How To Manage Chronic Stress With Functional Medicine 

If you’re looking to avoid stress, you’ve been born in the wrong era. Stress is an epidemic in our society. We are constantly moving faster and adding more to our plates than ever before. This leads to chronic stress, a condition that wreaks havoc on your body. It sounds grim, but hope is not lost. You can manage, and even reduce stress symptoms with functional medicine! 

 

Functional medicine aims to treat the whole person rather than simply addressing the complaint. This approach acknowledges the multi-factor causes of chronic stress like lifestyle factors and systemic imbalances in the gut or hormones. 

 

Practitioners of functional medicine take the source and symptoms of chronic stress very seriously. In this article, you’ll look at stress through the lens of an integrative practitioner and learn how to manage chronic stress with functional medicine. 

What Is Chronic Stress?

The convenience of food, transportation, and technology all make us feel like we need to get more done in a single day. Add that on top of unhealthy relationships, workplace anxiety, and unhealed past trauma and you’ve got a recipe for disaster. This type of constant pressure creates stress. Chronic stress is simply the experience of stress over a prolonged period of time. 

 

If you read that and rolled your eyes, you’re not alone. There’s nothing simple about chronic stress. 

 

In fact, the way your body experiences stress is extremely complicated. The stress response is a complex system that involves the brain, nervous system, and adrenal glands, called the HPA (hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal) axis. When your brain perceives something as stress, it triggers the sympathetic nervous system. It sends a signal to the adrenals to produce cortisol and adrenaline. 

 

As these hormones circulate, they cause different physiological responses throughout your body. For example, your heartbeat gets faster, blood pressure goes up, you may breathe more rapidly, your senses sharpen, and glucose is released into the bloodstream to supply more energy. 

 

This is what most people know as the “flight or fight” response. These changes are usually subtle, most people don’t even realize they’re happening. That’s why you’re able to avoid danger before even recognizing something as dangerous. 

 

The problem with chronic stress is that your body remains in a constant state of “flight or fight” (aka elevated cortisol and adrenaline). 

What Does Chronic Stress Look Like? 

Nearly every organ in the body is affected by the stress response, including the female and male reproductive system, thyroid, gut, and brain. That’s why the symptoms of long-term stress can look different in different people. However, there are a few commonalities: 

 

  • Aches and pains 
  • Insomnia 
  • Constant fatigue 
  • Low energy 
  • Brain fog 
  • Increased substance abuse 
  • Depression or anxiety 
  • Emotional withdrawal
  • Unexplained weight loss or weight gain  
  • Cravings for salt or sugar 
  • Low libido 
  • Heart palpitations 
  • Poor muscle recovery 

What Does Chronic Stress Do To Your Body? 

In addition to the symptoms of chronic stress that you experience outwardly, there is an inward response that affects the organs and functioning of your body. 

 

For example, there is a relationship between stress, blood sugar levels, and belly fat. Research shows that cortisol increases blood sugar levels over time which leads to insulin resistance. Insulin resistance is a key factor in pre-diabetes and weight loss issues. The result is a relentless metabolic dysfunction. 

 

Chronic stress also leads to hormonal issues like hypothyroidism. 

 

It even suppresses the immune system, which makes you more susceptible to viral infections and diseases like cancer. Stress hormones can also constrict the arteries causing higher blood pressure which, over an extended period, damages arteries and can lead to heart disease. 

 

This type of long-term stress causes chronic inflammation which is the essential element of most chronic diseases like cardiovascular and metabolic diseases, neurodegenerative disorders, and cancer.

Causes Of Chronic Stress

So, what causes chronic stress? Honestly, there are a multitude of things that cause chronic stress. Lack of sleep, consuming a diet high in processed foods, consuming too many stimulants like caffeine and sugar, a rigorous workplace, emotional trauma, the death of a loved one, lack of healthy relationships, and the list could go on. 

 

The thing about stress is that it’s often based on our perceptions. When you experience a stressful event the amygdala, the part of the brain that contributes to emotional processing sends a distress signal to the hypothalamus, which starts the stress response.

 

Additionally, chronic internal stressors that your body experiences through imbalances in the gut or hormones, or from environmental factors like toxin exposure, are often overlooked by conventional medicine. 

The Functional Medicine Approach To Chronic Stress

The functional medicine approach to chronic stress is a comprehensive look at all the factors that could be contributing to the chronic stress cycle. It involves an in-depth assessment from the outset of care. 

 

Chronic stress affects the entire body, which is why a functional medicine practitioner will spend time getting to know the entire person to help them heal. 

 

Functional medicine acknowledges that chronic stress can be caused by poor food choices and food sensitivities, gut or hormonal imbalances, or other factors like unhealed trauma. 

Treatments For Chronic Stress 

A functional medicine treatment protocol for chronic stress is comprehensive and personalized. You may be able to practice some of these stress-mitigating techniques on your own, but to understand the root cause of your chronic stress and reduce the inflammation it’s caused in your body, you should work with an expert. 

 

Here are a few of the treatments to help manage chronic stress: 

 

  • Practice breathing techniques 
  • Take adaptogenic herbs 
  • Add nutritional supplements to your diet 
  • Increase your consumption of whole, nutrient-dense foods 
  • Practice yoga or other types of exercise
  • Add prebiotics or probiotics to your diet
  • Find a community 
  • Practice better sleep habits 
  • Practice meditation 

 

Remember, your treatment of chronic stress with functional medicine should be a personalized protocol of lifestyle changes and natural solutions based on comprehensive testing that tells us how stress is impacting your body specifically. If you think you’ve been experiencing the symptoms of chronic stress, it’s time to schedule your first Functional Medicine appointment!  

 

Address Chronic Stress with a Maryland Functional Medicine Doctor

If you are looking to uplevel your health and get to the root cause of your chronic stress symptoms, Dr. Skye Stewart can help. She is a functional medicine doctor based in Annapolis, MD. She uses diet, lifestyle, and supplement recommendations and functional lab testing to uncover the underlying cause of your symptoms. If you want more information about a holistic approach to address your chronic stress, book your FREE 10 min consultation call with Dr. Stewart today.