This Is Your Body on Stress

Stress is just your body's natural response to perceived danger. But what happens when your stress reaction never shuts off?

By Roger Cole

Sally slowly lowered the poker. She tried to speak, but only a croak came out. Oddly, despite her jumbled thoughts, she noticed that her nose was clear for the first time all day.

"Sorry," Sam apologized. "I guess I really scared you! Maybe I can make up for it with some good news. You know I've been working late. I didn't want to say anything in case it fell through, but I've been trying to land a new account. I finally got it—and a big commission. Come to the garage. I bought you a new car!"

Silently, Sally picked up Sara and followed Sam. "Why are you shaking, Mommy?" Sara asked. Sally hugged her tightly and gave her a big kiss.

At dinner, Sally found she had no appetite. At bedtime, she still felt keyed up, so she took a warm bath, where she finally noticed the cut on her arm. Even after her bath, it took her much longer than usual to fall asleep.

Danger! Danger!

Stress is a slippery word to define, but most people would agree that Sally felt it that evening. And scientists would concur. In their eyes, all stress, great or small, arises from our struggle to survive and reproduce. We experience it when we sense a threat to ourselves or our children. That's why Sally's reaction reached a crescendo when she stood defending Sara.

A situation doesn't have to threaten imminent death to cause stress. As social creatures, we all instinctively know that we, and our children, depend on others for our long-term well-being. That's why Sally was so disturbed by social threats like job hassles, problems in her marriage, and the angry scowls of other drivers. One key thing to remember about stress is that a threat doesn't have to be real to cause it; we just have to believe it's real. Sally didn't need an actual burglar to get her blood pumping—an imagined one did the job well enough.

Scientists differentiate between short-term (acute) stress and long-term (chronic) stress. Acute stress evokes physical and emotional responses that activate the body and mind to deal with an immediate threat. When the threat passes, the reactions subside. Long-term stress evokes similar responses, usually at a lower intensity, but keeps repeating them day after day without respite. When they repeat too often for too long, the life-saving responses that are so helpful in the short run can actually become life-threatening.

The short-term stress reaction is often called the fight-or-flight response. That's what Sally experienced when Sam opened the door. She perceived danger, so her brain and body automatically readied themselves for intense action, either combat or escape. To do either of these well, our bodies need maximum alertness, powerful muscle action, and the ability to keep going even if injured. Sally's brain activated a bogglingly complex set of physiological processes to support these needs. Many of these processes had already started, at a lower intensity, in response to the minor stressors she had endured before Sam came home.

Sally's stress response began with her perceptions. When her car stalled, the reasoning part of her brain (the cerebral cortex) perceived a problem that required quick action but was not a life-or-death emergency. Then the emotional part of her brain (the limbic system, especially an almond-shaped structure called the amygdala) increased her sense of urgency by responding with fear and anger to the honking horns and hostile faces of passing drivers. Her cortex and her limbic system triggered some responses more or less directly, including increased heart rate and muscle tension, but they delegated most of the responsibility for activating the rest of her responses to a sort of 911 control center located in the rear part of the hypothalamus (a brain area that coordinates basic drives like hunger, sleep, and self-defense). The threat situation was only moderate, so the stimulus to the hypothalamus wasn't that strong.

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