Stress: what is it? Neurobiology of our daily survival.
Anxiety: Panic, thought-racing, mental fog, feelings of overwhelm or out of control
WHAT IS STRESS?
It could be described as a continuous hypervigilant state most commonly associated with feeling tensed and anxious. In fact, the proper term would be accumulated stress:
a state of acute and chronic arousal or anxiety, and dysfunction in the central nervous system
What went wrong?
The accumulation of stress happens when in a face of a perceived life-threatening event, we are unable to discharge the mobilized survival (fight/flight) energy
Instinctive survival response:
Firstly, the body interprets any stressful situation, real or not, as a life-threatening event. What follows is the activation of sympathetic nervous system which mobilizes the body for intense muscular exertion – fight or flight. This happens rapidly and automatically - hence the location in the autonomic nervous system (ANS), specifically in the HPA axis (Hypothalamus - Pituitary gland – Adrenal glands) of the neuroendocrine system.
This arousal is part of a cycle involving mobilization, muscular discharge (fight or flight activity), parasympathetic rebound (relaxation), and a return of the nervous system to baseline functioning – full recovery. From here, a healthy individual is back in their full capacity and functional integrity to resolve subsequent exposures to stress.
BUT.
Under certain conditions, such as pro-longed or highly intense exposure to stress, the ANS may get “stuck” in a state of excess activation. In this case, if the muscular activity or discharge or release does not happen (a fight with a bear, or simply, suppressed emotions, like highly-effective crying, etc.), the compensatory activation of the parasympathetic would not occur, and without it, the system is unable to return to balance.
Peculiar, how when the nervous system is “stuck” in hyper-arousal, we also experience this at the felt-sense of being both shut-down or dissociated, while feeling agitated and unsettled.
When the release is suppressed, the organism is locked into an unresolved state of persistent inappropriate activation
The failure to restore the ANS back to its normal responsiveness is also the basis for many of the dysfunctional and debilitating symptoms of trauma (and chronic stress):
Hypertension, hyperventilation
Ulcers
Panic attacks and Anxiety disorders
Anorexia nervosa and eating disorders
Susceptibility to infectious diseases & poor immune system
Substance abuse, and other maladaptive coping
Premature ageing
Cancers
Moreover, for an individual who is “stuck” in pro-longed stress state, responding to a new stressor (ex.: running late, or having an argument) could be even more challenging. If the stress response is unresolved and a residual stress accumulates, this can modify the baseline of autonomic activity - your Adaptive Potential Capacity, or emotional resilience. As a result, one is left within a diminished reserve for internal regulation in between natural states of emergency and an ongoing internal homeostasis. The dynamic equilibrium is suppressed, and the above symptoms are exacerbated in a vicious cycle of heightened reactivity to stress and uncertainty.
Learning Self-regulating skills.
Training oneself to self-regulate your own neuro-physiological responses is possible, and can help to create an adaptive field to balance adversities and significant levels of daily stressors.
Resilience: The ability to overcome great obstacles and bounce back
(Heller, 2001)
Bottom-up Processing
To sum up, when we experience a stressful or traumatic event, the Autonomic nervous system is activated, invoking the primitive orienting response. When unresolved, the accumulated stress is then locked in a physical or somatic part of the brain and is not (yet) accessible to verbal perception and executive processing. Therefore, the interventions which begin from the “bottom up” body-focused approach could help in soothing and calming the limbic system, facilitating a safe physiological release to take place.
Here is an overview of the body-focused therapeutic practices for both, 1) the release of aforementioned accumulated stress and of 2) strengthening one’s capacity reserves for homeostasis in face of future stressors.
Nasal Breath-regulation
Physical movement (ex.: walking, hiking)
Yoga, Qi Gong
Nature exposure (ShinrinYoku or Forest Therapy)
Somatosensory therapies:
Eye-movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR)
Somatic Experiencing for trauma (SE)
Clinical Hypnotherapy
Acupuncture
Expressive and sensorimotor art, dance & music therapies
References:
Schneider, Andrea (2018). 5 Nuts and Bolts of the Traumatized Brain
Whitehouse & Heller (2008). Heart rate in trauma: patterns found in somatic experiencing and trauma resolution
Levine, Peter (1976). Accumulated stress, reserve capacity, and disease
Photo by おにぎり@fukayamamo on Unsplash