The Tyranny of Urgency

Our bodies were never designed for the constant state of emergency we now call daily life. With each notification ping, each rushed commute, each "urgent" email, our nervous systems surge with cortisol and adrenaline—hormones meant for true fight-or-flight situations, not the endless cascade of artificial crises we've created.... See more

The nervous system and the hormonal stress response react to a stimulus in milliseconds, seconds, or minutes. The immune system takes parts of hours or days. It takes much longer than two minutes for immune cells to mobilize and respond to an invader, so it is unlikely that a single, even powerful, short-lived stress on the order of moments could

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Some studies are beginning to show that burnt-out patients may have not only psychological burnout, but also physiological burnout: a flattened cortisol response and inability to respond to any stress with even a slight burst of cortisol. In other words, chronic unrelenting stress can change the stress response itself. And it can change other... See more