The stronger our psychological resilience, the more likely we will live longer and healthier
Stress is not always a bad thing. Moderate or acute stress may improve brain performance and memory, increase alertness, strengthen our immunity, and help us become more resilient.
When stress reaches unmanageable levels, though, it puts physical and emotional well-being at risk, says Dr Quinney Chan Kwan-nap, a Hong Kongbased psychiatrist.
“Chronic stress activates our hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal axis, or HPA axis … the interaction between our hypothalamus, pituitary gland and adrenal glands,” Chan says.
This triggers the secretion of the stress hormones cortisol, adrenaline and noradrenaline, which play a role in our body’s “fight or flight” response, boosting our heart rate, blood pressure and breathing rate.
These elevated stresshormone levels can have wide-ranging damaging effects on heart function, metabolism – causing obesity and increasing the risk of glucose intolerance – and the immune system, causing chronic inflammation and higher risk of infection.
Mental health suffers, too: memory and mood are affected; the risk of developing addictions – to alcohol and drugs, for example – rises; decision-making is impaired; and insomnia and anxiety may develop.
A new Yale University study also found chronic stress makes the biological clock tick faster.
Researchers evaluated blood samples for age-related chemical changes from 444 participants, from 19 to 50 years old, who completed questionnaires that gave insight into their stress levels and psychological resilience – the ability to manage strong emotions and adapt to adversity.
Participants who scored high on measures related to chronic stress had accelerated ageing markers and physiological changes such as increased insulin resistance.
Stress did not affect everyone’s health to the same extent. Participants who scored high on two psychological measures – emotion regulation and selfcontrol – were more resilient to the effects of stress on ageing and insulin resistance.
We should make an investment in our psychological health
RAJITA SINHA, STUDY CO-AUTHOR AND YALE PROFESSOR
“These results support the notion stress makes us age faster, but also suggest a promising way to possibly minimise these adverse consequences of stress through strengthening emotion regulation and self-control,” says Zachary Harvanek, a resident in the Yale department of psychiatry and an author of the study.
The more psychologically resilient we are, the higher the likelihood we would live a longer and healthier life, it concludes.
“We all like to feel like we have some agency over our fate,” says study co-author Rajita Sinha, a professor at Yale. “So, it is a cool thing to reinforce in people’s minds that we should make an investment in our psychological health.”
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