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What’s Really Causing Your Stress

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Your Neanderthal grandfather led a pretty quiet life. Mostly he dug up roots and picked berries during the day and slept peacefully under the stars at night.

But every now and then, something would happen that would put his life in danger. A sabre-toothed tiger, perhaps, or another tribe of cavemen trying to muscle in on his territory.

Suddenly, he was faced with a life-or-death decision. Do I stand here and fight? Or do I make tracks? No matter which choice he made, his body’s cells were going to need a lot of energy… and they were going to need it fast.

So nature designed his body in such a way that at moments like this, his insulin would spike and send all the available glucose in his bloodstream directly to his muscles. Whether he chose to fight – or to take flight – he would have the energy he needed to survive.

But again, let’s fast-forward a few thousand years to see how this affects you.

Let’s say you’re sitting at your desk one morning when your boss walks in, hopping mad. “I TOLD YOU I NEEDED THAT REPORT BY TODAY AT THE LATEST!” he screams. But you’ve been busy with other things, and you forgot all about it.

What do you do?

You can’t punch your boss in the nose. (Although you might like to!) And you can’t jump up and run out of the building. (That’s tempting too!)

But your body reacts just like the caveman’s. Your pancreas cranks out a jolt of insulin. The insulin injects glucose into your cells. And the next thing you know, your blood sugar is out of sync.

You can’t fight. And you can’t flee. So what you do is sit there and fret. You worry. You stew. You get angry and depressed. And your blood sugar pays the price.