Originally posted by Jordon Johnston on the UBC Life Blog.

Stress is one of those strange things about the human experience that few of us enjoy, but many of us feel we just have to tolerate—like puberty, or calling people on the phone.

While, tragically, both puberty and phone calls seem to be facts of life for now, you don’t have to accept overwhelming stress as the status quo.

I had the privilege of speaking to Dr. Eli Puterman, Assistant Professor in the UBC School of Kinesiology and Principal Investigator of the Fitness, Aging, and Stress Lab, about how stress affects our bodies and what we can do to manage it.

What is stress?

Dr. Eli Puterman

“If you’re a student that perhaps didn’t prepare as well, you may be threatened by the exam, and the physiology of that stress will become more heightened and might interfere with your performance.”

What’s happening inside your body?

Your body goes through these steps when you feel stress:

Step 1: The fight-or-flight response

Your sympathetic nervous system is activated, and the parasympathetic system withdraws. Your heart pumps faster and your blood vessels constrict to get you ready to engage in activity. Your body is essentially energizing you to deal with whatever you’re facing, from a sabre-tooth tiger to a presentation on Ulysses for English 110 (same diff).

Step 2: Cortisol release

Cortisol, a hormone released by your adrenal glands, helps you feel more alert. But if cortisol levels get too high, you might actually perform less well on whatever challenge you’re facing (whether that’s a carnivorous feline or James Joyce).

Stress in the short term

If you complete a stressful event, like an exam, and feel that it went well, then your whole system will calm down. The fight-or-flight response withdraws, the parasympathetic system returns to normal, and cortisol levels decrease.

Short-term stress once in a while is unlikely to cause any serious side effects. However, what if you didn’t do well on the exam, and continued to worry about it? Your system would stay activated, and this is where some more serious effects of stress begin.

Stress in the long term

According to Dr. Puterman, too much cortisol can impact your ability to form new memories, slow down your immune system, and cause inflammation throughout the body that can lead to disease.

Frequent stress over a long period of time can actually decrease your body’s ability to deal with stress. You can build up a resistance to stress for a while, but eventually it can become fatigued and make it harder to deal. (This is obviously why I never finished reading Ulysses I easily finished reading Ulysses on time.)

Before you start quietly cursing me for bringing such a miserable topic into your life, note that this isn’t something a university student would deal with in a day or a month, and you might not necessarily notice the effects for a long time. However, stressors can build up over a 4+ year degree, and it’s important to be aware of how stress may affect you down the road.

But don’t get stressed about stress! There are simple things you can do to help manage your body and your mind’s ability to cope with stress, and stay healthy and happy.

Fight stress with exercise

Dr. Puterman specializes in the relationship between exercise and stress, and his research has provided a definitive link between the two. According to him, “Exercise is the best thing anyone can do for every single part of their body.”

Though I wish that burying yourself in a mound of pillows while eating copious amounts of M&Ms was the best thing you could do for your body, Dr. Puterman’s research has shown that “one single bout of exercise can change our mood and physiology even an hour later.”

Frequent exercise may even help lower heart rate and cortisol levels when stressed out over the long term!

Here are some tips directly from Dr. Puterman on exercise:

1. 1. Discover exercises you enjoy. If everyone is doing Crossfit, and you’re not a Crossfit kinda person, don’t do Crossfit. We have to learn what our body wants and enjoys.

1. 1. Get moving. Exercise is a terrible word that’s very scary, but moving isn’t scary. Even a seemingly small type of movement, like stretching or taking the stairs, is important!

1. 1. Schedule physical activity. If moving isn’t in your calendar, it’s probably the first thing you’ll forget to do or drop. Schedule it the way you would work or class!

1. Start slowly. You can’t go from 0 to 100 straightaway. Start being active 2 times a week instead. Setting reasonable goals is essential for success.

Practice mindfulness, avoid rumination

Aside from physical activity, Dr. Puterman also mentioned mindfulness, the concept of focusing on things in the present moment, as an effective way to combat stress. He said rumination and worry—dwelling on stressful events, both past and future—can lead to more stress and getting caught in toxic thought patterns. At the end of the day, overthinking too much keeps our systems activated at unhealthy levels.

Mindfulness can help this. Though it can be difficult to learn how to calm your mind, practicing mindfulness everyday can help you feel calmer. That’s because you’re creating new synapses and neurons that can change how you feel in a moment or in a day—pretty cool.

Dr. Puterman recommends Mindfulness for Beginners by Jon Kabat-Zinn as a place to start.

If you’re feeling stressed, anxious, or depressed, he also highly recommends speaking with a therapist. He shared his own experiences of how going to therapy helped him sit with his emotions and accept that sometimes, just like everyone else, he gets stressed out, too.

If you want to talk to someone, a good place to start is the Wellness Centre in the UBC Life Building or the 24/7 Empower Me helpline at 1-844-741-6389. For support and resources on a variety of topics—from academics to health—check out the Support page of the Student Services website.

Find positive stress in healthy challenges

Dr. Puterman and I both agreed that positive stress exists, usually in the form of a challenge. A lot of events in our life—going to university, moving, facing down telemarketers at inconvenient times—are challenging, but we can handle them and gain a lot from our experiences.

Stress is a part of life, but there are many ways to manage it and lead a healthy, happy life. Don’t be afraid to take on those challenges, but make time to get moving and stay focused on the incredible present!