Healthy Approaches to Dealing with Stress
Neuroscientists say that a “healthy lifestyle” is perhaps the most effective prescriptions for dealing with chronic stress.
Published June 1, 2003
By Jeffrey Penn
Academy Contributors

Feeling stressed out? Anxious? Frustrated and angry? Looking for a way out?
Some significant advances in the neurosciences are revealing that stress is actually a complex relationship of internal and external factors, and that some relatively simple lifestyle changes can contribute to a sense of well being and improve health.
“A healthy lifestyle is the best way to reduce stress,” according to Bruce S. McEwen, head of the Harold and Margaret Milliken Hatch Laboratory of Neuroendocrinology at the Rockefeller University in New York and co-author of the recently published The End of Stress As We Know It (Joseph Henry Press).
The notion that stress is the result of external pressures is incomplete, said McEwen, who summarized his book during a March 18 lecture at The New York Academy of Sciences (the Academy). Research now reveals how the body’s defense mechanisms are involved in keeping stress at bay, as well as how the body’s defense system breaks down from time to time.
When the body is working properly, a process known as “allostasis” helps individuals adapt to and survive the real or imagined threats that confront them in the course of everyday life. McEwen explained that the allostasis process is maintained by a complex network – including hormones, the autonomic nervous system, neurotransmitters in the brain, and chemicals in the immune system – in the body.
“When this network is working efficiently, its activity helps to mobilize energy reserves, promote efficient cardiovascular function, enhance memory of important events and enhance the immune defense towards pathogens,” McEwen said. Normally, the body is able to self-regulate the proper responses to external pressures, but occasionally it reaches a limit known as “allostatic overload.”

External Stress Factors
Many external pressures can contribute to allostatic overload, according to McEwen, such as conflicts at work or home, fears about war and terrorism, overworking, lack of sleep, economic difficulties, lack of exercise, excessive drinking and bad eating habits. Genetic risk factors, such as a predisposition for cardiovascular disease or diabetes, can also contribute to allostatic overload.
“If the imbalances in the body’s regulatory network persist over long periods of time, the result can lead to disease,” McEwen said. “Hardening of the arteries, arthritis, diabetes, obesity, depressive illness and certain types of memory loss are among the disorders that are accelerated by allostatic overload,” he added. He cited research indicating that long-term stress also affects the amygdala and the hippocampus, the regions of the brain that regulate fear, emotions and memory.
According to McEwen, “genes, early development, and life experiences all contribute to determining how the brain responds to environmental stresses.” Research has revealed that external factors in society also can influence health and disease commonly related to stress.

“In industrialized societies, allostatic overload occurs with increasing frequency at lower levels of education and income,” McEwen noted. He pointed out that mortality rates and levels of diseases associated with allostatic load are much higher among people in lower socioeconomic status. “A combination of lifestyle, perceptions of inequality and stressful life experiences appear to play a role,” he said.
Best Antidote: Healthy Lifestyle
What can be done to reduce allostatic load and the stress associated with it? Changes in lifestyle are the best remedy, according to McEwen. “Maintaining social ties with friends and family is one of the most important factors in reducing stress,” he said. “In addition, restorative sleep, and regular, moderate exercise are all important,” he added. “Regular, moderate exercise not only increases muscle utilization of energy, but also enhances formation of new nerve cells in areas of the brain that support memory.”
McEwen said that, in addition to individual responses to counteract allostatic overload and reduce stress, the private sector and policy makers also can contribute to well-being. “Government policies that recognize the impact of inequality, promote comprehensive health care and reduce smoking, and provide housing and community services are also very important,” he said.
Stress reduction is not only critical for individuals, he added, but for the health and welfare of the wider society as well. “By 2020, depression will be the second-leading cause of disease in this country,” he concluded.
Also read: Mental Health in Children and Adolescents