A woman in a cave finds a tiger. Her body immediately mobilizes all resources and fights or escapes.
how?
In humans, stress reactions have two axes, brain and hormone. The brain running at the speed of thinking is the fastest. The sympathetic nervous system accelerates the heart rate and breathing, causes the release of neurotransmitters that reduce blood flow to peripheral, and makes the organ more energy. Other systems are currently decelerating outside.
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Also, this system dramatically sharpens our cognitive ability. When researchers have volunteered in a dice game that requires quick and accurate calculations, their score Almost three times Five minutes after encountering a stressful situation (in this case, a fake employment interview).
On the other hand, our hormone system is working to throw cortisol into blood flow. This hormone takes a few minutes of circulation, but when it does, it starts breaking down the stored fat and protein into energy and starts growing course production in the liver. Our system is very useful for battles and flights due to a significant increase in energy.
… and double -edged sword
If our stress reaction makes us more smarter and stronger, why not always do it?
Biology needs to do a lot of energy intensive things to hand over gene, such as hunting and mating food. If the stress system is active, these other systems are downloaded. Short -term suppression is useful, but it is harmful to suppress key systems for a long time. For example, I don’t want to control the reproductive system indefinitely.
Chronic stress can bring the second risk. Our body seems to be able to handle only a certain amount of stress activation before the damage begins to accumulate.
This theory is known as an insert load. If we are exposed to short stress seizures we can deal with, occasional tiger -stress and recovery cycle will help us strongly over time. Certainly stress It seems to enhance the ability to form memoriesYou probably remember that you won’t return to the cave where the tiger was.
However, if the stress is chronic, there is no chance to recover and the load of the same species will increase.
The big problem is that we are now living a stressful life -our work, our skills, and work from life.
The stress reaction increases our blood pressure and pushes nutrients and oxygen into muscles and organs. But this system has become too long and active Promotion Cholesterol accumulation on arterial walls. Stress mobilizes energy. Chronic stress Destroy insulin sensitivity and promote obesity。
In the brain, stress burns our memories. That’s why it’s almost perfect, and we remember our most stressful moment (such as giving birth). But chronic stress It causes the atrophy of neurons and the final deathImprove the risk of mental illness.
People who were exposed to chronic stress Telomere seems to be short- Signs of acceleration aging.
What we can do
I would like to emphasize two different approaches to deal with the stress of very different modern life, but I think it is complementary.
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The first approach is mindfulness meditation. High quality evidence It suggests that a small amount of psychological distress is reduced by a small amount, and its effect seems to continue.
why? Dr. Julieta Galante, Deputy Director of the Melbourne University Meditation Research Center, teaches Mindfulness to keep us away from the thoughts and emotions that are causing us.
“search [a mindfulness meditation class]If possible, it is led by the group setting teacher. That is what we have the most evidence. “
The second approach is to accept stress as part of modern life and build a resilience. You can do this Gives a small amount of stress through exercise。
“In the short term, exercise enhances stress reactions and increases cortisol, but evidence suggests that if we are practically engaged in exercise, you will get adaptive reactions. I am, “says Joshua Hendrik of the University of Monash.
“You are building adaptive and positive resilience. Short -term stressers for long -term down regulations and normalization of this system.”