First of all what is stress it gives off in our culture a kind of we know it's not

necessarily a good thing but generally people don't really understand what it is, how it works, when

it's deleterious for our ongoing mental and physical health.

So in a situation where we are faced with some kind of threat or opportunity, there's a bunch of glands throughout the body.

And especially the body, the adrenal gland and up in the brain the HPA axis, hypothermal, pituitary adrenal access and so what is released is first adrenaline in the body and cortisol and glucose is released to give your body a charge and

your blood pumps more efficiently your heart pumps faster the blood vessels constrict and while you have a stress response you are in essence your body pretty much stops digestion and it stops producing white blood cells.

This is because in terms of our evolutionary history to be faced with a threat would mean that

there would be no real reason to produce at that time white blood cells which are to fight long-term infections or to digest food if we were faced with something that was life-threatening or dangerous, it was in our best interest to produce

red blood cells which repair tissue damage and to, instead of sending blood and serotonin to run digestion all the

resources were sent to the muscles. So there's nothing wrong with stress per se. When I

rode my bike here from Williamsburg I probably engaged it numerous times anytime there was suddenly a sound behind me or a car or suddenly I had to navigate all of those systems hopefully, well know that they did work, which is why I'm here with you.

And there's nothing wrong with short-term stress.

However, unlike the situation in life where we do want to have a stress response,

for instance, suppose you're walking in the woods,

you hear the sound of what might be a bear,

and you have that startled reflex, all of which is triggered by the stress response, the HPA access and the adrenal glen.

In our modern life, let's face it, we're not faced with that many bears anymore.

We have in fact become the dominant species, and so we are no longer running from bears, from wild boars, elephants very often.

The stress response that human beings now face is from the entire second group of stressors. Species not only feel or trigger

stress from threats to survival, but also there's such a thing as social stress, which is essentially the fear

of doing something or acting in a way that will lead to our social isolation, ostracization, being cast out from our friendships

from the people that support us.

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