The Book That Saved My Life (Part I)

When I was 15 years old, I was very sick. I had contracted mononucleosis the year before and hadn't recovered. In a lot of ways, I was sicker than ever: constant stomach problems, loss of weight, incredible fatigue, joint and muscle pain, recurrent infections, foggy-headedness, and finally, ulcerative colitis.

My mother took me to doctor after doctor, and none helped. Finally, she took me to a gastroenterologist because of my colitis. The doctor told me he was going to give me prednisone, and that if that didn't work, he was going to take my colon out.

This was my transformative moment!

Still in shock as I rode home, I asked my mother to drop me off at the library.

A search for answers

At the library, I introduced myself to the librarian and explained that I was very sick, and doctors had not been able to give me answers. I asked for her help in finding answers as to why I was so sick and what I could do.

She began finding books for me, calling to tell me when another arrived, or when she found a potentially useful resource. Before long, she found The Stress of Life, written by Hans Selye, the French Canadian endocrinologist who developed the models of stress that we use today. The book was substantial—roughly 500 pages—and I read it cover to cover. I was only 15, but I was desperate to understand why I was so sick.

What is stress?

Stress is anything our bodies have to adapt to to maintain homeostasis, a balanced state of body function.

Selye broke stress down into four types:

• Physical: illness, injury, overexertion, sleep deprivation, pain, or inadequate recovery.
• Chemical: poor diet, blood-sugar instability, medications, toxins, allergens, or other biochemical burdens.
• Mental and emotional: fear, isolation, family disruption, uncertainty, loss, or persistent worry.
• Thermal: significant cold or heat exposure.

An accumulation of stress

Selye discovered that living systems break down when stress exceeds their capacity to adapt. The organism's adaptive reserve becomes exhausted.

Stress intensity mattered, but the number of stressors and their chronicity also played a role in whether the system can adapt or break down. If the totality of stress exceeds adaptive reserve, homeostasis is overcome, and disease results.

I'm reading this as my remarkably ill 15-year-old self thinking, "This is interesting..."

The Triad of Selye

Dr. Selye found three things that always happen if you stress an animal enough.

• Enlargement of the adrenal glands in order to produce more adaptive hormones
• Breakdown of the immune system resulting in allergies, autoimmunity, immunodeficiency, or all three at one time
• Ulcerative colitis

Taking Inventory...

I brought a legal pad to the library to take notes. I took three sheets from the pad, set them side by side, and wrote three headings across the top of each:

• Physical stress
• Chemical stress
• Mental stress

Thermal stress didn't need a list as it's such a simple variable to control.

I wrote down anything and everything in each category - physical, chemical, mental - I could think of that might be a stressor.

The mental and physical list included growing up in a single-parent, divorced household, spending substantial time with babysitters, being a latchkey kid, and often being alone. These experiences were not necessarily dramatic in isolation, but they were part of the overall environment my body and mind had been navigating.

Then I looked at food as a potential factor of chemical stress.

My diet was built around processed food. A “good” breakfast was Fruit Loops. TV dinners were typical. Soda was a routine part of life. I needed more "real" food.

Lots of changes and personal agency

I went home and told my mother I wanted to make changes.

I said I did not want to drink soda anymore; I wanted water. I said I did not want Fruit Loops for breakfast; I wanted oatmeal. From her perspective, I probably sounded as though I had suddenly become obsessed or irrational. She thought I had "lost it."

But from my perspective, I was trying to ease the burden on an overwhelmed body.

I learned breathing techniques, aerobic exercise, yoga, and calisthenics. I learned to eat whole foods rather than processed foods, drink water rather than sodas, and fast. I learned about meditation and stress-management methods like Stoicism.

Those changes were simple, and I was in control of them, at least for the most part, as a 15-year-old teenage boy.

And I healed! It took some time, but I completely healed!

That is the enduring value of the stress-load model. It encourages us to look at health not as a single symptom or isolated diagnosis, but as a dynamic relationship between the stressors in our lives and the reserves we have to adapt.

Reference

The Stress of Life, Hans Selye, MD (1956)