The Myth of Normal 42

Understanding stress and its mechanics can give us a finer appreciation for how the bodymind unity plays itself out in real time and real tissue. Like its cousin, the pain response, stress is a mandatory survival function for any living being. When activated, our stress apparatus immediately empowers us to confront or escape threats to our existence or to the existence or well-being of those we care for. It’s an impressive whole-body event involving virtually every organ and system. Stress can show up in two forms: as an immediate reaction to a threat or as a prolonged state induced by external pressures or internal emotional factors. While acute stress is a necessary reaction that helps maintain our physical and mental integrity, chronic stress, ongoing and unrelieved, undermines both. Situational anger, for example, is an instance of acute stress being marshaled for a positive purpose—think self-defense or setting interpersonal boundaries. It makes us more alert of mind, quicker, and stronger of limb. Chronic rage, by contrast, floods the system with stress hormones long past the allotted time. Over the long term, such a hormonal surplus, whatever may have instigated it, can make us anxious or depressed; suppress immunity; promote inflammation; narrow blood vessels, promoting vascular disease throughout the body; encourage cancer growth; thin the bones; make us resistant to our own insulin, inducing diabetes; contribute to abdominal obesity, elevating the risk of cardiovascular and metabolic problems; impair essential cognitive and emotional circuits in the brain; and elevate blood pressure and increase blood clotting, raising the risk of heart attacks or strokes. The hub of our body’s system for handling stress smoothly and economically is called the “HPA axis.” This acronymic term describes the