Time to read: 4 min
Effect of chronic stress on hormones. And how to solve it.
Chronic stress can seriously disrupt your hormone balance, with all its consequences. But where does stress come from? We'll explain it all to you.
What is chronic stress?
In stressful situations, we experience stress and the hormones adrenaline and cortisol are released (1). This is a natural response of the body, making us temporarily more alert and focused.
Everyone experiences it from time to time, such as during an important exam, a job interview, or a difficult conversation you've been dreading. After the stressful situation, the tension subsides and we quickly function normally again. This is also known as healthy stress.
If the tension persists for too long, your body cannot recover. This is called unhealthy stress. The consequences are that you sleep poorly and feel more tired and irritable. Unhealthy stress occurs in prolonged situations of tension or a build-up of stressful situations.
When you constantly live with tension, we speak of chronic stress. Unhealthy stress lasts so long that a feeling of stress takes over your normal functioning.
Symptoms of chronic stress
With chronic stress, your body signals that something is wrong. However, everyone deals with stress differently. How chronic stress manifests itself can, therefore, vary from person to person.
Nevertheless, most people experience one or more of the following symptoms:
- Headache (2)
- Acne (3)
- Back pain (4)
- Fatigue (5)
- Insomnia (6)
- Lowered libido (7)
- Constipation (8)
- Increased or decreased appetite (9)
- Overall weakened immune system (10)
Causes of stress
How stress is caused can differ from person to person. Some people are more susceptible to stress than others. Research shows that the level of stress we can handle as adults is already determined in our infancy (11). Allowing a baby to cry for a long time can make them more susceptible to stress later in life.
- Generally, stress is caused by:
- Exciting situations
- Too much pressure
- Negative experiences
Think of getting too many tasks at work for too long, problems in your personal life, financial issues, or unpleasant arguments.
But stress can also be caused by unhealthy food and lack of sleep. When your blood sugar levels are too low, the stress hormone cortisol is released (12). And when we sleep poorly, we are more susceptible to negative emotions, a major source of stress (13).
Stress and your hormones
In this article, we have already talked several times about stress hormones released in stressful situations. Let's take a look at how this works and what the consequences can be.
The main stress hormones are cortisol and adrenaline. These hormones are released by the adrenal gland to make us temporarily more alert in stressful situations.
- Adrenaline causes your heart rate and breathing to speed up and your blood pressure to rise, sending more blood to your muscles. Your body is immediately ready for action!
- Cortisol causes glucose to be released, increasing your blood sugar levels. The goal is to temporarily improve the functioning of your muscles. However, this also means that other functions of the body (such as digestion and the immune system) temporarily receive less attention.
With unhealthy or chronic stress, these hormones are released too much. This has unpleasant consequences for the body.
- Too much cortisol can lead to high blood pressure, overweight, loss of muscle strength and volume, and osteoporosis. In women, it can lead to irregular menstruation, and in children, it can cause delayed development or growth retardation.
- Not much is known yet about the consequences of too much adrenaline. However, we do know that during an adrenaline rush, your body is working at full speed. Afterwards, your body needs rest, or it can become exhausted. Too much adrenaline can therefore lead to over-fatigue.
Balancing stress hormones again
During prolonged unhealthy stress or chronic stress, your hormone balance can become disrupted. To stay healthy, it's important to get it back on track. You can use the tips below to balance your hormones again.
- The first step is to manage your mental stress. Figure out where your stress comes from and actively work to overcome it.
- Make sure you get enough magnesium. This substance is used by your body to produce stress hormones (16) and can become quite imbalanced during chronic stress.
- Make sure you get enough vitamin C. Vitamin C reduces the amount of stress hormones in the blood (17).
- Breathing exercises and meditation can help you find peace.
- Healthy eating and good sleep make you less susceptible to negative emotions and stress.
- Fitblogs
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