032 | A Neurological Basis for Stress Resilience

Interested in the neuro-biology of how you can become more resilient to stress? Listen in.
Episode 032:

Ready to get out of the comfort zone and thrive? Join us!

Get in touch if you want some citations to the research that went into this episode - I'd be happy to send out the citations. As a great, readable reference, check out 'The Hour Between Dog and Wolf' - it's a great look into the neurology of risk.
Music by Big Rain courtesy of Mevio's Music Alley.
032 | Stress Mastery through Adventure
Have you ever climbed or shredded on mountain bikes with those people who - by some act of ultimate willpower and control - never bat an eye at stuff that makes you wish you had worn your brown pants that day?
I have encountered a lot of those people. And I always wanted to figure it out - what the Hell is their secret? Are they born with a genetically-predisposed aptitude for risk? With the ability to calmly handle anything you throw their way?
The recent research suggests that while we can indeed be born with a wide range of reactivities to dangerous situations (I talked about this last episode, What adventures are you wired for?), we also have the ability to develop mental toughness through practice and lifestyle design. Surprisingly, developing it may even help us to live longer, healthier lives.
Stress. Quick - what does the word make you think of first? Work? Drudgery? Relationships? Heart attacks? (yes, it has come to my attention that heart attacks are caused by stress potentially as much as by dietary factors.) Ughhh. Stress can be a good thing - it can help us grow. But today, it seems that the word is only associated with the long-term, catabolic and insidious stress we find in so many modern workplaces.
Last week we talked about resilience, both personal and societal. How can we as individuals and as a community learn to respond to unwanted change in a way that allows us to continue living our core purposes?
I mentioned that we would do a couple of episodes really diving into some of the science behind how to develop resilience and live a stoked life. This is one of those. What happens to us, biologically, when we are stressed? How is it that stress causes heart attacks? How can we learn to mitigate the stress response in our bodies to live healthier, longer, more productive, more awesome lives?
Let’s break into it.
When someone says ‘I’m stressed,’ what they are referring to is a set of conditions in their body that came on in response to some external or internal stimulus. Perhaps their company is laying folks off left and right, and they fear they may be next.
The set of conditions that they are feeling in their body are a totally normal response to threats. If we go back to how we, as humans, evolved, lay-off’s weren’t a huge concern for cave men. Instead, a bear or lion might have been our biggest concern, or a rival tribe. These stimuli would require a great physical effort, so the stress response evolved to cause a rapid shift away from the state of everyday affairs in our bodies and brains to a state of emergency, allowing us to run or fight for our lives. Cool stuff - and it saved our asses out there on the plains. In the workplace though? Well, let’s get to that in a minute.
The stress response in the human body occurs in four stages - the last stage being the differentiator between ‘good stress,’ or eustress, and ‘bad stress’ that makes us weaker rather than stronger.
The first two stages involve electrical signals and are thus extremely fast. First, a small portion of the brain called the amygdala must register the stimuli (‘that’s a bear!’) and assign it emotional significance (‘I don’t like bears because they are dangerous’) before sending it out to other regions of the brain. This process takes milliseconds.
The second step is for the message to be sent to the body’s visceral organs - the heart increases it’s rate, pumping more blood and increasing blood pressure in case we have to sprint away. The extra blood is sent towards major muscle groups in our thighs and arms. At the same time, blood vessels in the stomach constrict, stopping digestion since there is no need for it lest the lion actually catch us. The blood shunted away from the stomach can result in the feeling of butterflies. Tiny arteries in the skin also constrict causing the skin to be clammy and pale - if the skin was lacerated in the fight this would help to slow bleeding. The skin sweats even in anticipation of physical exertion while water is conserved by stoping salivation, resulting in a dry mouth.
All of this occurs in less than a second and can prove extremely useful in getting away or fighting a threat; the downside, though, is it takes a TON of energy. There needs to be a way...