Stress Control: Techniques for Preventing and Easing Stress

Prepared by the editors of the Harvard Health Letter in consultation Herbert Benson, M.D., Mind/Body Medical Institute Associate Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School; Alice D. Domar, Ph.D., Director of the Mind/Body Center for Women's Health at Boston IVF; and Ichiro Kawachi, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School.

Stress and its toll on your body

Intuitively, the stress response makes sense. It allows us to rise to occasions and events that reward heightened awareness and abilities. You see a bus rushing toward you and the surge of adrenaline helps you sprint out of its path far faster than you normally move. The stress hormones that spilled into your bloodstream at the sight of the bus found the perfect physical outlet.

But experience tells us obvious dangers are not the only scenarios that elicit that response. Any situation you perceive as threatening may do the same. That's where the trouble starts. Your body does a poor job of distinguishing between life-threatening events and day-to-day stressful situations. Anger or anxiety triggered by less momentous sources of stress, such as financial fears or traffic jams, doesn't find a quick physical release and tends to build up as the day rolls on. Anticipation of potential problems, which might include anxiety brought on by government warnings of terrorist activity, or more personal worry stemming from awaiting medical results, adds to the turmoil.

When your body repeatedly launches the stress response or when a heightened state of arousal following a terrible trauma is never fully switched off, worrisome health problems can occur. A prime example of this is consistently high blood pressure, which plays a major role in heart disease. Another is suppression of the immune system, which increases susceptibility to common illnesses like colds.

It's impossible to sidestep all sources of stress, nor would you want to. Our lives are full of physical and psychological challenges, which add zest to life and sometimes deliver satisfying rewards. But while you can't easily erase certain sources of stress, you can learn to perceive and respond to them differently.