Mini-Blog: Stress - Putting It Under the Microscope

We all experience stress – it’s part of being human. A little stress can even be helpful, or even life-saving, giving us the push to meet a deadline or escape danger. But when stress becomes a long-term companion, it can take a real toll on our health. I want to take a brief look at the body’s chemistry when stress sticks around too long. As in, what's actually happening physiologically - it's more than just a furrowed brow.

The Stress Response: Your Body’s Alarm System

When you feel threatened or overwhelmed, your brain activates the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis. This is your body’s main stress response system. First, the hypothalamus in your brain sends a signal to your pituitary gland, which then prompts your adrenal glands (sitting above your kidneys) to release stress hormones—mainly cortisol and adrenaline (epinephrine).

These hormones prepare your body for "fight or flight" by:

• Raising your heart rate and blood pressure

• Increasing blood sugar for quick energy

• Diverting blood away from digestion to your muscles

• Sharpening your focus and reaction time

This is brilliant for short-term threats. It's wonderfully adaptable; lightning-fast hormone release, allowing us to run away or act with significant strength when it's needed, then falling away to let everything come down to normal again. All of this within a few seconds to begin with, then maybe a few minutes to calm down. What an amazing system for acute situations.

Chronic Stress: When the Alarm Won’t Switch Off

When your body stays in stress mode too long, cortisol levels stay high—and that’s when problems begin. You tend to lose that adaptability, and it becomes more and more difficult to return to normal in a reasonable time frame, i.e. you stay in the alarm state for longer. Not only this, but that lack adaptability can mean it takes longer at the other end too - you may struggle to raise adrenaline when you need it. Essentially, you can become really out of balance.

Prolonged stress can lead to:

• Fatigue and sleep issues – Cortisol is meant to drop at night. If it stays high, it can interfere with sleep. I see many clients with low morning cortisol (tired), and high evening cortisol (insomnia).

• Poor digestion and gut health – In acute, adrenaline-fueled situations, blood is directed away from things like digestion, reproduction, immune system, preferring to fuel the muscles so you can 'run away'. In chronic stress, blood flow keeps getting disrupted and diverted away from digestive organs, affecting nutrient absorption and gut motility. IBS anyone?

• Weakened immune system – Chronic cortisol suppresses the immune response, making you more prone to infections and slower to heal.

• Increased fat storage – High cortisol promotes fat storage, especially around the abdomen. There are a number of theories around this (food choices when stressed, body storing nutrients for a 'safer time', but we don't really know).

• Mood changes – Chronic stress is linked with anxiety, depression, and memory problems, partly due to cortisol’s effect on the brain, especially the hippocampus (involved in memory and emotion regulation).

The Nervous System Shift

Long-term stress also changes how your autonomic nervous system behaves. You become stuck in sympathetic dominance—constantly ready for action—rather than moving between alertness and calm. Over time, this can exhaust your system, leaving you feeling burnt out or on edge all the time.

The Good News

The body is remarkably resilient. Trust me, if you're alive, you can rebalance your body. When we take active steps to manage stress—through sleep, movement, breathwork, time in nature, social connection, or supportive nutrition—we help bring the HPA axis back into balance. We need our stress response, we just want it to go back to being adaptable in the right situations. Remember, the stress response is natural and protective; the key is to make sure it’s not running the show 24/7.

A really important step with stress is to really really think about it. Change can't happen without acknowledgement. It's not a fun thing to do, so make sure you're in a place where you can safely face the stresses in your life - this means physical space, friends or family around (or a phonecall away), writing in a journal or talking through your thoughts with a trusted friend or mental health professional. If you're able to, getting away from your daily grind, even for a day, can really help give you some perspective.

Understanding what’s happening inside is the first step to finding balance again. And you will find balance again, because your body and your brain want it, and are ready to let you in.