YOU CAN’T ESCAPE STRESS BUT YOU CAN MANAGE IT

Your boss is yelling at you. Your credit card was just stolen. You’re running late, and you can’t find your car keys.

Stress happens. And when it does, it triggers the body’s “fight or flight” response. Powerful hormones — such as adrenaline and cortisol — course through your bloodstream. They make your heart pound and your breathing go into overdrive.

This response evolved millennia ago when the stresses people faced often involved threats to their physical well-being and required literal fight-or-flight decisions: Do battle with a saber-tooth cat or run like mad?

These days, many stresses are chronic, involving long-term problems like unfulfilling work, a shrinking bank account, or an aging loved one. As you stew, your body releases those same powerful hormones. This makes chronic stress more than mentally unpleasant — it makes it a health concern.

Chronic stress correlates with many physical ailments, from colds to cancer, says Dr. Emanuel Maidenberg, a clinical professor of psychiatry and biobehavioral sciences at UCLA. “It’s thought to reduce the effectiveness of your immune system, so you’re more likely to become ill in whatever area you’re vulnerable,” he says.

It also increases inflammation in the body, adds Dr. Helen Lavretsky, a geriatric psychiatrist at UCLA, and can lead to cognitive and memory problems, as well as insomnia, anxiety and depression. So, what to do? Brain science offers some clues. Dr. Bruce Rabin, medical director of the Healthy Lifestyle Program at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, notes that increased oxygen flow to the brain calms down regions that tend to get activated by stress and cause those stress-hormone levels to rise. This suggests you can reduce the effects of stress by increasing your intake of oxygen, he says.

One good way to do that, of course, is by exercising. Less obvious, perhaps, but also proven: You take in more oxygen when you laugh.

Meditation and yoga are also useful for some people, Lavretsky says, while music and dance can help others. Don’t expect instant results. “You can learn to manage stress,” Maidenberg says. “You can develop a set of tools for bringing the level down. That can’t happen overnight though. You have to practice.”