I of course understand why it impacts mental health, and that mental and physical health are interlinked. But, for instance, why might someone who is chronically anxious get acne (as one example)?
By which physical mechanisms does this actually occur?
In: Biology
Lots of ways! Long term stress throws many of your hormones out of whack and that can have effects on most of your bodily systems.
You specifically mentioned acne. Stress makes your body release extra hormones that cause your skin to produce more oils, which can make acne and all other kinds of skin conditions worse. Stress also changes your metabolism, appetite, and fat storage/fat burning system to make you gain weight. It also weakens your immune system, messes with your circyadian rhythm and sleep, and make your cardiovascular system work harder which puts you at risk of heart disease.
So in short, stress negatively impacts basically all of your body.
There is a physiological stress system inside your body that relates to your subjective feelings of stress. It involves areas of your brain, your heart, your stomach, and lots of other things. A lot of what the stress system does is prepare your body for action, whether that’s fight or flight, or even just general exertion (e.g., exercise).
So as an example, take what people refer to as the “stress hormone,” cortisol. It’s not actually a bad thing! Cortisol helps your body release energy (glucose) so you can do stuff, for example. It preps your adrenal glands to release adrenaline. Without cortisol, you can’t live. But if you live with **chronic stress**, elevated cortisol also can be bad for your brain (e.g., it damages the hippocampus, where a lot of memory functions happen).
That’s the general pattern of issues with stress: your body NEEDS to have a stress response to deal with the world, but it isn’t meant to be **chronically stressed**. You literally wear your body down. Elevated blood pressure is important for physical exertion, but chronic high blood pressure causes wear-and-tear in your heart and vascular system. In short bursts, cortisol reduces inflammation. But chronic high cortisol is associated with MORE inflammation, and inflammation is associated again with wear-and-tear across your whole body.
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