Laughter and
spending time
with close friends
and family are
established
stress-busters.complete a task—whether that task is studying for
an exam or meeting a social or professional obliga-
tion. “And if you’re young and the stress is short-
lived, it probably won’t have any lasting repercus-
sions,” Fagundes says. But he says calling any stress
“good” is a little misleading.
“Even short-term stress can be
dangerous when you’re older,”
Fagundes says. “It could in-
duce a heart attack or stroke.”
And for kids and young adults,
brief bouts of stress may still
provoke a spike in inflamma-
tion, he says. They can also dis-
rupt sleep and trigger some
GI symptoms.
That said, it’s the recurring, “chronic” bouts of
stress that he and other experts say are the great-
est threat to a person’s health. “A stressor that lasts
for a couple months or longer is the type you really
worry about,” he says. For young people, examples
of chronic stressors could include having to deal
with a volatile or abusive parent or grappling day in
and day out with social-media- related anxieties. For
adults, work and family obligations are often daily
sources of angst. Apart from sensitizing the brain
and increasing its susceptibility to stress, these re-
current bouts of stress can cause immune-system
overactivity, artery calcification
and many other ill effects.
For all these reasons, learn-
ing to manage stress can be es-
sential to maintaining good
health. “Physical activity, med-
itation, breathing exercises and
relaxation-response training—
things people can teach them-
selves to help them relax—
are all effective,” says Celano.
Laughter and spending time with close friends and
family are also established stress-busters.
Almost a century has passed since medical re-
searchers first began to grasp the immense and
complex impact of stress on human health. That
research has come a long way, but there’s still much
to be discovered. •