The bright side of life

While not every stress reduction technique suits everyone, any incremental change -- a little more exercise, a little more sleep, a little deep breathing and a few more nights out with friends -- will help.

--

Get moving

Evolution has conditioned us to respond to stress as a physical threat, which is why our bodies produce hormones that prepare us to flee from trouble or fight back physically. However, running or punching usually isn't appropriate in our daily routines, so those hormones accumulate. This is where exercise comes in.

Initially, an intense workout is a stressor, boosting the heart rate, blood pressure and adrenaline. But regular exercise leads to lower baseline heart rates, lower blood pressure and lower stress hormone levels when at rest. This makes occasional surges of stress easier to handle.

Vigorous exercise also increases the body's core temperature, meaning the body has to dilate its blood vessels (which stress hormones restrict) to let heat escape. That dilation lowers blood pressure and creates more capacity to circulate oxygen-rich blood.

Regular exercise will bring resting adrenaline rates down so the body has more room for the next flood of stress hormones, says Seattle-based preventive cardiologist Dr. Sarah Speck. Strong evidence also indicates that exercise helps reduce depression, which can accompany long-term stress.

--

Sleep on it

Here's the paradox: When you're stressed, sleep often suffers. Yet a good night's sleep helps guard against the ravages of stress.

Even one night of tossing and turning raises the level of inflammatory cytokines, says Michael Irwin, director of the UCLA Cousins Center for Psychoneuroimmunology. Cytokines are chemical messengers, or proteins, that send messages between immune cells, and nerve and brain cells. Some promote inflammation; others are anti-inflammatory. A wide spectrum of conditions, including cardiovascular disease, arthritis, diabetes, certain cancers, obesity and functional decline, are linked to an increase in inflammatory cytokines. Experimental sleep deprivation has been found to alter immune responses and increase inflammation.

A study conducted at UCLA in 2006 looked at 30 healthy volunteers who spent four nights in a sleep lab. The first three, they slept from 11 p.m to 7 a.m., to establish their baseline for inflammatory markers in their blood. The fourth, they stayed awake between 3 and 7 a.m. Just that one night of interrupted sleep induced a three-fold increase in inflammatory markers, the study found.