We all have times at work when things don’t go so well. The to doThings pile up, your boss is constantly looking over your shoulder… and your body reacts to that. Stress! In the section Stress under the microscope dives Metro with experts deeper into the topic of stress. With today: what actually happens in our brain when we are under stress?
A stressful period at work, a newborn baby, a friendship that sucks more energy than it gives… there are countless events that can cause stress. On the Metroeditors we wondered: what happens in our brain at such a moment? We put the question to two stress experts.
What exactly is stress?
Psychiatrist and stress researcher Christiaan Vinkers is the first clinical professor of Stress and Resilience in the Netherlands, and author of the book Under the spell of burnout. For him, the definition of stress is: “Having to hold your own in a challenging environment.” He calls it an active process that allows people to continuously process both expected and unexpected events. “Think of deadlines, but also a car that unexpectedly tears around the corner. It’s about what’s happening around you, and how you react to it.”
He therefore finds it a pity that stress has an image problem, he says. “Stress is a very dynamic process, but we really only talk about it when things go wrong. And that while it is quite normal. In fact, there is no such thing as a stress-free life. There is no way to escape stress. Yes, if you are dead.”
Carolien Hamming, director of CSR Center national center of expertise for stress and resilience and author of the book Crazy about Stress, fully agrees. “Everyone always has the stress hormones adrenaline and cortisol in their blood. These affect, for example, your energy, your memory and your attention span. Every effort puts a little stress on your body. There are signals from the brain that make adjustments in the body, so that you can exert yourself. The more you exert yourself, the more stress you get.”
According to Hamming, the confusing thing is that we use the term stress incorrectly. „We are not only stressed during that famous fight or flightreaction. That’s a big misunderstanding. Stress is always there, and it gets more when you exert yourself mentally or physically.”
This puts stress on your brain
To explain more clearly what happens in your brain when you are under stress, Vinkers tells us about the term ‘the stress orchestra’. He explains it this way: “Each body has its own stress orchestra with instruments that all play together. These ensure that you are able to cope with a challenging environment and be resilient.”
According to him, the stress orchestra can play louder when something happens around you (acute stress), or when you spend a long time worrying about something that could happen in the future (stress from within). “Your stress orchestra has learned to play well together in recent years. As soon as you experience something that causes stress, you react to it. You don’t have to do anything for that. That means your adrenaline goes up, your attention stays there and you are more on your toes. At the same time, less blood goes to your gut, and areas in your brain associated with rational thinking go out. At that moment, the stress orchestra is playing at full power.”
Pay attention: you can recognize that you are under a lot of stress by these 13 symptoms
What we should not forget, however, according to Vinkers, is that after such an acute stress reaction, our body needs time to return to its resting position. “The stress system has to go out in a coordinated way. The body does this, for example, by increasing the hormone cortisol. Your stress orchestra plays a lot to go from ‘on’ to ‘off’, where you can slowly think rationally again.”
What about chronic stress?
But suppose you suffer from chronic stress. You think a lot about the future, and what could happen. How do you ensure that your stress orchestra, which continuously blows at full volume, comes to rest again? “In people with chronic stress complaints, the on/off button of their stress orchestra no longer works well. The resilience is gone. As a result, your cortisol levels remain too high, you sleep less well and you recover less well.”
At such a moment, according to Hamming, it is important to listen carefully to your body, and to learn to recognize stress symptoms in yourself. A one size fits allThere is no solution, however, says Vinkers. “Every brain reacts differently to stimuli, and personal circumstances always play a role.” That is why, according to him, there is no golden tip to get rid of stress. Something different works for everyone, he says. “It really depends on the person. Unfortunately, there are no simple tips.”
Read more? Later this week we will publish an article where the question ‘Why do we often recognize stress too late?’ is central. For now, we would like to refer you to our ‘Health’ category for more similar articles.
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Stress under the microscope: what happens in our brain when we are under stress?