When I’m stressed, even on a minor, sort of “background noise” level, my body starts popping off with all kinds of weirdness. I’ll get fluttering, spasming muscles in my face or leg. I’ll have antacid-resistant reflux for days. My scalp will suddenly develop folliculitis out of nowhere.
I know that stress is a risk factor for illness, but that’s not what I’m talking about — I’m talking about the odd little symptoms that make you realize “Oh, yeah, I guess I’m stressed.” How does stress from work/life/whatever translate to an eyebrow twitch — and why?
In: Biology
Stress is an emergency measure. It amps up your body’s physical processes in case you need it to survive. So think about the survival mechanics of all the things you’ve described:
Spasming muscles: faster reflexes to help you run away
Acid reflux: increased acid generation to digest tougher foods
Folliculitis: indication that your sweat pores are ready to cool you down for longer running-away sessions
What is called stress is basically a higher amount of certain hormones in your bloodstream, mainly cortisol and adrenaline. Their primary job is to increase your chance in an encounter with physical danger, so they raise your blood pressure (faster circulation means your muscles work better, and you’re more able to fight and survive) and shut off some functions (no time to think about poetry when you’re in danger!). But the side-effect of them existing in your blood is that EVERYTHING gets affected, not only the things you’d want (that’s the issue with all chemicals). So you can run faster because your legs can contract faster, but that means that your eyelids can also contract faster if the stress hormones aren’t “used up” elsewhere. This is why prolonged stress is a health problem – it causes the body to exhaust itself doing useless things.
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