Building a healthy life includes avoiding acute, unrelenting stress. Stress from your job can leave you feeling trapped; if you don’t do a good job, you lose your income. If you do fulfill all requirements, your workload will go up. It’s a good idea to think of work stress as a physical weight. Enough can make you stronger, but too much will tear up your joints and be detrimental to your health over time.

Hormonal Impact of Excess Work Stress

Cortisol levels

Normal cortisol production is high in the morning. In fact, about half the cortisol your body produces under healthy levels of stress is produced in the first two hours of the day.

Normal cortisol production is critical to healthy glucose levels and quality sleep. The problem with cortisol comes up when your level stays high all day. Cortisol is instrumental in the fight-or-flight response. If you avoid missing a wild animal while driving to work, the cortisol spike may leave you shaky for a short time.

Once you get to the office, unmanageable levels of stress can elevate cortisol production. This constant cortisol exposure can have a negative impact on your heart and may even shorten your life.

Cellular damage

Our cells are constantly replicating, but as we age, this replication process produces limited results. Hair loses pigment, skin loses elasticity, and muscles lose mass. Telomeres, or the caps on our chromosomes, shorten each time our cells replicate.

If you’re under a lot of stress, this shortening process accelerates. The gap grows larger. Tissues that were once firm become slack. Hair that was dark becomes gray or white. Effective stress management can lessen the expansion of the gap within our cells. With time and a steady reduction of stress, this damage can be repaired by the body.

Hormone imbalance

High levels of work stress can do a number on your sleeping patterns. You may struggle to fall into deep sleep, so the cleansing of the brain and the healthy hormone release that happens in the deepest levels of sleep may be shortened.

Adults produce HGH throughout their lives, but proper sleep is critical for a regular, healthy release. If you’ve had a physical to find out why you’re so tired and still can’t sleep, your bloodwork may indicate that a visit to an HGH clinic for supplemental HGH may be in order.

Searching for an HGH clinic near me doesn’t mean that you’re planning to become an irascible bodybuilder. Quality HGH supplementation can only be given after you’ve had the necessary bloodwork. There are a variety of dosage options once you get your prescription. Whether you get your HGH online or from your doctor, you’ll need regular bloodwork to make sure that your supplementation routine is bringing low HGH back to normal levels and no higher.

Inflammation

It’s tempting to think of inflammation as it relates to physical pain. If you twist your ankle on the stairs and it swells up, it also hurts. However, high levels of stress can cause inflammation that isn’t visible or related to bruising.

A high-stress job and excessive cortisol production can cause internal inflammation. This can make your heart work harder and increase your blood pressure, which will take a toll on your primary organs.

High-stress employment can also leave people looking for comfort or escape. If your candy bar break takes you away from toxic co-workers, you’ll crave sugar. If your cigarette break gives you peace of mind, you’ll crave a smoke.

Aging

If you watched your parents struggle with difficult, stressful jobs, you may view your current situation as normal. If your childhood included fear and trauma, this level of work stress may not feel any different from what you knew.

All forms of stress can cause premature aging. Not addressing childhood trauma and taking work stress as simply part of the cost of being an adult can shave years off your life.

How to Defend Yourself from Stress?

Stress management techniques

Simple stress management techniques are available to make it possible to protect your body and brain, even while you’re at work. If you have a boss who’s a yeller, get a good pair of headphones. If headphones aren’t allowed, get earplugs.

When you do get a break, get outside. Go for a short walk or go stand under a tree. Try to clear your mind. If your mind does start to go down the rabbit hole of the next problem, guide it back gently.

Regular exercise

Because normal cortisol production is high in the morning, it’s a good idea to try to move your body in the morning. Take the dog for a long walk, or put on a reflective vest and go by yourself. If you’re not keen on gyms, just gear up for the current weather and move.

Try to move after each meal as well. Stress can be incredibly hard on your digestive tract. Moving after you eat will allow you to burn off some glucose and support the movement of food through the gut.

If possible, don’t exercise before bed. Letting your body wind down is key to good sleep. Exercising at the right time is crucial to brain health, as is sleep.

Balanced diet

Do your best to fight the craving for comfort food by meal planning. Being hungry and stressed out seldom leads anyone to the salad bar. When you have some downtime at home, do some batch cooking so you have a healthy option waiting for you at the end of a long day.

Adequate sleep

Set your bedroom up for sleep first. Keep it dark and cool. If work stress makes it hard to wind down at the end of the day, do your best to avoid bright light. Turn off the television an hour before bed and use only low-power lamps or even candles to let your brain relax in semi-darkness.

Work stress can be fought. If you’re actively looking for another job, pour your work-stress energy into the search. Use music and audiobooks to stop thinking about work issues you can’t control. Eat well and do your best to get enough sleep.