Such a little word, but used to cover such a huge range of human experience. We use it so often. It was first used outside of the world of physics[1] in 1936 by Hungarian-Canadian endocrinologist (hormone expert) Hans Selye, to describe the “nonspecific response of the body to any demand”, and it takes its toll in oh so many ways.
We can feel “stressed” for as many reasons as there are human beings – each and every one of us reacts in different ways to life and what it throws at us. For some, the world of work is what they thrive on, while for others the constant demand of presenteeism and deadlines leads to burnout. Still others need work to feel validated, to feel their right to existence, this might be the kind of person who is constantly giving off the message “look how busy I am” – for which translate “look how needed I am”. To be seen to be not needed, not working, doing nothing, may be stressful for these.
Some people need to see the effects of stress on their bodies in a test before they will realise that actually, they can’t carry on like this. That’s one of the reasons that I love functional testing – it’s there in black and white. For example, the DUTCH Plus test shows you what’s going on with your cortisol. It looks at the “readily available, here and now” stress hormones (saliva cortisol provides an approximation of this) vs your “what’s in the petrol tank” (total metabolised cortisol is the approximation here). Depending on where we are, we may see this pattern:
In other words, the body feels a need to be making lots and lots of stress hormone – the dial on the right - but is somehow protecting the cells from feeling its full force – the dial on the left.
And remember, we need cortisol, it’s not just a stress hormone, it’s needed to get us up and about in the morning, to deal with inflammatory responses, to release glucose from the cells. But keep on pushing, keep on doing a bit too much a bit too often, and the balance might tip and you might find yourself in this pattern:
In other words, running on an empty tank, but the person is pushing, pushing through and somehow the body is still managing to find enough to deliver to the cells. Remember it’s not just the adrenals, the glands that sit above the kidneys producing stress hormones (as well as other essentials, like aldosterone, the blood pressure regulating hormone) – it’s the whole feedback loop and messenger system called the HPA (hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal) axis that is involved.
You also need cortisol to get you up and about in the morning. The DUTCH Plus shows what your daily cortisol pattern looks like. Maybe you wake up in the morning and really, really can’t get going until your third cup of coffee – your CAR (cortisol awakening response) might look a bit like the one on the left.
Conversely, you may wake up and start running straight away, getting the kids lunches ready, responding to work emails before you’re even due to be at work, racing to get the kids out the door and catch the train. In this case, your CAR might look like this one.
The point is, whatever your pattern, some people need this black and white approach before they realise that something needs to give. I love Erin Holt’s approach to dysregulation of the stress hormones – when she sees these patterns on client’s test results, she asks them “in what area of your life are you giving too much, and why?”
And not just on the DUTCH – stress rears its head on other functional tests in other ways. There’s the gut-brain axis – we all know that stress can wreak havoc on our gut (we can literally feel it). So if you’ve been under pressure for a long time, it can literally wipe out your microbiome, showing up like this on a stool test
Bacteroidetes and firmicutes are 2 of the biggest “families” of bacteria living in the gut – the numbers should be up there in the green – here they are way down in the red. No excess antibiotic use here, just a client with years of being in a fight with themselves, of living with a type of chronic “stress”.
The message is, what are you feeling? Why? Where are you pushing too hard, and why? What is it that you need to sit with, to deal with? I would encourage each and everyone to find ways to deal with their personal stressors, whatever they may be.
[1] to refer to the interaction between a force and the resistance to counter that force
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