Factors, reactions, and stress management

SCIENCE TODAY

As Hans Seyle, the father of stress, who back in 1936 described the reaction to stress, said: “it is not the stressor who is to blame, but how we relate to him.”

And so, we have millions of stressors and millions of ways to react to them. Thus, no one is the same or affected in the same way by different situations that mobilize stress hormones, cortisol, and adrenaline from our adrenal gland to defend ourselves from this experience perceived as a threat of different intensity.

These two hormones prepare us to deal with the stressor causing a higher heart and respiratory rate; Muscle tension and blood pressure increase, peripheral arterioles close, skin becomes pale, and body temperature increases, but with the activation of the sweat glands, sweat tries to collaborate in reducing it and blood sugar increases to provide energy to carry out all this preparation of fight or flight of the... blocked transit as a mammoth used to be!

And the brain? Pure attention focused on the threat. When the threat is over, the hormones resume their normal cycle. The acute reaction that we must learn to recognize in ourselves when we are faced with a stressful stimulus. The first step towards stress management to implement different strategies that help us so that hormones do not remain elevated for longer than necessary, that they are depleted and segregated inadequately.

That is where we move on to chronic stress and the picture is totally different. Blood pressure can be definitely increased, the heart rate goes to arrhythmia, and the skin has allergies... The immune system fails, and other diseases are derived from stress since our body is not prepared to face this permanent increase in cortisol and adrenaline and the entire system ends up misaligning.

So how to better manage our stress, if Seyle himself had struggled to manage his today, or at least much more than he did in 1935. However, at that time they faced other types of stressors, for example, diseases, cold, famines, fires, trench warfare, and other socalled absolute stressors, which endanger life.

Today we are also impacted by emotional, technological, and communicational stressors, etc. And to understand them better, Dr. Sonia Lupien, founder of the Centre for Human Stress Studies in Montreal, coined the acronym C.I.N.E. to understand what conditions the situations that generate the increase in stress hormones must have; the more conditions they meet, the more intense the stress reaction will be:

C: weak control

I: unpredictability

N: novelty

E: weak ego

To each one, their films within the C.I.N.E. affects them, and this is a crucial point also in the deconstruction of the way of facing everyday events: To which ingredient am I most sensitive? Is it the unpredictable that upsets me? or If I do not have total control of a situation I despair?

Simple things: I have already accepted that the day has 24 hours and not 36 so as not to feel overwhelmed? Did I organize myself to lower the unpredictability of the week? Am I being able to dose myself to make controlling situations easier? Do I participate more in decisions?

Analyzing each of these ingredients of the situations that alter us allows us to work emotionally on each of them to deepen strategies that accommodate each impact to a less toxic level.

Learning to breathe slowly and deeply sends the brain the signal that everything is fine and not that we are running in the middle of the jungle... Therefore, it can send to cut off the supply of stress hormones and thus allow greater relaxation. Physical activity levels blood sugar values and stimulates the secretion of substances that regulate cortisol, such as oxytocin. The latter is the hormone of hugging, of attachment. This is how cortisol isolates and peer company help lower stress, as well as community help, spirituality, and laughter! So, do not forget to laugh, even in front of the mirror, since it has the same therapeutic benefits.

In conclusion: up with the stress that allows us to accept challenges and get ahead, but beware of the film of each one, in their C.I.N.E. we must learn to regulate how to relate to each stressor.

Dr. Laura Maffei

Medical endocrinologist; Executive Medical Director in Applied Clinical Research, member of the Argentine Society of Endocrinology (SAEM-Department of Psychoneuroendocrinology) and the Endocrine Society; currently directs Maffei Medical Center in Buenos Aires, Argentina.