We all know that stress won’t do us good. As a matter of fact, all of us are trying to avoid or lessen it one way or another. We simply view stress as a bad thing. But, do you know that some stress is actually good for us? If we view it positively, stress challenges us to try new things and grow in the experience.

Though generally speaking, stress is bad for you when it saps your spirit and starts to affect your health, like the metabolism. How you respond to stress means a big difference. Either you thrive hard to overcome it or you buckle under it. Therefore, how you respond to stress also has an impact on your health and metabolism.

Your body responds to stress caused by an external event that is called the stressor. When your body reacts to something, it changes the homeostasis that exists in your body, thus increasing and secreting the hormones adrenaline and cortisol. The number of processes and actions occurring in your body everyday is called the homeostasis, which is the normal state.

The metabolism is part of the daily functions that happens inside your body. It is the kind of process in which the food is processed inside the body from eating up to the excretion of waste products. Once there is an increase amount of adrenaline and cortisol in your body, this is because it is preparing to respond to an unusual circumstance.

This could be an argument with your loved one, or you are dealing with a stubborn customer, or you are rushing to meet a deadline. In fact, some people call this response as the fight or flight response because it provides you with the energy to either fight or run away from the current situation. It also prepares the body for any harm or injuries.

When it comes to the fight and flight response, you are only reacting to an incident that happens in a short period of time. But, there are so much stressors revolving around us, such as the mountain of work that have to be done or the never-ending family issues, that it seems to go on for many years. Hence, responding to stressors indicate that you are telling your body that the normal homeostasis is somewhat wrong and the new normal state means releasing excessive amount of adrenalin and cortisol.

The adrenaline is very efficient in making the fat cells turn into energy. Through this way, the adrenaline also increases the metabolism, while the cortisol increases the amount of glucose in the blood which creates more energy. These changes in your body’s metabolism are good for a situation where to have to expend lots of physical energy.

However, if you just spend long hours sitting at your desk, the adrenaline and cortisol continue to build up giving you excess energy. This results to chronic stress or a stress that seems to have no ending.

The chronic stress causes the cortisol to create more excess glucose, which leads to have excess energy that is not used. Eventually, this ends up as stored fat. Although, the adrenaline continues to be secreted, the fat cells become less sensitive to it. In other words, the fat cells in your body won’t be converted into energy which means an increase of your weight. The stress can improve the performance of the metabolism, but if the stress continues for too long, the normal homeostasis of the body is changed.