10 Ways Chronic Stress is Killing Your Quality of Life l Healthy Living l How to Relax l Healing

While stress itself may not be a good thing, each of us is only here because of the stress response. Our ancestors reacted to a threat by fighting or fleeing, literally or figuratively, and so survived. Whether it was a food shortage or a physical threat, they went into what the prominent science center, The Franklin Institute, refers to as “metabolic overdrive.” Adrenaline and cortisol flood the body. Blood pressure, breathing and heart rate increases. Glucose is released into the bloodstream for ready energy. Digestion, growth, reproduction and immune system functions are suppressed or put on hold. Blood flow to the skin is decreased and pain tolerance is increased.

Life today, however, doesn’t often offer us the opportunity to enact a full stress response and resolution. Instead, we operate as if we’re in a constant, low-grade state of emergency, with no real end in sight. So what are some of the things chronic stress is doing to you?

It's Messing With Your Brain

You may think that it’s necessary to work under the gun all of the time but chronic stress affects your ability to concentrate, to act efficiently and makes you more accident-prone. Chronic stress has devastating effects on memory and learning: it actually kills brain cells.

The Franklin Institute explains that the stress hormone cortisol channels glucose to the muscles during the stress response and leaves less fuel for the brain. Cortisol also interrupts brain cell communication by compromising neurotransmitter function. All learning depends on the use of memory. Stress affects your ability to access memories and prevents you from creating new ones.

Worse yet, your hippocampus is involved in turning cortisol off. As it becomes damaged by chronic stress, it becomes less able to do so and so becomes more damaged.

Stress Increases Risk of Heart Attack, Heart Disease and Stroke

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A direct link between chronic stress and increased risk for heart attack, heart disease and stroke has not yet been established by researchers. What chronic stress does do, reports UMMC, is worsen risk factors for these conditions.

Stress increases your heart rate and force, constricts your arteries and affects heart rhythms. It thickens the blood, which may protect against blood loss in case of injury theorizes UMMC. Stress increases blood pressure and chronic stress damages blood vessel linings, especially because chronic stress contributes to inflammation.

Increased blood pressure is also a risk factor for stroke and The Franklin Institute reports that stress levels can increase atherosclerosis, another risk factor for stroke.

Stress Dials Down Your Immune System

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Fighting off infection isn’t a primary concern if your body thinks it’s facing an immediate danger so chronic stress definitely dampens your immune system. Stress can also trigger a detrimental overdrive in your immune system. Stress contributes to inflammation in the body. Inflammation has been linked to a multitude of health conditions and diseases, from asthma and diabetes to cancer and heart disease.

The American Psychological Association (APA) reports that stress can negatively affect your ability to recover from a heart attack and that stress management training can help speed healing from a heart attack.

According to The Franklin Institute, stress affects the blood-brain barrier. This barrier protects many substances that enter your body from ever reaching and affecting your brain, things like drugs and toxins, viruses and poisons.

Stress Contributes to Weight Gain and Digestive Disorders

Since digestion is also dialed down during the stress response, chronic stress can contribute to a variety of digestive disorders. Bloating, cramping, constipation and diarrhea are common symptoms of chronic stress. So too, is acid reflux and irritable bowel syndrome. Stress can worsen ulcers and inflammatory bowel disease.

Cortisol contributes to the accumulation of dangerous belly fat and worsens cravings for fat, salt and sugar. Eating unhealthy carbs can be soothing as this lessens the behavioral and hormonal imbalances associated with the stress response. Unfortunately, this behavior can become habitual and lead to health problems like diabetes and heart disease.