Pros and cons of the 'fight flight' response
Your car goes into a skid on an icy freeway. Your heart is pounding. Your hands are shaking. Your muscles are tense. Your breathing is shallow. All your senses have shifted into overdrive, alert to avoid a crash or the ditch. These are the outward symptoms of your body's reaction to sudden stress and they may have saved your life.
Caused by a rush of adrenaline and other hormones coursing through your body, your blood pressure rises. Your liver is busy converting sugar into energy, lowering blood sugar levels. Digestion slows as blood is shunted from the intestines to the muscles and limbs making them ready to fight or run.
Researchers have even determined that the blood's clotting factor increases when exposed to stress. So potent is this "adrenaline rush" that a form of adrenaline is injected in life-threatening allergic reactions to prevent anaphylactic shock*.
Is adrenaline good for you?
Yes.
After the skid on the icy freeway, you're still in one piece, and you won't need to file an insurance claim. But you may need to pull over and get out of the car to stand beside it with shaking limbs and draw in a few deep breaths of fresh cold air as you try to calm down. Since the important thing now is to relax, the instinctive urge to breathe deeply, a common relaxation technique, is just what your body needs.
The stress response may have just saved your life.
And, no.
On the other hand, those who suffer from heart disease or chronic hypertension may be in more danger from their bodies' response to adrenaline than they were from the danger itself. The rise in blood pressure, the effect on heart rhythm and the increase in clotting factors are some of the main causes of severe reactions to sudden stress.
Some people survive a pile-on collision, only to collapse later of a heart attack or stroke. People suffering from low blood sugar or diabetes may become faint or go into insulin shock from the sudden shift in blood sugar levels following an adrenaline rush.
But for most of us, the real danger from stress comes when stress becomes the norm in our lives. Long-term stress is so damaging that it is estimated that over 80% of all illness is related to ongoing stress. Learn to recognize the causes and symptoms of stress.
*Anaphylatic shock: acute respiratory distress and life-threatening changes in circulation.
