saber-toothed tiger that showed up on their land or fled for the hills if they thought they were in danger. Thousands of years later, we humans still have these same response patterns in ourday-to-day world. Your reality of managing a job, making ends meet, and taking care of your family is full of new threats.
It makes sense that your body automatically kicks into high gear when you are facing a physical threat. A tiny part of your brain called the
hypothalamus
sets off a series of alarm signals to your adrenal glands, which are located on top of your kidneys, to release adrenaline and cortisol. The alarm signal also goes out to parts of your brain controlling mood, motivation, and fear, and that part of your brain in turn delivers a fight-or-flight reaction.
Hereâs the catch-22 of your highly complex alarm system. Your body doesnât distinguish between physical threats (that saber-toothed tiger) and psychological threats (work problems, life changes, overwhelming busyness). This problem is compounded since psychological threats tend to be prolonged. Your alarm system is intended for short-term crisis and not for long periods of time. Itâs like when you push your gas pedal to the floor while passing a car. The engine roars into a different gear, and it gains power and speed. Like trying to keep your car in the red zone, if you continually have your alarm system on, you risk permanently damaging your engine.
Being Too Busy Not Only Makes You Sick, It Makes You Old!
The National Academy of Sciences reported the direct link between stress, aging, and growing old before your time. Researchers at the University of California, San Francisco, studied mothers caring for chronically ill children. They were otherwise healthy and between the ages of twenty and fifty. It was found that these womenâs chronic stress hastened the shriveling of certain genes inside cellsâshortening their life span and speeding the bodyâs deterioration.In one year, they had undergone the equivalent of ten years of additional aging!
This study demonstrates on a molecular level there is no such thing as separation of mind and body. Dr. Dennis Novack, a researcher with the Drexel University College of Medicine, reported that your very molecules respond to your psychological situation. If youâre in peril from stress on a cellular level, the big picture isnât pretty either. The
New England Journal of Medicine
reported on the physical price your body pays when you make accommodations to stress. The concept of âallostatic load,â coined by Bruce S. McEwen at the Rockefeller University, points out that chronic stress creates a slow and steady cascade of harm to your health involving the brain and the body. Consequences of allostatic load can include the altering of the response of your adrenal glands in releasing hormones, which, when unchecked, can result in hypertension.
The stress resulting from busyness is an equal-opportunity syndrome. It used to be thought that women have better stress-coping mechanisms from their tendency to talk things over with friends. As recently as the early 1990s, men got more stress-related diseases. Studies showed it was because they were expected to be strong, self-reliant, successful, and all-knowingâin control and solving their problems alone.
Today, women not only share stress-related diseases equally with men but they also react worse to trauma. Women are more likely to suffer depression, have a higher risk of developing Alzheimerâs, and the risk for PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) following a trauma is twice as high in women. Most impressive is a fifty-two-country study of more than twenty-four thousand people, examining stress at home and at work, financial stress, and stress surrounding major life events. It found that stress raised heart attack risk by 250 percent, almost as much as smoking and diabetes.
Reboot Your Life
When your busyness gets out of hand,
It makes sense that your body automatically kicks into high gear when you are facing a physical threat. A tiny part of your brain called the
hypothalamus
sets off a series of alarm signals to your adrenal glands, which are located on top of your kidneys, to release adrenaline and cortisol. The alarm signal also goes out to parts of your brain controlling mood, motivation, and fear, and that part of your brain in turn delivers a fight-or-flight reaction.
Hereâs the catch-22 of your highly complex alarm system. Your body doesnât distinguish between physical threats (that saber-toothed tiger) and psychological threats (work problems, life changes, overwhelming busyness). This problem is compounded since psychological threats tend to be prolonged. Your alarm system is intended for short-term crisis and not for long periods of time. Itâs like when you push your gas pedal to the floor while passing a car. The engine roars into a different gear, and it gains power and speed. Like trying to keep your car in the red zone, if you continually have your alarm system on, you risk permanently damaging your engine.
Being Too Busy Not Only Makes You Sick, It Makes You Old!
The National Academy of Sciences reported the direct link between stress, aging, and growing old before your time. Researchers at the University of California, San Francisco, studied mothers caring for chronically ill children. They were otherwise healthy and between the ages of twenty and fifty. It was found that these womenâs chronic stress hastened the shriveling of certain genes inside cellsâshortening their life span and speeding the bodyâs deterioration.In one year, they had undergone the equivalent of ten years of additional aging!
This study demonstrates on a molecular level there is no such thing as separation of mind and body. Dr. Dennis Novack, a researcher with the Drexel University College of Medicine, reported that your very molecules respond to your psychological situation. If youâre in peril from stress on a cellular level, the big picture isnât pretty either. The
New England Journal of Medicine
reported on the physical price your body pays when you make accommodations to stress. The concept of âallostatic load,â coined by Bruce S. McEwen at the Rockefeller University, points out that chronic stress creates a slow and steady cascade of harm to your health involving the brain and the body. Consequences of allostatic load can include the altering of the response of your adrenal glands in releasing hormones, which, when unchecked, can result in hypertension.
The stress resulting from busyness is an equal-opportunity syndrome. It used to be thought that women have better stress-coping mechanisms from their tendency to talk things over with friends. As recently as the early 1990s, men got more stress-related diseases. Studies showed it was because they were expected to be strong, self-reliant, successful, and all-knowingâin control and solving their problems alone.
Today, women not only share stress-related diseases equally with men but they also react worse to trauma. Women are more likely to suffer depression, have a higher risk of developing Alzheimerâs, and the risk for PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) following a trauma is twice as high in women. Most impressive is a fifty-two-country study of more than twenty-four thousand people, examining stress at home and at work, financial stress, and stress surrounding major life events. It found that stress raised heart attack risk by 250 percent, almost as much as smoking and diabetes.
Reboot Your Life
When your busyness gets out of hand,
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