The Impact of the Human Stress Response

Dr. Wingo is trained as a Ph.D. scientist and has done extensive research on a topic that I feel really touches just about everyone, and that topic is living with – and surviving the ill effects from – chronic stress.

In her studies Dr. Wingo initially focused on the physiological aspects of stress: what was going on at the genomic level, what was happening within the body’s cells, tissue and organ functioning. She also focused on the nervous system, endocrine system and immune system’s responses and interactions to the stressors and to each other. Along with the biology, she wanted to study the interactions of people with their environment and each other - the psychological aspects - that so often resulted in stress.

She also has looked extensively at how the consequences of all this stress affect our society, our economics and even our political system.

In 2014 she immigrated to Ecuador, a tiny country in South America. There, living in a very different society than the one she grew up in here in the US, she observed the extreme contrast in how people were faced with and affected by ongoing stressors in their environment and their lives.

She wrote her book, “The Impact of the Human Stress Response: The Biological Origins and Solutions to Human Stress.”

Today we will be talking about what causes stress; what is actually happening throughout our body when we are “stressed out”? And why some people are more successful than others in adapting to stress.

We talk about:

How your brain’s frontal lobe is your primary stress response organ How low levels of stress can be overcome by manipulating your environment What happens to your hormones and brain during lengthier periods of stress, when cortisol is high for a long time and your body starts to shut down parts of the frontal lobe How the impact to the frontal lobe impacts the ability to control one’s emotion and memory The role of oxytocin in enabling your body to deal with stress Why your stress response is essential to helping you adapt to a changing environment PTSD’s impacts and how one can put a cohesive narrative together to heal

Many of you know that I have suffered from PTSD due to a tragic family loss many years ago so much of what Dr. Wingo and I discussed was very familiar and personal to me!

Listen in on the informative interview!