Fun With Stress 2.3
Digestive System Adaptations to Chronic Stress
Reading time: 7 minutes
In the previous chapter we learned that the more our buttons are pushed on a daily basis, the less energy is produced by our digestive system and the harder it becomes to keep all our plates spinning. Now, we’re going to look deeper into the workings of the digestive system under normal and stressful circumstances and investigate what happens when stress becomes chronic. But let’s first create two concepts for the purpose of this narrative:
1. We’ll divide ourselves up in two entities: as a person and as a human being. The person is the ‘I’ that we’re consciously aware of. The person is therefore connected to our name and is present and active while awake, while the ‘I’ as a human being consists of both the person (consciousness) and that very big part of us we’re not consciously aware of, but without which we nevertheless could not exist (often called: unconsciousness). Naturally, then, we as a human being are present and active 24/7.[1]
2. Furthermore we’ll consider our digestive system as a power plant with a workforce.
Broadly speaking, then, the workforce of the power plant is active and on duty when the person is inactive (e.g. when we sleep), and when the person is active, the power plant workforce goes off duty and becomes inactive.[2] As long as this cycle runs its course, the power plant workforce replenishes the internal fuel tank at night, and the person (’I’) wakes up energized in the morning.
In a healthy situation, our digestive system provides all the energy we need. Image: TheVirtualDenise
Let’s now look at a situation where our buttons are pushed. In the previous post we’ve learned that a stress response pretty much shuts down our digestive system. That makes a lot of sense when we’ve walked into an actual life threatening situation, because we want all available energy to be directed to the muscles we need for either fighting or fleeing. Moreover, from that point of view, the effect that follows a stress response makes perfect sense, because it increases our appetite.
Let’s take a look at the biology of increased appetite as part of a stress response. When buttons are pushed, adrenal glands release glucocorticoids into the system. Among other things these hormones stimulate our appetite to replace the energy that we used to break open a stuck car door and run towards safety, away from the pileup and the car in front of ours which had flames coming out of its engine.
At the end of the stress – that is, when the stressor is no longer perceived as a threat – it takes some time for glucocorticoid levels to go back to normal. During that period of ‘cooling down’ there’s still an increased appetite, particularly for carbohydrates which are found in foods like bread, pasta, sugars, candy bars etc. Again, that makes sense if we just used up a boatload of energy fighting or running for our lives, because those carbs are necessary to replenish the high amounts of fuel we just consumed.
After a stress response we have hightened craving for carbohydrates. Image: stevebp
When looking at the psychology of increased appetite under stress, however, the phenomenon emerges that we eat because ‘we’re so stressed out that we deserve a treat’, instead of eating because we’re hungry. That happens because stress tends to suspend some of our self-regulatory processes, and as a result buckets of ice cream and jumbo sized bags of chips disappear in many a mouth every time when buttons are pushed. Which, naturally, can turn into a problem when stress becomes chronic.
According to Stanford’s Dr. Robert Sapolsky, everyday chronic stress is lots and lots of intermittent stressors, meaning that our buttons are pushed multiple times a day, every day, for a prolonged period of time. Moreover, the vast majority of those happen as a result of emotional (psychosocial) stressors rather than actual physical life threatening ones. That means we mobilize fuel that we don’t actually use, which then gets stored away again. Yet after every stress response there is the ‘cooling down’ period where we experience the aforementioned increased appetite, mainly for carbohydrates. In other words, in addition to the fuel we didn’t use, we’re adding more fuel because we experience the need to eat for increasing parts of every day.
What happens then can be compared to adding gas to a full tank while a car is not being used for driving: the tank will overflow. In us humans, the excess calories are going to be stored in gluteal fat (butt) or, most of the time, in abdominal fat (abdomen) because that turns out to be the preferable storage place after stress. The result often becomes visible as a growing tummy and can lead to various health problems like a fatty liver, or pulling the spine forward through sheer weight.[3][4]
Having our buttons incessantly pushed increases our appetite for larger parts of the day. If we do not use the fuel already stored in our body, we just add more and more fuel until we burst. Illustration: Animation_Studio
Furthermore the incessant intermittent pushing of buttons and subsequent triggering of the stress response costs energy because our biochemistry of storing and mobilizing is not 100% efficient. Moreover, since at some point our fat cells are full and cannot absorb anything else, our pancreas can get overworked. In a healthy situation, the pancreas releases the hormone insulin after we eat for instance. Insulin gives the signal to store away nutrients when too many of them are floating around in the bloodstream. When the amounts of nutrients in the blood are back to homeostatic values, the pancreas stops the production of insulin. But as soon as the fat cells are full, our brain tells them to shut their doors, insulin or no insulin, which means that more and more nutrients are not stored away anymore and keep floating around in the blood. Yet when the pancreas measures these increasing surpluses, it will release insulin until the levels go back to homeostatic values, and we’ve now entered a vicious cycle.
That means not only a possible overworked pancreas, but also excesses of insulin and nutrients floating around in the bloodstream which are not stored away anymore. Because of that, clots can begin to form and all of a sudden there is an increased risk for cardiovascular disease, which immediately reveals the interconnectivity of all the systems which make up our body. Moreover people with diabetes can (and mostly will) be negatively affected by chronic stress as well.[5]
Now let’s return to the person, the power plant and its workforce. In a healthy situation, again broadly speaking, the person (‘I’) is active during the day, and the power plant’s workforce during the night. But now chronic stress is preventing us either to sleep through the night or worse, causing insomnia. Incessant mental chatter is rampant and in the morning we’re groggy, tired and frustrated. What’s going on here?
Lack of sleep due to chronic stress can literally wear us out. Image: geralt
In the previous chapter we learned about homeostasis, a term used to denote the processes of maintaining a state of internal equilibrium regarding body temperature, blood sugar levels etc. Furthermore we learned that there has to be a balance between work and recovery modes in order to function optimally and live happy and satisfactorily. Now let’s connect the person to the work mode and the workforce of the power plant to the recovery mode. Immediately we see that the less hours we sleep during every 24-hour cycle, the more overworked the person gets, not to mention the detrimental effects this has on the workforce of our power plant.
Because effectively that workforce is being reduced every night until there are hardly any workers left. That doesn’t only mean disruption of the normal metabolism processes, but also a deterioration of the whole system and all its organs, for at some point there are not enough workers left to perform basic maintenance and keep the system in optimal condition. And that’s when for instance bowel disorders can come lurking around the corner.
Bowel disorders come in two flavours: organic and functional bowel disorders. Organic bowel disorders can be explained biologically, like abnormalities in the structure of our small intestines for instance. Functional bowel disorders, however, are diagnosed as such when there’s basically no idea where your symptoms come from. Yet even though these lack a biological explanation, it’s known that they are incredibly sensitive to stress. Examples of functional bowel disorders are irritable bowel syndrome and a spastic colon.[6]
Chronic stress can have a negative effect on gastrointestine disorders. Illustration: Mohamed_hassan
In the light of all these considerations it becomes increasingly interesting and desirable to learn to listen to our body when it speaks by means of identifying low-on-energy-signs and symptoms. As we shall discover in the next chapter, most of these seem pretty harmless by themselves. Yet if they begin to pile up and we don’t pay them any attention, soon the person becomes completely stiff, rigid and unable to move, due to a decimated and depleted power plant workforce.
Therefore, finally, if you feel tense, tired, and like you could sleep for days, take a week off and rent a cabin in the woods or at a beach. Bring some books and your favourite music. Sleep as much as you feel like doing. Take nice, long hikes in-between. Enjoy every bite you eat. Be completely involved with everything you do and give everything you sense the same amount of undivided attention. Enjoy the fact that you have eyes to see, ears to hear, a nose to smell, skin to touch, and a tongue to taste, and wake up energetic again.
Jolly greetings,
Erik Stout
[1] When we’re sleeping, the person is not present, but if the human being would also not be present to beat our hearts or breathe, well, I think you get the point.
[2] Naturally the whole picture is much more complicated, but the concept in these articles is merely devised to get an introductory, and general view in the matter. For a much deeper explanation of chronic stress and its effects on our body, please read Dr. Robert Sapolsky’s ‘Why Zebras Don’t Have Ulcers’; Bessel van der Kolk’s ‘The Body Keeps The Score’, and Gabor Mate’s ‘When The Body Says No.’
[3] See Dr. Robert Sapolsky’s ‘Why Zebras Don’t Have Ulcers’, chapter 5.
[4] To be sure, stress becoming chronic can also create its opposite effect in excessively losing weight.
[5] See Dr. Robert Sapolsky’s ‘Why Zebras Don’t Have Ulcers’, chapter 4.
[6] See Dr. Robert Sapolsky’s ‘Why Zebras Don’t Have Ulcers’, chapter 5.
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