By Denise Love
Stress in today's America affects everyone to some degree, and how it affects one person may differ from another. It influences how people feel and behave. How a person deals with stress can enormously impact long-term health. How stressful an individual interprets a life event lies in part due to the type of event, prior learned behaviors and thought patterns, past life experiences, coping skills, support systems, and societal and cultural norms.
According to an article published in 2024 by the Gallop organization, Americans are more stressed now than three decades ago. The American Institute of Stress reports that in 2024, 43% of adults reported feeling more anxious than the previous year, up from 37% in 2023 and 32% in 2022. Many reports on the internet contribute much of this stress to the changing times and the volatility of modern-day living, particularly in politics and the economic uncertainties of the future. As the current modern-day landscape is not likely to change, it is more important than ever that people learn to recognize the long-term consequences of stress and learn ways to cope.
While stress in a short-term interval can be good, it becomes unhealthy when it disrupts our everyday functioning. Stress imparts changes in nearly every body system, causing mind-body changes. How these changes occur is a well-understood process that the body undergoes as soon as it perceives a threat, before a person even knows it's happening. Most people have heard of this "fight or flight" response but may not fully understand its impact on our health, particularly in the long run.
As a survival mechanism, the "fight or flight" response explains how people with horrific injuries can experience minor pain or how mothers can perform amazing feats of strength to save their children. The "fight or flight" or flight response is good in the short term. When activated, the brain starts a series of events that release adrenaline. Adrenaline increases attentiveness, alertness speed, attentiveness, and responsiveness.
It all goes wrong when the body is in a constant state of stress. That same adrenaline that will help save you from danger triggers another series of responses in the body to release the chemical cortisol. Persistent high adrenaline and cortisol levels keep the body heightened and never allow it to relax. High adrenaline or cortisol levels dysregulate all body organ systems and can shorten the life span. This article does not fully explain the biological mechanism of how the "fight or flight" system works. Further information on this necessary biological process is available here.
Chronically high cortisol levels affect the immune and cardiovascular systems and mental health, to name a few. The immune system is the part of the body that helps ward off illness or help heal the body if disease or infection occurs. Sudden short-term stress can improve the immune response, but chronic stress has the reverse effect. Chronically high cortisol levels lead to impaired antibody response and change how the body's infection-fighting cells react, leading to inflammation. These changes further affect your spleen and gut microbiome, all important in maintaining good health. Inflammation and an improperly working immune system will allow a person to catch more colds and flu, infections, delayed recovery, or the development of chronic inflammatory diseases. Think of cardiovascular disease, diabetes, other metabolic disorders, obesity, cancers or auto-immune disease, and chronic liver and kidney disease. This list is not all-inclusive.
In the cardiovascular system, for example, when a person undergoes chronic stress, the "fight or flight" mechanism is triggered, which brings on a faster heartbeat, pushing more blood to the muscles, heart, and vital organs faster. Breathe rates go up to get more oxygen into the blood. Muscles tense, and sweat may appear. Again, this is good in the short term if you are rescuing a drowning victim. But in the long term, these normal body reactions contribute to high blood pressure and the formation of plaque in the arteries, all of which can lead to heart attack, stroke, and organ damage.
Chronic stress can impact people living with chronic pain, estimated to be 20% of the population that lives with this every day. Chronic pain is a topic that I am very familiar with, as I currently provide health care to this population. The experience of chronic pain alone can be a burden on the individual, as well as those who care for the person. Adding stress to the situation alters the perception of pain to feel worse than it would be otherwise. Chronic stress can create a pain state called stress-induced hyperalgesia, which is an exaggerated response to a noxious stimulus, which means that what most people would interpret as uncomfortable or mildly painful, a person with hyperalgesia would feel more severe or even extreme. Chronic stress can also induce or provide an environment for creating chronic musculoskeletal pain that exists for no other reason but for itself alone. Back pain and neck pain are all well-known examples, with over 50% of Americans reporting some degree of back pain in the last 3 months, according to the CDC, where many back pain complaints have no objective evidence to explain reported symptoms.
Chronic stress further activates a response in the body that is a bidirectional relationship between stress and mental health. This concept resembles the chicken and egg story, where one creates the other, but which one comes first. All stressful situations generate some negativity, triggering the fight or flight response. Fear, anxiety, dread, guilt, panic, worry, depression, and feeling pressured are all examples. An already anxious person, put into a stressful situation, creates more anxiety, etc. A person who struggles to sleep, as in 1/3 of the population at any given time, becomes anxious about a life event and has more difficulty sleeping. The cycle repeats until something or someone intervenes to break it. People who are obligated to certain lifestyles, jobs, and circumstances that are always stress-inducing are more likely to develop chronic diseases over their lifetime. Because our lives are more hectic, stressful, and uncertain than ever in today's society, it is more critical than ever in the past to develop reliable ways to relax and include stress reduction techniques to mitigate the negative response on the body for long-term health.
One method to reduce stress is to employ the practice of gratitude. According to the American Institute of Stress, being thankful has been shown to reduce stress and anxiety in 84% of people during the holiday season. Translating this into everyday life is a positive behavior that will decrease stress perception, promote positive well-being, and reduce the risk of developing long-term health problems.
Many people also use exercise, meditation, or prayer to reduce stress. Running, yoga, and tai chi are common, but even a brisk walk can help calm the nerves. Hobbies like arts and crafts and woodworking can take the mind out of everyday pressures if that interests you.
A psychological method called mindfulness is a practice that a person can do independently. Mindfulness asks the person to stop and observe how they feel without judgment. Recognizing negative emotions and then recognizing that they are not helpful can eventually change how a person reacts to those same negative emotions in the future.
On a more professional level, Cognitive behavioral therapy is a type of talk therapy that teaches a person to recognize unhelpful thought patterns and beliefs and learn better coping methods. This type of therapy is evidence-based, and some professionals believe this is more effective than other forms of psychological therapy. You can find more information on this type of therapy by clicking on this link.
In conclusion, there is a myriad of scientific evidence to support the mind-body link and how stress can impact your health. There is no doubt. It is vitally important that all people understand this and find ways to prioritize stress reduction to live healthy and longer lives. Stress reduction and relaxation can be done individually by an activity that brings relaxation and pleasure. You can find additional help in support groups. There are support groups in most larger cities and towns, and there are also several online. A link to an online subscription is available here. (No affiliate or financial relationship). I recommend you do your own research for what is best for your needs) For more intensive help, I recommend contacting a therapist in your local area who offers cognitive behavioral therapy.
References:
Alotiby A. (2024). Immunology of Stress: A Review Article. Journal of clinical medicine, 13(21), 6394. https://doi.org/10.3390/jcm13216394
American Psychological Association (2025, January 1). Stress. Retrieved February 23, 2025, from https://www.apa.org/topics/stress
CDC (2021, July 1). Back, Lower Limb, and Upper Limb Pain Among U.S. Adults, 2019. NCHS Data Brief. Retrieved February 7, 2025, from https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/databriefs/db415-h.pdf
Cleveland Clinic (2022, August 4). Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT). Retrieved February 7, 2025, from https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/treatments/21208-cognitive-behavioral-therapy-cbt
Dhabhar F. S. (2014). Effects of stress on immune function: the good, the bad, and the beautiful. Immunologic research, 58(2-3), 193–210. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12026-014-8517-0
Harvard Health Publishing (2025, January 1). Understanding the Stress Response. Retrieved February 23, 2025, from https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/understanding-the-stress-response
The American Institute of Stress (2024, December 13). Holiday stress hits 70% of Americans: Can gratitude be the solution? Retrieved February 7, 2025, from https://www.stress.org/news/holiday-stress-hits-70-of-americans-can-gratitude-be-the-solution/
The American Institute of Stress (2025, August 10). Stress in Adults. Retrieved February 7, 2025, from https://www.stress.org/who-gets-stressed/adults/
Wyns, A., Hendrix, J., Lahousse, A., De Bruyne, E., Nijs, J., Godderis, L., & Polli, A. (2023). The Biology of Stress Intolerance in Patients with Chronic Pain-State of the Art and Future Directions. Journal of Clinical Medicine, 12(6), 2245. https://doi.org/10.3390/jcm12062245
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