Every day, reflect on the good parts and how to build on those. Only you control where you focus your attention and flashlight.
Catherine Schuman, PhD, psychologist, Family & Community Care at Cheshire Medical CenterOngoing emotional stress doesn't just affect your happiness and well-being; it also suppresses your immune system. Psychologist Catherine Schuman, PhD, of Family & Community Care at Cheshire Medical Center’s West Campus in Keene, counsels patients on how to manage stress for better health.
When you feel stressed, your body produces the stress hormone cortisol. Cortisol is helpful in short spurts, boosting immunity and limiting inflammation. But if you are often stressed, too much cortisol in your blood can decrease white blood cells that fight off infection, such as colds and viruses.
Chronic stress over time is strongly linked to diseases such as asthma, inflammatory bowel disease (IBS), autoimmune disorders, obesity, and sleep problems. Sustained, long-term stress contributes to heart disease and type 2 diabetes, not to mention depression and anxiety. And the older we get, the more stress tends to affect our immune response.
Reducing your stress is a very effective way to help your body fight illness. However, stress comes in many different forms, so strategies for managing it can look different for everyone.
What can cause ongoing stress?
“One of the most common sources of stress is feeling like we are not good enough,” Schuman says. “Other significant stressors include difficult interactions with others, not having enough minutes in the day, feeling like there isn’t enough money, being a parent, work stress, and missing loved ones during celebrations and holidays.”
Each person’s combination of life experiences and genetics also leads us to react differently to sources of stress. Strong responses to stress are often linked to past experiences of traumatic events and neglect or abuse during childhood. The more times traumatic events are experienced during childhood, the greater the effects on the adult immune system and health.
How do coping and stress management differ?
It can also be hard to know the difference between healthy stress management and coping mechanisms that allow you to keep treading water—yet cause other problems.
“Sometimes our go-to coping mechanisms actually increase our stress over the long-term,” Schuman says. “For example, people reach for alcohol because we feel like we earned it after a hard day. We also tend to isolate ourselves, thinking we need to figure out all our own problems. Both of these stress our bodies more.”
Schuman’s top list for self-care to productively manage stress
- Spend time with people you enjoy
- Plan for healthy food that is easy to make or eat
- Plan for 6 to 8 glasses of water per day
- Abstain from electronics within two hours of bedtime
- Allow for 8 hours of sleep at night and use a consistent bedtime
- Plan for time outside, including activities such as walking, hiking, and exploring
- Walk for 20 minutes a day, and if possible, before noon
- If you are used to regular exercise, make sure you maintain your regular schedule
- Allow time for quiet activities, reading, listening to music, puzzles, hobbies, and enjoyable activities
- Allow time for fun activities
- Volunteer some time in your community
Compassionate self-awareness can go a long way in managing and reducing stress. Schuman explains this means being mindful of your negative thoughts and self-talk, replacing them with neutral, constructive, or positive thoughts.
“It’s important to make sure your thoughts and self-talk are supported by feedback and evidence from the world,” Schuman says. “If you find yourself having reoccurring unhelpful or negative thoughts, it’s time to work toward building more balanced thoughts. It’s so important to take time every day to reflect on the good parts of our world and how we want to build on those. Only you have control over where you focus your attention and flashlight.”
Sources
Morey, J. N., Boggero, I. A., Scott, A. B., & Segerstrom, S. C. (2015). Current Directions in Stress and Human Immune Function. Current opinion in psychology. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4465119/
Segerstrom, S. C., & Miller, G. E. (2004). Psychological stress and the human immune system: a meta-analytic study of 30 years of inquiry. Psychological bulletin https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1361287/
Gilbert LK, Breiding MJ, Merrick MT, Thompson WW, Ford DC, Dhingra SS, Parks SE. Childhood adversity and adult chronic disease: an update from ten states and the District of Columbia, 2010. Am J Prev Med. 2015 Mar; https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25300735/
Stress and your health. U.S. Department of Health & Human Services. https://www.womenshealth.gov/mental-health/good-mental-health/stress-and-your-health. Accessed December 7, 2023.
Stress effects on the body. American Psychological Association. https://www.apa.org/topics/stress/body. Accessed December 7, 2023