Health Hotline Magazine | October 2026

Stress is Inevitable, Adapt with Adaptogens

By Lindsay Wilson

Stress. Sometimes it’s insidious, creeping up on you while you’re sitting in traffic, causing your blood pressure to rise and your jaw to clench. Or it can hit you like a ten-ton truck, such as in the event of becoming unemployed or a sudden illness, knocking you off your feet and leaving you feeling like you may never recover. No matter how it comes, it always comes—stress is part of the human experience. And while periods of stress are perfectly normal, and dare I say healthy, chronic stress or stress overload can lead to real mental and physical harm. Humans are hardwired to deal with stress—it’s called the “fight-or-flight” response. When you are faced with a stressful event, the adrenal glands—small glands that sit on top of the kidneys—release stress hormones, including adrenaline and cortisol. These hormones increase blood pressure and heart rate, slow digestion, increase blood sugar, and suppress the immune system. In an acute stress situation, this is an advantage—the surge of stress hormones helps you mentally and physically deal with the event at hand. But chronic stress overload causes the stress response system to stay switched on, and over time, the constant release of the adrenal hormones, especially cortisol, which suppresses digestive and immune functions and increases blood sugar, throws the body out of balance and can lead to major health problems. Chronic stress effects every major system in the body and can lead to anxiety, depression, digestive problems, insomnia, high blood pressure, blood sugar imbalance, decreased immunity, and memory impairment. But stress is inevitable, so the question remains, how do we protect ourselves?

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