.
Furthermore, the shutting down of vital processes such as cell growth, reproduction and digestion suggests that the stress response is most effective for very short periods of time: we encounter a potentially life-threatening situation, be it getting caught up in a pileup or attacked by someone with a knife, and our stress response provides us with enough muscle power to either flee the scene, or, if no escape is possible, to fight our way out of the dangerous situation. These kinds of situations don’t usually last very long until they come to a conclusion.
In actual life-threatening situations, our stress resonse has the potential to save us from otherwise sure death. Image: Tumisu
Where the stress response can be incredibly effective in cases of acute stress, so detrimental can it become when the stress becomes chronic. But what do we mean with chronic stress? Well, the times where we had to run or fight for our lives after an encounter with a predator are far behind us. Also getting caught in actual life-threatening situations is for most people in the so called developed countries an anomaly. Yet with our transformation from a nomadic, hunter-gatherer lifestyle to a sedentary agricultural (and later industrial and technological) lifestyle, our societies become much more complex. Hierarchy and oppression become the norm and with it our perception of danger changed dramatically. Were our buttons in the past merely pushed in face of real, acute, and potentially life-ending danger, nowadays our buttons can be pushed by merely thinking of a perceived dangerous situation.
Moreover, thoughts about a perceived dangerous situation tend to come up like hiccups: unexpected and un-willed, we have no control over them. The more problematic we find our situation to be, the more often these kind of thoughts are apt to enter our minds, pushing our buttons and triggering our stress response. Here our ability to push our own buttons becomes clear, and with it the possibility of pushing them multiple times a day – and night, for just imagine what happens when we wish to sleep, but our oh so well-known incessant mental chatter emerges!
Merely thinking about a potential dangerous or unwanted situation can actually trigger our stress response. Image: Geralt
Therefore everyday chronic stress effectively means that our buttons are recurrently being pushed, thereby triggering our stress response on a daily basis. Have that happening for a long period of time, and our risk for various diseases increases fiercely.
In the next blogpost we’ll investigate anatomically and physiologically what it means when to be in work-mode or recovery-mode, how they are connected to chronic stress, and what they have to do with our levels and availability of energy.
For now,
Jolly greetings,
Erik Stout