3. The Cost of Stress

Happy March, fellow EQ sojourners,

This entry starts the stress management series, beginning with the cost of stress (trigger alert: it’s kind of a buzz kill).  Be sure to stay tuned for next week, though, in which we explore the benefits of stress.  The good news is that stress is not the enemy. 

Receiving your feedback is my favorite part of writing the blog.  Before we get to the content, I want to share some of the feedback I received from you all regarding last week’s blog on breaking the number one rule in education: don’t put kids first. 

“I love this.  It truly resonated with me.”  --Elizabeth

“I am IN.  Wow.  Can’t wait to talk more about this.” –Denise

“Never take that ‘high school teacher tough crowd’ personally.  They hear you.  They are self-regulating through their ridiculous to do list while being present to the administrator’s choice of PD.” –Patti

Good stuff, y’all!  Now, on to this week’s content. 

 Have you ever been chased by a drooling saber-toothed tiger across an open plain, escaping with your life only because a wild pack of wolves heard said saber-tooth tiger, attacked it, and ate it?

Me neither. 

If we had, though, our bodies would have undergone distinct neuro-physiological change.  Our sympathetic nervous system—the adrenal medulla, to be exact—would have lit up, activating the production of the catecholemines epinephrine and norepinephrine.  These, in combination with the hormones adrenaline and cortisol, would have served as the neurochemical cocktail (commonly referred to collectively as stress hormones) that would have fueled our fight-or-flight behavior.  We can think of that neurochemical process as mother nature’s way of providing what we would have needed to survive the threat by attacking it or running from it. 

In the unfortunate event that the saber-tooth tiger prevailed over the pack of wolves and caught us, the same neurochemical cocktail would serve a different purpose.   Ultimately, it would have provided a physiologically numbing effect to serve as the spoonful of sugar to help the medicine of our death go down. 

The whole scenario of the saber-toothed tiger seems far fetched, doesn’t it?  But here’s what’s crazy: even though we’ve never been chased by a saber-toothed tiger, our bodies believe we have been.  Daily.  Hourly.  Even moment-by-moment.

Humans have only one system of acute stress response—the one I just described above.  That means that whether I perceive a truly life-and-death threat (like a car speeding toward me in my lane on a dark highway) or a not truly life-and-death threat (like someone whose approval I crave giving me a dirty look or like unexpected traffic), my sympathetic nervous system activates the same protocol; when it comes to facing threats, the human nervous system is sort of a one-trick-pony.  We’ll explore the benefits of that dynamic next week, but for today, let’s dig into how it works against us.

Our bodies do with that neurochemical fuel the same thing they do with a different kind of fuel we call food.  After processing the food into the fuel we call calories (which is a measure of heat or energy), that fuel will end up in one of three possible uses.  First, our bodies will burn some of the fuel to complete our activities of daily living.  Second, our bodies release some of the fuel when we poop and pee (there’s probably a much more elegant way to express that, but I don’t have the mental fuel now to find it).  Third, our body will store some of the fuel as fat in case we need it later. 

Our bodies burn some of the energy of the stress hormones by attacking or running from the stress, release some of the some of the energy when we exercise, and store some of the energy in our muscles and joints in case we need it later.   This process results in illness when either of the following two situations arise.  First, chronic stress results in chronic wear of our cardiovascular systems, potentially resulting in strokes and heart attacks (for more information, you can learn more here about allostatic overload) Second, the stress hormones that remain stored in the body eventually lead to a host of auto-immune symptoms, including inflammation, aches, digestive problems, sleep dysregulation, and many other early-stage disease-related presentation. 

Financially, stress contributes to 40% of all job turnover, and the cost to an employer to replace an employee ranges from $1,500 to $20,000, depending on the skillset.  Stress contributes to $90 billion of America’s health care costs.  Physically, stress killed more Americans in 2023 than influenza, diabetes or Alzheimer’s.  Relationally, couples reported decreased marital satisfaction. Father reported demonstrating increased punishing or rejecting behavior of their children.  Mothers reported decreased acceptance of and emotional warmth toward their children. 

That’s not the end of it. 

Remember how the stress cocktail also serves an analgesic effect if the saber-toothed tiger catches and starts to devour us?  Chronic stress over time feels like a slow psychological death, but stress hormones do very little to numb that pain (for more information about why our stress is chronic, familiarize yourself with the acronym VUCA.) So, in the absence of a naturally-occurring internal analgesic, we numb ourselves.  Ibuprofin.  Shopping.  Sugar and processed carbohydrates.  Spending.  Sexing.  Approval addiction.  Cannabis and other street drugs.  Alcohol.  Social isolation.

That, my friends, is what stress costs. 

Now that your buzz is officially killed, I’d love to hear back from you.  My email is adam@adamsaenz.com.  I’m wondering if any of you, like me, may have underestimated the costs of stress. 

Until next week.

Adam