22: Stuck in Overdrive: What chronic stress does to your health
In This Issue
Quick Takes: How chronic stress keeps the nervous system stuck in overdrive, how inflammation connects stress to health, and why August is a good time to slow down.
Community Buzz: The surprising ways lack of sleep leads to loneliness and social withdrawal. Plus, members' product finds for outdoor safety.
Company Updates: Nutrition goal setting & tracking is now part of your membership, with food logging app integration.
Quick Takes
Timely topics & highlights from content we've enjoyed
Stuck in Overdrive: What chronic stress does to your body
There is a particular kind of exhaustion that comes from always being “on.” There is work to do, kids to care for, parents to check in on, messages to answer, and appointments to remember. Even when the day gets quiet, your phone is buzzing and your mind is already running through tomorrow. Relaxing can feel surprisingly difficult.
The drive, vigilance, and constant anticipation that may have helped you build a successful life can also keep your nervous system in an activated state.
The nervous system is not designed for this
Your autonomic nervous system works behind the scenes to regulate things like heart rate, digestion, breathing, and immune activity. It has two branches:
The sympathetic nervous system is your accelerator. It is designed for short bursts of activation, increasing focus, heart rate, blood flow, muscle performance, and alertness so you can respond to a challenge. In the right doses, this stress response is healthy. It helps you perform, adapt, and build resilience.
The parasympathetic nervous system is your brake. This is the “rest, digest, repair” state, when heart rate and blood pressure come down, digestion is supported, breathing slows, and the body can direct energy toward recovery and repair.
We need both. The goal isn’t to eliminate stress, but to move between activation and recovery. The problem is that modern life can keep your foot on the accelerator long after the immediate challenge has passed. The threat may be very different from a predator, but the demands of a busy life can still send your nervous system the same message: stay alert; it's not safe to relax.
The inflammatory response
This is the mechanism that connects “feeling stressed” to measurable changes in the body. When the sympathetic nervous system and stress response remain activated, chronic stress signals the bone marrow to increase production of inflammatory immune cells and cytokines, including TNF-alpha and IL-6. These inflammatory signals circulate throughout the body and, over time, can contribute to tissue and organ damage. The problem arises when stress persists and the inflammatory response becomes chronically activated.
As this continues, inflammation begins to interfere with the body’s normal mechanisms that would normally restore balance. The result is a self-reinforcing cycle: chronic stress drives inflammation, inflammation contributes to further physiological dysfunction, and that dysfunction can keep the stress response activated, resulting in even more inflammation.
The cardiovascular system is particularly vulnerable. Chronic exposure to stress hormones can increase resting heart rate and blood pressure, while contributing to arterial stiffness and dysfunction of the lining of the blood vessels,, placing additional strain on the heart over time. The left ventricle can remodel and thicken in response to sustained pressure, and this can lead to fibrosis and eventually greater susceptibility to arrhythmias.
The metabolic system is affected as well and creates another vicious cycle. Persistently elevated stress hormones can keep blood glucose higher, which drives increased insulin secretion. Insulin promotes fat storage, including visceral fat around the organs. Unlike subcutaneous fat, visceral fat is metabolically active and releases inflammatory cytokines of its own. These signals can worsen insulin resistance, making the body require even more insulin to maintain glucose control, perpetuating this cycle of inflammation and stress.
The brain experiences its own form of remodeling under chronic stress. Sustained exposure to stress hormones can impair the function of the prefrontal cortex, the area involved in focus, decision-making, working memory, and impulse control. At the same time, elevated cortisol can negatively affect the hippocampus, a region critical for learning and memory. Meanwhile, chronic stress strengthens the brain’s threat circuitry, including the amygdala, making it faster to detect and respond to perceived threats. In other words, the brain can gradually shift away from executive function and toward reaction.
This is why chronic stress is not simply a psychological experience. Over time, it can influence cardiovascular, metabolic, immune, and neurological function through changes in the nervous, hormonal, and immune systems, including chronic low-grade inflammation.
Importantly, inflammation can be measured with blood work, and many of the factors that influence it can be modified through sleep, exercise, nutrition, stress regulation, and other lifestyle interventions.
Why August Is the Right Time to Notice This
August tends to be one of the few potential "down-times" in the year. School isn’t back yet, the fall push hasn’t started, and meetings often thin out.
Treat this window as an opportunity. Before the September acceleration begins, give your nervous system a break from sympathetic dominance. Rest can help your body do its repair work and interrupt the inflammatory loop. A few simple ways to practice this: walk outside without your phone, journal, meditate, or practice breathwork. Notice the sun, the sounds of nature, and if you can, enjoy the simple pleasure of boredom!
Community Buzz
Highlights from Benchmark's community
More tired, more lonely 😴
Could lack of sleep drive loneliness? A 2018 study suggests that sleep deprivation can lead to greater social withdrawal and loneliness, and even trigger loneliness in others. In the experiment, 18 healthy adults completed two conditions: a normal night’s sleep, and a night of total sleep deprivation. Researchers found that after sleep deprivation, the subjects chose to maintain more physical distance from others than after a normal night’s sleep. This was independent of anxiety or mood.
Then, more than 1,000 judges viewed and rated the subjects' recorded interviews after each condition. Judges rated participants significantly lonelier in their sleep-deprived state vs. when well-rested. They also reported less desire to interact and collaborate with the sleep-deprived subjects. The judges even rated themselves as feeling lonelier after viewing a video of a sleep-deprived participant.
Lack of sleep can impair the brain’s ability to interpret social cues, including making us hypersensitive to another’s approach, and less able to understand another person’s intent. Given what we know about the importance of social connection to our health and wellbeing, this is yet another reason to prioritize quality sleep.
Safe in the sun, safe on the run 😎
Members shared two interesting product finds to help you stay safe outdoors. While you're soaking up the sun and replenishing your Vitamin D, Barriere's Burn Notice UV sensor stickers can help you avoid getting too much of a good thing. Apply these clear stickers to your skin, and watch as they transform to reveal a design after a certain amount of UV exposure. When you see the design appear, it's time to reapply sunscreen.
To help you stay safe while running, The RunSafePro vest, launching soon on Kickstarter, has clever features to protect you from common dangers. Not only does it keep you visible with reflective details and an auto-adjusting light, but its radar detects nearby cars and cyclists and alerts you to potential threats with lights and vibration. It also has a GPS panic button and a check-in system to alert your contacts to your location in an emergency. If you're looking for more peace of mind while running, this is one to watch.
Testing, testing... 🕵️♂️
Now that the Benchmark app supports just about any wearable, we get a lot of questions about which wearable is best. The answer is, it depends on your priorities and preferences. The good news is that many more options are hitting the market. Sam shared a fantastic site called DC Rainmaker that provides independent reviews that go into great detail on the features and tradeoffs of every model. If you're considering a purchase, consult this site.
We also discovered a resource for independent reviews of food, skincare and everyday products called Oasis. This mobile app evaluates product ingredients (and contaminants) for health and safety. For example, it recently released a report on protein bars; the brands that topped their list for "cleanest" ingredients included: Jacob, Prima, Promix, Lineage, and Once Upon a Farm.
Company Updates
The latest & greatest from Benchmark HQ
NEW Membership Feature: Nutrition Tracking: You can now set goals for your nutritional targets, such as daily fibre and protein targets, and track your progress directly in your Benchmark Dashboard by connecting a food logging app like Cronometer or MyFitnessPal through the Benchmark app.
Membership features continue to expand and improve over time; stay tuned for more updates. Explore memberships here, and while you're at it, you can check out our brand new website! Let us know what you think.
NOTE: This newsletter is informational only; it is not medical advice. We have no stake in the products or brands we highlight here.
