Ep 161: Is Your Stress Response Stuck “On”? Signs Your Nervous System Needs Help
Dr. Laura Hanson
I’m talking about stress today and why you actually need some in your life! Things like exercise and handling daily challenges are good stress, but when you feel completely wiped out after a workout, that’s your body waving a red flag that it’s overwhelmed.
Picture your stress response like a thermostat – it should kick in when needed, fix the problem, then turn off. But when it’s stuck “on” all the time, it eventually breaks down. That’s what happens with chronic stress – blood flow gets redirected away from your digestion and the thinking part of your brain, sending everything to your arms and legs for fight-or-flight mode.
And this can actually start at birth! The stress reflex that helps babies through delivery can get stuck if there’s birth trauma or stress during pregnancy. Those babies who won’t sleep, have reflux, or seem constantly worked up? They might be stuck in this pattern from day one.
The scary part is if no one helps reset this, kids can carry these patterns through childhood and even into adulthood!
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Full Transcript
Introduction to Stress and Healthy Demand 0:00
Hi everybody, it's Dr. Bora, connecting the dots. Truth bombs! Okay, let's dive in. So, I want to focus today on the concept of stress, alright? You need a little stress in your life. Exercise is a good stress. Taking care of life in general is a good stress, but absolutely things can become very overwhelming. If you ever feel like you're exhausted after you exercise, that is the red flag telling you that your autonomic nervous system cannot keep up with the demand. And the other demands that we have that our autonomic nervous system is going to care for is our body temperature.
It is how we're gonna be able to sleep, how are we gonna to be to digest, How we are gonna able relax and unwind.
How Chronic Stress Affects the Body 0:53
and all these things fall under that category of a typical stress response. Think of the stress-response as an air conditioner. If I set my air-conditioner at 70, if the room gets up to 71, the air conditioners should kick on and then drop the temperature in the rooms and stop. if that doesn't do it in that kind of pattern and it stays on, and it stays on, and eventually what's going to happen to that air conditioning unit? It's gonna break down. So think about stress impacting you on a chronic basis and what is it going do to your body?
When you have a stress response, while it is normal, if it goes into that chronic pattern, We are changing the blood flow to our gut.
Stress Response and the Moro Reflex in Infants 1:51
We're changing to the front of our brain, known as the frontal lobe or executive function, our ability to reason and think and plan. and I need to either fight or I needs to run. Okay, so that's a basic response. Now I want to walk you back to the world of children. When you come into the world, that stress response is literally part of the driving of a birth process. It's known as the moro reflex. That moror reflex is going to activate three things in our central nervous system.
Developmental Effects of Early Stress Imbalance 2:56
The ability to wake up, our wake and sleep cycle. It's CO2 and O2, the balance of oxygen and CO 2 in the body. And the third thing is the sympathetic nervous system. When you're born, it really slows everything down so that you can go through the transition of birth. But if that birth was interrupted, or if there was something that went on during your pregnancy that created any kind of trauma, or fear response or uneasiness. I mean, the list is endless. Little babies can get stuck in either a fear paralysis kind of a pattern or an over aroused kind a of pattern, meaning their system is just up all the time.
This may be the little baby that can't sleep. It's more like a catnapper. this is maybe the baby with acid reflux. Now, there's so many more to that. but wonder if it stays that way for that child and nobody reverses that pattern. That means that trial goes through all of their developmental windows under the influence of an imbalance in the stress response, in an in-balance in a fight or flight thought pattern, everything gets changed. The gut maturation gets change, the immune system gets changes, how the senses come on board, they get changed, and these children, get locked in these patterns.
This can go on, this can on until you're in your teens or even your adulthood. And if we get stuck in these patterns, it is absolutely imperative that we Get on the other side. Check out Connect My Brain and let us show you how we can get you to the Other Side.
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