Chronic stress

That's when the problems really arise.

Yeah, and it's the real paradox of chronic stress.

So the hormone that should be calming inflammation, it kind of loses its grip.

So you're inflamed and under defended all at once.

This episode is for firefighters, police officers, EMTs and paramedics, active duty military personnel, veterans, and the people who love them.

But I also believe today's discussion applies to anyone who has spent years living under chronic stress.

First responders give us an extraordinary opportunity to understand what repeated stress can do to the human body.

But the underlying biology applies to all of us.

If you're struggling with trauma, depression, substance abuse, suicidal thoughts, or another mental health concern, please reach out to a qualified healthcare or mental health professional.

The strategies we're going to discuss later can support general health and recovery, but they are not substitutes for appropriate professional treatment.

Today, we're going to explore why becoming accustomed to stress doesn't necessarily protect your body from it, what repeated stress can do to cortisol and the body's stress response system, why shift work and poor sleep can affect much more than your energy, how chronic stress and PTSD can influence immune, cardiovascular, metabolic, and cellular health, what researchers are learning about brain chemistry, brain waste clearance, and lymphatic drainage, and most importantly, how we can become better at recovery.

But before we get into the science, I want to begin with an event that reminds us why long-term first responder health matters so much.

And you just saying the truth of it's a little things over time that you compiled, which, okay, this is my whole thing.

I call it chronic stress.

And so we have the stress curve and chronic stress leads to burnout at the end, at the bottom of that But that doesn't mean that stress does nothing to you.

Before you get to burnout, that chronic stress load is bringing on this constant fatigue.

It's bringing on exhaustion, emotional exhaustion, compassion fatigue, anxiety, anger, where you snap at your family when you get home from work.

Those are signs.

And so I want to go on your specific symptoms that you had because you even said, you know, there's some physical things that I've had happen to my body.

Yeah.

And today we are going to revisit for the, I don't know how many times we've talked about this subject, but we're going back to it.

Chronic stress and anxiety, the number one issue that I deal with every single day and have been probably for the last 20 years of the 25 years I've been working on this.

Why? Well, look at our society.

Look at modern Western culture, especially in the U.S.

But in our society, they just keep coming.

Stressor after stressor after stressor.

And so we get into this state where this constant state of chronic stress.

And if that goes on long enough, we can start feeling like we're out of control of our lives.

And so I'm so grateful for that, to have someone else out there that is doing that kind of thing and that kind of work.

I'm thinking a lot about my past patients and how – You know, a lot of it stems from chronic stress, chronic just stinking thinking, you know, the whole kind of what you're talking about, the spiral.

But let's talk about chronic stress because it is an epidemic, if you will.

And this is going to probably allow you to tap into really what you're passionate about and what you're working on right now because stress is a big culprit.

It is.

It is by now one of the most replicated findings in trauma research.

Dr. Bessel van der Kolk's landmark work has documented in clinical and imaging studies that chronic stress and trauma produce measurable physiological changes in the brain, in the gut, in the immune system, in the cardiovascular system.

The adverse childhood experiences study, which we have referenced before, has been replicated dozens of times around the world.

The conclusion is consistent.