What Is Toxic Stress?

Stress1 is a biological response to external or internal pressures. If the stressors are severe and persistent, stress can be considered toxic.

Healthy Stress Can Be Good for You

Stress is a universal occurrence and a normal experience. It can be positive or negative.

When Does Stress Become ‘Toxic’?

In the face of stress, the body responds by releasing hormones and neurotransmitters3 causing the physiological changes necessary for the fight and flight response. The individual’s heart rate and blood pressure increase, muscles tense and respiration increases to face the perceived danger. Once the stressor has been confronted, the stress response then deactivates and returns the body back to a balanced and relaxed bodily state.

Too Many Stressors Leads to Toxic Stress

If exposure to the stress becomes chronic4 or overwhelming, the body shifts into an ongoing stress response. Without an off switch to the stressor, the internal alarm bells remain activated—even after the threat is long and gone.

Signs of Toxic Stress

Learning to identify how toxic stress6can affect one’s physicality, behaviors, and emotions is the first step to reducing its health risks.

There are common symptoms that can be a reflection of chronic stress, including but not limited to:

• Headache
• Muscle tension
• Fatigue
• Upset stomach
• Sleep disturbances
• Restlessness
• Lack of motivation
• Chronic pain
• Feelings of overwhelm
• Irritability or anger
• Anxiety, sadness, or depression
• Substance abuse
• Social withdrawal

How Toxic Stress Affects Your Brain 

The brain is the command center for the human nervous system and appraises the threat level of a stressor. At healthy levels of stress, it can apply the appropriate behavioral and physiological responses. However, once stress builds up, it impacts the capacity of the brain to respond to stress, and even impacts the functioning of the brain itself.

Your Brains Can Shrink

Chronic stress has been found to actually decrease brain volume, causing loss of synapses and impacting brain functions.

Your Critical Thinking Becomes Impaired

The prefrontal cortex,7located at the front of the frontal lobe of the brain, is particularly susceptible to stress exposure. This region of the brain is involved in our higher-order cognitive functions. Toxic stress can cause architectural changes in prefrontal nerve cells resulting in loss of certain cognitive abilities.

Toxic Stress’ Impacts Your Overall Neurobiology & Physical Health

To understand its full impact, it may be helpful to consider a few different examples of how toxic stress can negatively impact one’s neurobiology.8

• Heightened cortisol response9 which puts you at risk for increased heart problems, high blood pressure, digestive problems, weight gain, and more.
• Impaired mental health. Toxic stress can play a part in the pathophysiology of mental illnesses such as anxiety and depressive disorders, behavioral dysregulation, PTSD, and psychosis .
• Maladaptive changes to brain architecture.10 The physiological changes that accompany toxic stress can cause structural changes in the brain leading to problems such as memory and learning impairment.
• Modified gene expression.11 Toxic stress can change which genes are turned on or off, leading to a wide range of health consequences.
• Poor stress management and coping skills which inhibits one’s ability to manage challenging situations appropriately.
• Unhealthy lifestyles. Toxic stress nat lead to unhealthy lifestyle choices, which may contribute to a variety of health consequences including depression, cancer, or heart disease.

How Toxic Stress Impacts Children

Toxic stress is overwhelming for individuals of all age groups, but it is particularly damaging for children.

Adverse Childhood Experiences and Stress

As a child’s brain develops, adverse childhood experiences12 can alter the architecture in the brain, leading to impaired coping skills and debilitating long-term health effects. Without the proper emotional support from caretakers, toxic stress can create abnormal stress responses that might not reveal themselves for years.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), adverse childhood experiences can put one at risk12 for future violence victimization and mental illnesses. An ACE (adverse childhood experience) score is a tally of various abuse, neglect, and other hallmarks of a rough childhood—the higher the score, the higher the risk for health issues.

The experiences that can contribute to toxic stress are events such as:

• Early life adversity
• Extreme poverty
• Household dysfunction
• Poor health
• Food scarcity
• Loss of a parent or a painful divorce
• Witnessing violence in the home or community
• Having a family member attempt or die by suicide
• Childhood abuse (emotional/physical/sexual)
• Childhood neglect
• Caretakers with substance problems or mental health conditions
• Ongoing exposure to less severe, yet chronic, daily stressors
• Instability due to parental separation or household members being in jail or prison

Tips to Relieve Stress

When you’re feeling overwhelmed, take a moment to pause and reach for a healthy coping response that will serve your body and mind.

Some possible techniques can look like this:13

• Registering your physical body reactions when you’re stressed, noticing if your breath constricts, your jaw tenses up, or your heartbeat races so you can take the steps to relax sooner rather than later
• Processing emotions, thoughts, and sensations as they come up—no matter how painful, frustrating, or intense they may feel
• Eating and drinking your meals with presence, putting down your phone and eating your food slowly while enjoying the sensation of the wind or the sun on your skin
• Safeguarding your sleep habits, proper sleep hygiene can help with memory retention, and learning ability, regulate your metabolism, and grow dendrites14 which are branches in brain cells that convey information from one neuron to the next
• Physical health improvement with exercise and movement
• Mindfulness and mind-body practices like yoga

Doing these activities every day can help you promote and nurture a low-stress lifestyle.

How to Reverse the Effects of Toxic Stress 

Although stress can induce neural changes in the brain, the brain is remarkably resilient16 and can often bounce back from stress. Toxic stress can be a factor in a person’s life, but one can take steps to reverse its impact with several stress management techniques:17

• Talk therapy with a trusted mental health professional
• Deep breathing or breath-work meditation to center yourself in the present moment
• Body scanning techniques18
• Reflection through journaling or art
• Support from loved ones, friends, and family
• Developing and maintaining healthy relationships
• Mitigating stressful tasks with organization, to-do lists, and asking others for help