Stress is prevalent in our daily lives. Work, finances, family, friends, and responsibilities all take a toll. On an average day, with nothing going particularly wrong, you can experience high levels of stress.

High levels of stress can leave you feeling helpless, physically, and emotionally drained, irritable, and/or overcome with anguish.

According to the Mayo Clinic, stress affects your body, mood, and behavior.

Stress takes a toll on your body:

• Headaches
• Muscle tension or pains
• Chest pains
• Heart Disease
• Fatigue
• Change in sex drive
• Digestive Problems
• Sleep problems
• Weight Gain

Stress takes a toll on your mood:

• Anxiety
• Restlessness
• Lack of Motivation or Focus
• Ill-tempered
• Sadness or Depression

Stress takes a toll on your behavior:

• Overeating or undereating
• Angry outbursts
• Drug or alcohol misuse
• Social Withdrawal
• Exercising less

Any stressful situation can activate the “fight-or-flight” response, also known as the Acute Stress Response. Stress hormones produce physiological changes that prepare your body to either stay and fight the threat or run away to safety. This response was inherited from our ancient ancestors when they faced danger in their environment.

Once the “fight-or-flight” response is triggered due to acute stress, the sympathetic nervous system stimulates the adrenal glands, prompting the release of catecholamines, which includes adrenaline and cortisol.

According to the Mayo Clinic, “Adrenaline increases your heart rate, elevates your blood pressure, and boosts energy supplies. Cortisol, the primary stress hormone, increases sugars (glucose) in the bloodstream, enhances your brain's use of glucose, and increases the availability of substances that repair tissues.”

You can see why it can be difficult to sleep while your body is releasing these hormones.

According to the CDC, “adults need 7 or more hours of sleep per night for the best health and well-being. Short sleep duration is defined as less than 7 hours of sleep per 24-hour period.”

“Even in normal times, approximately 30 percent to 35 percent of the population experiences acute, or short-term, insomnia,” said Posner, a member of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine and a founding member of the Society of Behavioral Sleep Medicine. The current global situation is causing many more millions of individuals to lose sleep.

According to the Division of Sleep Medicine at Harvard Medical School, in the short term, lack of adequate sleep can affect:

• Judgment
• Mood
• Ability to learn and retain information
• Increase the risk of serious accidents and injury

In the long term, chronic sleep deprivation may lead to a host of health problems including:

• Obesity
• Cardiovascular Disease
• Early mortality

It’s a vicious cycle. Stress leads to lack of sleep and lack of sleep leads to more stress.

_©May 2022