title. I feel like you always hear stuff to the liking of “high stress leads to poor health,” but I am kind of wondering exactly why this occurs.
For instance, it’s said that stress can cause:
- Aches and pains.
- Chest pain or a feeling like your heart is racing.
- Exhaustion or trouble sleeping.
- Headaches, dizziness or shaking.
- High blood pressure.
- Muscle tension or jaw clenching.
- Stomach or digestive problems.
- Trouble having sex.
- Weak immune system.
Imagine, hypothetically, that I were to have a high stress life, but still had good sleep, low blood pressure, and a slow heart rate, while also staying away from unhealthy habits like drinking or addiction.
Would my health still be worse than a person who lives an equivalent, but less stressful life than me?
That’s a pretty big slap in the face speaking as someone who grew up with chronic stress. I’m in my 20s. My thyroid has gone autoimmune on itself. I developed PCOS before puberty even fully set in. I have fibromyalgia, a condition that renders my entire body up in a permanent state of pain and suffering.
I didn’t get to where I am because I didn’t ‘manage my stress well enough’ or ‘didn’t look at it positively enough’. It’s not as simple as bad genetics either because people my age don’t typically have these conditions.
I don’t want to gatekept for not managing stress well enough, so I’ll just put some statistics out there: I’ve moved 26 times growing up, went to 14 different schools, lost 13 pets consecutively, sexually abused before I was 10, called the cops due to life threatening situations 4 times in my life, and went no contact with everyone I was related to. The fact that I made it to adulthood alive should be proof enough that this isn’t a stress management issue.
When you live in chronic distress, not eustress, your body will eventually pay the price. There’s a book called ‘The Body Keeps the Score’ by Vessel Van Der Kolk that does a fantastic job of explaining this. As a result of my body breaking down in pain and no longer being able to exercise, live, and function the way I used to, I will most likely die sooner than I would have if environment conditions didn’t trigger all these latent health conditions. And that’s ok.
What’s not ok is being told that I could have better health outcomes if I had just look at my stress more positively. Buddy, if I look at my stress any more positively than I did I would no longer be managing my stress I would straight up be in denial that anything bad even happened.
Not sure what you think “managing stress” consists of, but in my experience it refers to avoiding life events like you’re describing.
A child can’t effectively manage your stress, but independent of any blame dimension, your disease is 100% attributable to not “managing stress” based on that list of stressors you mentioned.