01/13/2026
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The Stress-Symptom Connection: How Your Body’s Alarm System Causes Common Health Symptoms
When you experience long-term stress, your body’s main stress response system, called the HPA axis, can get thrown off balance. Think of the HPA axis as your body’s alarm clock and dimmer switch for stress hormones (like cortisol). When it’s working overtime, it can cause a group of frustrating symptoms:
Mood Swings (Labile Mood): The constant stress hormone changes can make your emotions jumpy, leading to irritability, anxiety, or unstable moods.
Brain Fog (Cognitive Impairment): High levels of stress hormones can impair the part of your brain responsible for memory and thinking (the hippocampus), making it hard to focus, remember things, or think clearly.
Chronic Pain: The dysregulation heightens your nervous system’s sensitivity, effectively turning up the “volume” on pain signals and making you feel pain more intensely and constantly.
Fatigue: Stress hormones mess with your metabolism and energy production (mitochondria), leaving you feeling profoundly and persistently exhausted, even after rest.
What’s Happening Inside:
Cortisol Chaos: The normal rhythm of your stress hormone, cortisol, is disrupted.
Brain Chemical Changes: The imbalance alters crucial brain chemicals that control mood (like serotonin and dopamine).
Inflammation: The stress response can increase inflammation throughout the body and brain, which worsens pain and cognitive issues.
Educational use only. Not to be misconstrued as medical advice. Not to be used to diagnose or treat.
