We all are familiar with the stress and coping mechanisms due to these fast-paced and chaotic lives of ours. We face many stressful situations during our lives – whether something environmental like a looming work deadline, examination; or psychological, like a persistent worry about losing a job, or worrying about the upcoming examination and its performance. Situations like these can trigger a cascade of stress hormones that lead to physiological changes. These changes can be an increase in the heart rate, sweating, quickening of the breath, tensed muscles, and so on. Our body handled these stress triggers through a well-orchestrated stress response, also known as the “fight or flight” mechanism. It is a survival mechanism, seen in many animals enabling them to react quickly to a life-threatening situation. But sometimes non-threatening situations can also be considered as a stressful situation by the body where then the body can overreact to these stressors, like traffic jams, work pressure, family difficulties, and exams.
Over time, if such activation of the stress response is repeated, it takes a toll on the body and can lead to chronic stress. Chronic stress then leads to high blood pressure, formation of artery-clogging deposits, anxiety, depression, addiction, and obesity. If the stress response of our body is a survival tool, why does it negatively affect our stressful situations? Usually, the moment you think you could be in danger, the stress response gets activated. This is why worrying or imagining something harmful happening can trigger the stress response as well. Many anxious people experience prolonged stress responses because of something they imagined. Therefore, anxiety attacks occur because of a thought triggering a high degree of the stress response.
We cannot just stop our thoughts or put a brake on stress, this is something very implausible to suggest. We can inculcate a few activities to counter chronic stress like relaxation response, physical activity, and social support. The relaxation response includes breathing techniques, physical activity helps you calm down and relieve muscle tension whereas social support from helps you to sustain at times of chronic stress. It is always better to take on habits that help in our well-being.