The Primal Mechanism: Stress vs Modern Age

Here's the annoying thing about stress: for us, it's a the cause of a whole host of problems. On the other hand, we need it and can't function without it. 

The problem is, stress is a primal mechanism, and we're trying to use it in a very 21st Century way. 

Stress isn't necessarily a bad thing. It's a very healthy mechanism - we need it to get us out of bed in the morning, to give us the impetus we need to get things done, the boost we need to get out of danger. 

Unfortunately, too much of it becomes counter-productive. 

Stress is as old as we are as a species: we were designed for primal living (running around, foraging, chasing wild animals), and, in common with other bodily functions, it hasn't moved on as quickly as our minds have intellectually. We live in an urban world, fraught with deadlines and with comparatively little exercise. Primally, the human body hasn't evolved in step with our lifestyles, and this leads to the malaise we see in ourselves and people all around us. 

It's hard to get your head around how long we've existed on this planet - I've struggled with the concept for years. Roughly, for every year that humans have been modern, we were primal for 700: that means that even if you take every year AD as "modern" (2014 as I write) we were around for 1,400,000 years before that, and that's assuming we were modern then. It makes the mind boggle to think of the changes we've made in the last 20 years alone, without thinking of the previous 50/100/200/300 years, when so many changes have been made, from a largely farming population, through the industrial revolution and into the modern age. 

Considering the above, living the life we do is still just a momentary speck on our timeline, and it's hardly surprising that the body hasn't caught up with us yet. Unfortunately, this leads to a distinct disconnect between the way we generate stress and its subsequent effects on the rest of the system. 

Stress was designed to provide a momentary response to stimulus: the boost to run away from a sabre tooth tiger (OK, that picture is of a snow leopard, probably in a zoo, but I would most definitely run if it thought I was dinner!). In that instance, a shot of cortisol and adrenaline would be released, and (hopefully) the danger would pass. The dispersal of cortisol in the blood would be speed by the physical activity associated with getting away from the danger, whether running, fighting or slaying the wild beast. 

In the modern world, we experience stress in a very different way. The momentary burst is replaced by ongoing, long term worries, fears anxieties around our modern life. Instead of dealing with a momentary fear, we deal with concerns about losing our job, hitting targets, meeting the mortgage payment at the end of the month. A momentary concern is replaced by long term worry, and cortisol levels respond accordingly. 

It's this long-term cortisol release which is the root of the problems we face. As I already outlined in previous posts, our endocrine system is one entity, with many hormones working in harmony with each other. Permanently elevating one hormone has an effect on the others, driving up some levels and driving others down. I discuss the effects of this elsewhere on the blog but in short, the result (for the population generally) is higher blood pressure, cardio-vascular disease, nervous breakdowns, depression, and for our group hormone imbalance, anxiety, and the endocrine distress which I've described.