How Chronic Stress Impacts Your Health
- Joy Zazzera
- Mar 9
- 4 min read
Updated: 2 days ago
Stress itself is a normal part of the human experience, a signal that something needs attention. But chronic stress, or distress—the overwhelming kind of stress that exceeds our ability to cope—can wreak havoc on both body and mind.
Over time, repeated activation of the fight-or-flight response due to distress can contribute to emotional, physical, or even sexual dysfunction. The body's systems become strained, and chronic illnesses may emerge—conditions like fibromyalgia, irritable bowel syndrome, migraines, Crohn’s disease, psoriasis, or post-traumatic stress disorder. These symptoms are not just isolated physical ailments; they often reflect an overtaxed nervous system and suppressed immune response caused by persistent stress. Neurologist Dr. David Simon once noted that “90% of our physical toxicity is emotionally derived.” When we habitually view stress as a threat instead of a challenge, we inadvertently turn on a cascade of reactions that can lead to long-term health issues.
Stress follows a very clear path to disease and it moves in six stages. (ref: Davidji. destressyfying. Hay House (2015))
(1) Stage One: Accumulation - Stress causes toxins produced by improper digestion to collect in the gastrointestinal (GI) tract. The presence of these toxins causes mild and ill-defined symptoms to show. This is the first and most subtle stage, where we have an opportunity to recognize, address, and eliminate the cause instead of ignoring or suppressing it. Most often, we are oblivious since we’re complacent in our stress, labeling it as normal or temporary.
(2) Stage Two: Aggravation - The accumulated stress toxins amass to such a degree that they begin to get “excited” by our behaviors, the foods we ingest, and our environment. We may have a twinge here or there, but we are relatively unaware of the cause and may even be inured to the symptoms.
(3) Stage Three: Spread - The aggravated, accumulated toxins start overflowing. Generally, up to this stage the damage is entirely reversible and restorable through a daily destressyfying practice like meditation. We may not notice that we’re experiencing symptoms of malaise or tiredness as our antibodies work overtime to hold back the flood of toxins.
(4) Stage Four: Augmentation - The overflowing of toxins begin to migrate, leading to tissue malfunction and structural damage as specific degeneration and sensitivities to more serious infections begin. They may still be one stage short of a Western medical diagnosis. The augmentation stage can be very stealthy.
(5) Stage Five: Symptom Manifestation - Specific symptoms begin to appear and can now be identified and diagnosed by conventional medical science or a physician. A committed program of destressyfying is necessary at this stage to return our bodies to their healthiest state.
(6) Stage Six: Complications / Differentiation - After years or even decades, stress reaches its final stage of physical manifestation, becoming chronic and ultimately revealing the clear nature of the disease. And then we get officially diagnosed with a physical ailment. Dis-ease has become disease.
Every disease follows this six-stage path.
Chronic stress nefariously plants seeds of illness. The concept of “seeds of illness” was first discussed by the 19th-century French physiologist Claude Bernard when he wrote, “Illnesses hover constantly above us, their seeds blown by the wind, but they do not set in the terrain unless the terrain is ready to receive them.” A person in the throes of stress is indeed that fertile terrain waiting for these “seeds of illness” to plant themselves. And as Dr. David Simon said, there is a cause-and-effect nature of these stress “seeds” as they relate to our modern diagnose of disease.
Because each of our early warning signals is different, it’s important to get in touch with your own response to stress overload. Simply by paying attention, you’ll begin to notice the toll that stress is taking on your body.
(Table 1: ref: Davidji. destressyfying. Hay House (2015))
Seeds ... then Disease
Change in Physiology:
Increased blood pressure, heart stress
Increased stress hormones
Increased blood sugar
Decreased blood circulation in the digestive tract
Suppresses growth & sex hormones
Lowered immunity function
Increased stickiness of platelets
Leads to:
Coronary heart disease
Anxiety, insomnia, addictions
Diabetes, obesity
Digestive disturbances
Premature aging
Infections, cancer
Heart attacks, strokes
Not only does stress have a cause-and-effect relationship on your body, the direct influence that stress has on your mind, your emotions, your decisions, and your sense of fulfillment is even more profound, because that will influence your thoughts, your words, and your actions, which in turn touch everyone and everything around you.
The main reason most people suffer with stress is because they don’t have the right tools to address it. If you have done nothing else, you have taken the first step to invite a deeper awareness by taking the time to turn your attention to my website to learn about one of the science-supported ways to transform stress - meditation.
👉 Want more expert guidance on developing a confident meditation practice?
Download my free digital Ebook, “Meditation Made Easy: Learn to Meditate With Joy,” and get instant access to the guide with a bonus Step-by-Step Daily Practice Guide included—just subscribe with your email to receive it all!
References Cruikshank, Tiffany and Sedgwick MD, Amy C., Nervous System & Restorative Yoga. Yoga Medicine, 2021.
Davidji, destressifying. Hayhouse, 2015.
Davidji, Masters of Wisdom & Meditation Teacher Training Manual & Lecture Notes. Davidji Meditation Academy, 2025.