I learned about dangers of chronic stress the hard way. Back in the early nineties, I had a job as the documentation manager and lead technical writer at a software start-up company, while at the same time I was raising two children. As you might imagine, the pressure was intense as our small company struggled to meet our first deadline, the first test of the product by real customers (who needed my manuals to teach them how to use the product!). As the deadline approached and I started working overtime, I began having difficulty sleeping. I also started losing weight because the stress made me so feel nauseated that I lost my appetite. Eventually I was so anxious, exhausted and nauseated that even though I met my deadline (and the company went on to success), I couldn’t bounce back to normal health. What began as simple, chronic stress had ultimately turned into something more serious: agitated depression. It took a year and half of therapy, medication, and lifestyle changes for me to recover completely.
So, yes, chronic stress is not only dangerous for your physical health, but it can have a strong impact on your mental health, affecting the way you feel, the way you think, and the way you sleep.
Moods and Emotional Disorders
To start with, chronic stress has a negative effect on your moods. When your sympathetic nervous system is over-stimulated, you may experience any of the following negative feelings: anxiety, restlessness, lack of motivation or focus, irritability or anger, sadness or depression. Obviously those moods are not only unpleasant but they can interfere with your ability to conduct yourself in a way that is in line with your values and goals. For example, if you’re restless and irritated, it’s hard to be patient with and loving to family members and friends.
Then, for people who are susceptible, full-blow anxiety or depression may develop. There are several different theories about the mechanisms that cause depression and anxiety. Chronic stress leads to elevated hormones such as the “stress” hormone cortisol and reduced serotonin and other neurotransmitters in the brain, including dopamine, all of which are associated with depression. And, lately, there is a new theory that depression may be caused by inflammation, which itself can be triggered chronic stress (see Depression May Be Caused by Inflammation). High levels of cortisol can also be responsible for causing Generalized Anxiety Disorder, a common anxiety disorder in older adults (see Reducing Cortisol Improves Anxiety).
Even though research about the exact mechanisms is ongoing, the bottom line is that there is agreement that chronic stress can cause a whole range of emotional problems, including both depression and anxiety.
Stress and Your Thoughts
In my post Stress and Your Thought-Behavior Repertoire, I described how when you’re in stress mode, your thoughts narrow and become limited to fight or flight strategies, while when you are calmer, your thoughts are more expansive, and therefore include a much wider range of possibilities. Practicing stress management on a regular basis allows you to keep your level of arousal (the intensity of the Stress or Fight or Flight response) appropriate to your current environment. For example, for a soldier, a very high level of arousal is appropriate in an actual battle, but that same level is not appropriate if he or she is stuck in a traffic jam or working at the office. On the other hand, when your arousal level is "optimum" for your situation, your thoughts and behavior possibilities expand, until it is possible to consider altruistic possibilities and living in line with your basic values and goals. Here’s how psychologist Dan Libby puts it:
"The basic gist is that regulating our autonomic nervous system, which really means activating the more newly evolved part of the parasympathetic nervous system via the vagus nerve, allows for an expansion of your thought-behavior repertoire. Instead of having a limited, narrow, tunnel-vision, like we do when our sympathetic nervous system is dominant, we have more cognitive and behavioral options available to navigate our world."
Obviously being able to live in line with your basic values and goals is going to contribute to your equanimity. You’ll be able to interact with people and solve problems in a more peaceful and productive way. And reducing chronic stress will help you keep your thought-behavior repertoire appropriate to your circumstances.
Stress, Your Sleep, and Your Emotions and Thoughts
One of the common effects of an overactive sympathetic nervous system is insomnia, something I know about all too well. Your nervous system keeps you on the alert—and awake—so you’re prepared to face imminent danger, except in the middle of the night when your worries are about everyday life, that’s rather counterproductive. And, according to Ram, our brain health expert, lack of sleep or sleep deprivation triggers accelerated mental decline. Sleep appears necessary for our nervous systems to work properly. Too little sleep leaves us drowsy and unable to concentrate, and leads to impaired memory and physical performance. If sleep deprivation continues, hallucinations and mood swings may develop.
Just as sleep gives the body time to heal itself, sleep allows neurons to lower down their neurochemical activity and repair themselves. Without sleep, neurons become “fatigued” and begin to malfunction. Sleep helps to clear out toxins from the brain as well as from the body (see Sleep, Alzheimer's Disease, and Yoga). Finally, the brain gets exposed to thousands of stimuli through the five senses, and sleep helps to reduce chaos and bring order to the information flow, helping to put an order to these information inputs and archive them as memories.
Whew! Do I even have to explain chronic insomnia is going to interfere with your ability to face life’s difficulties with equanimity? So, if sleep is problem for you, it’s a really good idea to consciously manage your daytime stress levels so you don’t go to bed with an over-active nervous system—that’s going to improve your nights as well as your days.
How to Practice Stress Management for Equanimity
Practicing stress management in general is good preventative medicine for fostering good emotional and mental health, just as it helps foster physical healthy. And when you are trying to deal with existing mood and/or emotional problems as part of a self-care program, you should definitely include stress management techniques in your yoga practice. All the stress management techniques we describe in The Relaxation Response and Yoga will help you reduce chronic stress levels, with the only exception that for people with depression, meditation is not recommended (it can cause a downward spiral). Re-patterning your nervous system as described in Re-Patterning Your Nervous System will train you so you don’t react as intensely to stressors in the first place. And learning to self-regulate as described at Self-Regulation and Yoga: Managing Your Internal States will allow monitor and manage your internal states, so you can take appropriate actions to calm yourself, comfort yourself, uplift yourself, or energize yourself, and bring yourself to a more balanced state. For extra information about improving your sleep, see 5 Tips for Better Sleep.
Although I'm sold on the effectiveness of yoga for keeping us as physically healthy as possible, I actually became a yoga teacher specifically because I realized that my yoga practice was helping to keep me emotionally healthy and that was something I wanted to share with others. So if you're someone who wants to cultivate emotional stability, I hope this post will inspire your practice!
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