I’m writing this post as I slowly recover from being sick. These days I don’t get anywhere near half as sick as I used to when I was a full-time, completely stressed out teacher.
For the most part, I’ve turned a corner and now I get the odd cold a couple of times a year, which is to be expected given how many bugs us teachers are exposed to in the classroom.
But in my first year of teaching, I seemed to be taking about a week off each month due to recurrent respiratory illnesses, and possible glandular fever. They say that in your first year of teaching, you get hit with every new bug under the sun, and your tolerance is low initially, so constantly being sick is a given. Yet this amount of sickness seemed extreme.
I was also a complete stress-bucket in those early years, having not yet mastered my tendency towards perfectionism and over-working (work in progress). At the time, I didn’t know anything about the impact stress has on the immune system, and if I’d known then what I know now, I may still be a happy and healthy, thriving full-time kaiako (teacher).
What I know now about the impact of stress on the body, mind and brain sheds new light on my then chronic sickness. And gives me an incredible new respect for our body, mind and brain, which is doing all it can to protect us from threats and dangers.
I recently attended a weekend workshop on Insight Focussed Neuro Therapy, led by Pauline Skeates and Sandy Fabrin, my counsellor. The workshop filled my mind with fascinating knowledge about the brain, stress, trauma, the nervous system and the body, and reinforced my current understanding about stress from my yoga and massage training.
Without going into too much brain-numbing detail, I’ll attempt to simplify some of my key takeaways about what stress is really doing to us.
We may have heard of the 2 key stress hormones that are released when we feel stressed: adrenaline (or epinephrine) and cortisol, both released from the adrenal glands. Adrenaline, spikes in high stress environments, while cortisol has a slow burning effect and is responsible for the management of inflammation, blood pressure, blood sugar and energy levels amongst other important bodily functions.
Back in the day, when we encountered some serious danger, say a wolf in our cave, our brain would send signals to our adrenal glands to release massive amounts of these hormones in order to protect us.
The adrenaline makes our heart beat faster and causes our blood pressure to rise, which gives us more energy to fight the wolf or to escape. The classic fight or flight response.
Cortisol on the other hand, dumps a whole lot of glucose, or blood sugar into the bloodstream so that we have even more energy to either fight or flight.
Cortisol releases anti-inflammatory cells which can help to protect against tissue damage in case the wolf bites us.
It also slows down functions in the body that would be non-essential in a survival situation.
For example, there is no need to waste energy on digestion while fighting a wolf, so the digestive process is slowed way down, or put on hold till you are in a safe situation again. IBS (irritable bowel syndrome) sound familiar?
It’s also not a safe time to conceive a child in the middle of a wolf chase, so the reproductive system and growth processes are also suppressed until the coast is clear. Great for when there is a real wolf, and not so great when you are trying to conceive in stressful times. Trust me!
This miraculous system was designed to keep our ancestors alive and well during a simpler, yet more life-threateningly dangerous time. And as our lives have become increasingly more complex, our stress-response system has stayed exactly the same.
But Instead of the wolf in the cave, it’s the millions of emails awaiting you after a lovely holiday.
It’s the dozens of notifications or little red badges on your phone.
It’s commuting in traffic.
It’s a colleague being nasty or passive-aggressive.
It’s your children getting into trouble at school.
It’s the daily news.
And instead of our alarm system going back to baseline once the threat has passed, we can find ourselves in a state of feeling mildly or seriously stressed, most of the time.
So without trying to scare you, when we experience chronic stress, our bodies and minds become hurt in these ways:
It can be difficult to think, learn or access long-term memories as cortisol interferes with the lines of communication between brain cells (Van der Kolk).
High cortisol levels inhibit cell repair and kill brain cells (Childre & Martin, 2000).
Wound repair takes longer when relationship stress is elevated (Gouin & Kiecolt-Glaser, 2011)
Cortisol increases fat accumulation around the waist, and makes weight loss more difficult (Jackson, Kirschbaum, Steptoe, 2017)
Cortisol can reduce muscle mass and bone density.
Acute stress initially activates the immune response, but chronic stress can lead to systemic inflammation which can increase the risk of chronic diseases (Morey, Boggero, Scott, Segerstrom, 2015).
Chronic stress has been linked to shortened telomere length (DNA), which is used as a measure of biological ageing (Yen & Lung, 2013).
Excessive cortisol can interfere with new skin cell production.
Teaching is, without a doubt, the most stressful job I have ever done, but within my scope as a wellness massage therapist, I see people from all walks of life who are also struggling with chronic stress. It seems to be a modern epidemic.
A lot of this research explains why myself and some of my fellow teachers seem to feel and look older than we actually are. Why we tend to get sick and stay sick more often than the general population. And why we m
ay struggle to lose weight despite all our best efforts.
Awareness is at the heart of transformation.
Now that we know what stress is really doing to our bodies and minds, we have even more of a reason to deliberately reduce our stress levels, and get our health and vitality back.
Here are some tools which could help:
Find a local yoga or tai chi class to do some gentle, mindful movements.
Take regular pauses between activities to just breathe and focus on the breath.
Try vagus nerve breathing: Breathing in for 4, hold for 5, out for 6. Lengthening the exhale switches on the parasympathetic nervous system, which dampens the stress response.
Spend time in nature. So simple, but so powerful.
Try yoga nidra, a short, powerful guided meditation to reset the nervous system. Here is my own 20 min recording.
Book a relaxation or deep tissue massage. Massage is thought to reduce stress by initiating the parasympathetic nervous system, and switching off the sympathetic (fight/flight) mode.
As a post-burnout teacher and massage therapist, I have spent the past 5 years recovering from and learning about chronic stress, and it is now my greatest pleasure to empower others in their journey of reclaiming their lives from the grips of stress, anxiety and burnout.
Please reach out if you think I could be of help.
xx Laura