Stress vs Eustress
Stress is a general term we use when summing up the kind of thoughts and feelings that seem to have a direct, negative effect on our health. Is it always good practice to prioritize reducing stress? Minimizing unhealthy stress response is an essential holistic healing approach, however it is also important to note the difference between unhealthy stress and good stress. Good stress, or “eustress”, can be activated in moments of challenge to boost your innate anti-aging, healing and optimal gene expression. While it may be beneficial to lower overall stress levels, sometimes it is better to focus only on lowering them at certain times of day. In some cases, it is more beneficial to actually support higher levels of the main hormone associated with stress – cortisol – to support daily metabolic demands, healthy response to adrenaline spikes, or resilience during seasons in life where prolonged exposure to stress is unavoidable.
Adrenaline and cortisol are the two main “stress” hormones. Adrenaline, also known as epinephrine, is produced in the adrenal medulla and central nervous system neurons. The main function of adrenaline is to send energy to your muscles, heart and lungs, while dulling pain receptors, during a fight-or-flight response. This is designed to increase your chances of survival and is normally released only when a threat is present.
Cortisol is produced by the adrenal cortex and is the main stress hormone released for daily biological functions. A healthy cortisol level prepares the body to respond appropriately to adrenaline, ensuring we are neither overwhelmed nor complacent when a risk or threat is present. Optimal cortisol levels are relatively high after waking and slowly lower through the day, to support healthy sleep cycles, energy levels, metabolism, immunity, inflammatory response and hormone production. Without testing, it’s more difficult to know if your cortisol levels are elevated or lowered, especially at specific times throughout the day. How can you be sure if cortisol needs to be lowered, supported and/or rebalanced? A functional lab like the DUTCH (Dried Urine Test for Comprehensive Hormones) can reveal your cortisol levels at four separate times during the day, so you can employ specific techniques to target your unique issues.
In lieu of testing, there are other ways to gage stress levels and support them appropriately. If you are experiencing any acute mental or physical health symptoms recently – pain, anxiety, digestive, inflammatory, etc, you may have increased overall stress levels. If you feel these symptoms at certain times of day, take note and use these times to do stress lowering activities. On the other hand, do you have a history of prolonged illness or stress, acute or otherwise, that used to make you feel anxious, but now makes you feel more tired? Are you recovering from a past mental or physical trauma and now feel exhausted regardless of how much sleep you get? If so, take note of when you feel this way through the day, because you may need to do activities that help raise eustress levels to promote recovery and resilience.
An easy way to rebalance cortisol levels that may be all over the place is to add in low doses of adaptogenic herbs – like reishi mushroom or ashwagandha – into your morning or nighttime beverages. Also, noting if you feel either overly anxious or tired at certain times of day, and taking that time to do deep, slow diaphragm breathing for 1-2 minutes can help gently activate your homeostatic stress response.
After waking to midday is when cortisol is supposed to be at its highest, so if you feel lower energy during this time, try scheduling in 10 minutes of eustress promoting positive challenges that trigger feelings of satisfaction, motivation, and empowerment. The challenge can be mental, like learning a new skill, or physical, like building muscle through weight lifting. Another effective way to increase energy during this time would be doing energetic exercises like Bellow’s breathing, dynamic visual meditation or listening to music with isochronic tones. Studies also show that listening to your preferred “uplifting” music, regardless of genre, can promote eustress.
From late afternoon until nighttime, your cortisol should gradually reduce, so if you feel a spike in anxiety during this time, doing calming, cortisol lowering activities is recommended. This can involve a few minutes of 4-7-8 breathing, a relaxing meditation or gentle stretching exercise. Studies show that classical structured music with no lyrics has the most overall relaxing effect. Diffusing essential oils like lavender, chamomile and bergamot in your room at night may also help lower cortisol levels.
The above suggestions are gentle approaches that can be used if you have little to no information about your personal health stats and are just using anecdotal observation. If you want a more intensive approach, functional labs and/or working directly with a professional is recommended. This is especially true if you have acute symptoms or if your symptoms may be due in part to past traumatic experiences. As we go through life, there is an increasing chance we will experience some form of PTSD that chronically effects daily stress levels. If something in your current life is triggering PTSD from past trauma, then you may be experiencing elevated cortisol levels, but if is something that has caused prolonged stress over a long period of time, then you may have low cortisol levels and adrenal fatigue.
Although it is recommended to seek professional help, if you are unable or unwilling to at this time, there are still ways of addressing trauma safely at home. EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique) involves tapping in a specific sequence at acupuncture points while repeating triggering statements. This method modifies the response to statements that would normally induce a stress reaction. For things that are truly traumatic or hard to deal with, using phrases that are more detached or generalized from the specific event can be helpful to take some of the intensity out of the associated response. If you need more assistance, but would still like to approach these issues holistically, professional tools like Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing can be tremendously helpful.
Another general principle to consider is approaching stress from multiple angles gently, then increasing intensity as you build resilience. For instance, heat, cold and exercise therapies are beneficial, but if you are in an acute stage of stress or exhaustion, starting with exposure to slightly cooler and slightly warmer temperatures than normal, together with moderate exercise is the best way to start. Then you can gradually increase to more intense cold and heat exposure and more intense exercises according to your ability.
Everyone should consider stress regulation in their approach to holistic healing. Start by adding in several gentle approaches to stress regulation that are easy to incorporate into daily life. Gradually increase the intensity of techniques or therapeutics as you build resilience and learn more about your individual needs through self reflection, functional labs and/or working with a professional. Sometimes other seemingly unrelated aspects of health can be the main source of stress, but there are so many factors involved that going over them involves taking a comprehensive look at past personal and medical history, along with other functional labs aside from those directly related to cortisol levels. Soon, I will have an ebook/worksheet available for purchase that will: 1. help you take inventory on where you are in your health journey, 2. discover hidden factors underlying your stress, 3. use simple techniques to address stress now and 4. plan your next 6 months to 2 years of wellness care, depending on if you DIY or choose to seek out professional help in the future.