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
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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