The thought of living a “stress-free” life is pleasant, but it’s not realistic. Stress is a normal part of life that can’t be escaped. Though it is often associated with something negative, stress itself can be positive. Feeling stress helps people meet deadlines and make decisions in a timely manner.

Some of the best events in life are described as stressful, such as getting married, launching your dream career, or being a parent. When stress turns into chronic stress, it becomes a problem.

Chronic stress is more than unpleasant; it’s a condition that can lead to many health complications, some of which can be fatal. Fortunately, it’s possible to heal yourself from chronic stress once you understand its root cause.

What Is Chronic Stress?

The human brain and body are built to be resilient. A natural stress response in the hypothalamus (a small region in the brain) occurs when any type of stress is perceived.

For example, if a bear wandered into your backyard while you were outside relaxing, your hypothalamus would work with your adrenal glands and nerves to release a rush of adrenaline and cortisol into your body.

These hormones are often referred to as fight-or-flight hormones. They make your heart beat faster and prepare your body to either run for safety or stay and encounter the threat. When the bear leaves and the perceived threat is over, your hormone levels return to normal.

Chronic stress develops when people feel constantly under attack. This may be caused by a stressful job, a mental health disorder, such as generalized anxiety disorder, or a lack of coping skills to deal with everyday stressors productively.

Being in an almost constant state of fight or flight means long-term exposure to cortisol and other stress hormones. While not harmful in small doses, long-term exposure to these hormones can directly impact your health.

Fortunately, modern humans rarely encounter the kinds of life-threatening circumstances that require the fight or flight response to activate, but the brain doesn’t recognize the difference between a potential bear attack or Bob in accounting yelling about mileage receipts.

In fact, when it comes to the release of stress hormones, your brain doesn’t distinguish between real and imagined threats. Just thinking about a bear attack can elicit a hormonal response. Some of the reasons for chronic stress include:

  • Living with a chronic illness (or someone you love is chronically ill)
  • Living or working in an unsafe or stressful environment
  • Having an alcohol or substance use disorder
  • Experiencing poverty
  • Encountering financial stress
  • Facing racism and discrimination
  • Having childhood trauma
  • Being a caregiver for someone else
  • Experiencing depression
  • Being socially isolated
  • Experiencing grief

Stress can build up, and it may sometimes feel like there’s no break. People who are dealing with several big life challenges at once can seem calm on the outside, but inside, their stress hormones are hard at work.

When the fight-or-flight reaction stays activated, it disrupts the body’s processes and increases the risk of developing certain health problems.

Is Chronic Stress Common?

Whatever the cause, chronic stress is common. Around 70% of all visits to a primary care physician have a stress component.

Chronic stress is a common occurrence in the U.S. Around 50% of all adults say they experience stress on a daily basis. Chronic stress is so severe in the workplace that around 63% of those surveyed say they have considered quitting their jobs because of high stress levels.

Who Is at Risk for Chronic Stress?

Life can be stressful, and some people cope with stress better than others. How you react to everyday stressors can be affected by your life experiences, your genetic makeup, and your lifestyle choices. The good news is that anyone can learn to handle stress more effectively if they want to.

Life Experiences

Early life experiences can be especially impactful when it comes to how people deal with stress. People who have especially strong reactions to stress may have experienced trauma at some point in their lives.

Furthermore, children learn coping skills from their parents and caregivers. Parents with mental health disorders, including substance use disorders, are unlikely to have strong coping skills themselves and cannot model healthy habits to their children. Abuse or neglect increases the risk of a child developing chronic stress later in life.

Those who have survived life-threatening experiences and those with dangerous jobs, such as police officers, firefighters, and military personnel, also have a greater risk for chronic stress.

Genetics

Some people have a more or less active stress response because of differences in their genes. Researchers are still exploring the genetic connections, but it has been found that stress responses are affected by variations in the genes responsible for the functions of the hypothalamus and the sympathetic system.

Lifestyle

Small choices add to an individual’s risk of developing chronic stress. Occasionally staying up late or eating junk food shouldn’t impact your health.

However, regularly eating an unhealthy diet, sleeping poorly, and avoiding social connections are all lifestyle choices that affect your mental and physical health. These choices can also affect your body’s ability to cope with everyday stressors.

Health Risks Associated With Chronic Stress

The persistently high level of stress hormones caused by chronic stress disrupts the body’s natural balance. Your blood vessels may harden, which increases blood pressure.

Persistently high glucose levels caused by too much cortisol can also increase blood sugar levels and cause inflammation, leading to a host of inflammatory health issues.

Chronic stress can produce both psychological and physical symptoms. The symptoms can be mild or severe enough to interrupt everyday function. Some of the most common ways stress impacts health include:

  • Muscle tension and muscle aches and pains
  • Changes in sleeping patterns, including insomnia or sleeping too much
  • Feelings of hopelessness
  • Depression
  • Anxiety
  • Feeling a loss of control
  • Frequent illnesses, such as colds, flu, or infection
  • Digestive problems and upset stomach
  • Weight loss or weight gain
  • Heart disease and heart attack
  • High blood pressure
  • Stroke
  • Decrease in energy
  • Acne
  • Diabetes
  • Hyperthyroidism
  • Ulcers
  • Irritable bowel syndrome
  • Diminished sex drive
  • Tension headaches
  • Chest pains

You don’t have to wait until chronic stress begins affecting your health to recognize it’s become a problem. If you often find yourself feeling like everything is wrong or if you have difficulty handling even small inconveniences, you may be overstressed.

Relying on coping mechanisms like alcohol or other substances, sex, or gaming to “wind down” at the end of the day is also an indication you may need help.

Treatments for Chronic Stress

The first step to treating chronic stress is getting a behavioral health assessment. An assessment will clarify if any specific diagnosis, such as depression, is appropriate. Without an assessment, serious mental or physical issues could go unrecognized and untreated.

Once your provider has a clear picture of how chronic stress is affecting you, they will be better able to develop a focused treatment plan that addresses your individual needs.

Lifestyle Changes

Developing healthier habits is typically the first approach to dealing with chronic stress. Lifestyle changes cost very little and don’t require any invasive or expensive procedures. In addition, developing healthy habits benefits your mental, physical, and social health on many levels.

Incorporating more high-fiber and protein-rich foods into your diet is a start. Foods like eggs and nutritional yeast are high in vitamin B12, which helps metabolize cortisol. Consider speaking to a nutritionist to learn more about what may be missing from your diet.

Practicing good sleep habits and spending time with friends are also important elements in stress management. Meditation and other mindfulness habits like journaling have been found to be highly beneficial for reducing stress and relieving some of the mental and physical symptoms associated with chronic stress.

Psychotherapy

Talking to someone about your stress can be helpful, but psychotherapy is more than just talking. Certain approaches such as cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) help clients learn how to identify the thought patterns that contribute to their chronic stress. Once these patterns have been identified, the client and therapist can work together to change them.

If chronic stress is related to trauma, therapies aimed at healing trauma are appropriate. Your therapist may suggest eye movement desensitization and reprocessing therapy or trauma-focused CBT.

Medications

Pharmacotherapy helps some people manage their chronic stress symptoms. A doctor may also prescribe medications to alleviate related symptoms, such as sleep medication or medication to prevent migraine headaches. Your doctor will manage your medication carefully and check in with you regularly to ensure treatment is appropriate.

Neurofeedback

Neurofeedback is a non-invasive, non-surgical, drug-free, and pain-free treatment that maps the brain. With the help of neurofeedback, you can retrain your brain by learning to regulate specific wavelengths associated with stress.

Neurofeedback treatment can provide immediate and long-lasting results for the reduction of anxiety and depression. It can also help you improve your attention span and impulse control. People who are experiencing insomnia related to chronic stress may also benefit from neurofeedback.

Stellate Ganglion Block

During a stellate ganglion block, anesthetic medication is injected into a bundle of nerves in the neck known as the stellate ganglion. The procedure is most commonly done to alleviate pain, such as cluster headaches, phantom limb pain, and complex regional pain syndrome, but it is also used for the treatment of certain mental health conditions like post-traumatic stress disorder.

The stellate ganglion bundle has a direct impact on the fight-or-flight response. The treatment can essentially return the sympathetic system back to a pre-trauma state. Clients frequently report improvement in as little as 30 minutes after the initial treatment.

Social Support

Connecting with friends and engaging in activities you enjoy is shown to reduce stress symptoms. Make lunch or dinner dates with friends or join an online support group. Join a club or take a class. Consider volunteering. Finding ways to increase enjoyable interactions with others is one of the easiest ways to combat stress.

Make a Plan

Ignoring chronic stress won’t make it go away. Once you’ve recognized the symptoms, take action to lower your stress levels. Be certain to seek medical advice. Some symptoms related to chronic stress are also symptoms of serious health issues.

Once you and your healthcare professional have identified the cause(s) of your symptoms, you can move forward to treatment.

Depending on the severity of symptoms, it’s typical to start with the least invasive treatments first. Making lifestyle changes and building strong social support networks may be enough to relieve your symptoms. If not, therapies like cognitive behavioral therapy, stellate ganglion blocks, or neurofeedback may be helpful.

Manage Your Expectations

Avoid frustration by keeping realistic expectations. It could take several weeks or months to see improvement in your stress management skills. In many cases, combining treatments is the best answer. For example, meditation and neurofeedback or dietary changes and psychotherapy may be what works for you.

Seek Help for Chronic Stress at Plus by APN

Stress can be beneficial, but chronic stress is a condition that threatens your health. It can lead to mental health concerns, pain, and serious conditions that could even be fatal. There are many approaches to reducing the effects of chronic stress. But the combination that works best for you is the right approach.

To get started with treatment for chronic stress, call the team at Plus by APN at 424.644.6486. Alternatively, you can use our confidential online contact form to speak to one of our representatives.

References

  • “Eat These Foods to Reduce Stress and Anxiety.” Cleveland Clinic, 15 June 2021, health.clevelandclinic.org/eat-these-foods-to-reduce-stress-and-anxiety.
  • Ising, Marcus, and Florian Holsboer. “Genetics of stress response and stress-related disorders.” Dialogues in clinical neuroscience vol. 8,4 (2006): 433-44. doi:10.31887/DCNS.2006.8.4/mising
  • “Meditation: A Simple, Fast Way to Reduce Stress.” Mayo Clinic, 14 Dec. 2023, www.mayoclinic.org/tests-procedures/meditation/in-depth/meditation/art-20045858.
  • “What Is Stress? – the American Institute of Stress.” The American Institute of Stress, 2011, www.stress.org/what-is-stress/.