Stress & The Terrain
Stress doesn't just feel bad—it chemically transforms your internal environment into one where disease thrives.
Stress is a survival mechanism.
When you face a threat, your body mobilizes. Cortisol and adrenaline flood your system. Blood sugar spikes. Heart rate increases. Digestion stops. Immunity pauses. Everything focuses on surviving the next few minutes.
This is brilliant design—for acute threats. The problem? Modern life triggers this response constantly, without resolution.
Chronic stress keeps the body in survival mode indefinitely. The terrain shifts from thriving to barely surviving.
How stress poisons the terrain.
Acidifies Tissues
Stress hormones increase lactic acid and other metabolic acids. Chronic stress creates chronic acidity—an environment where pathogens flourish and enzymes malfunction.
Depletes Nutrients
The stress response burns through magnesium, zinc, B vitamins, and vitamin C at accelerated rates. Every stress event is a withdrawal from your nutrient bank.
Suppresses Immunity
Cortisol directly suppresses immune function. Why fight infections when you're about to be eaten by a lion? Except the lion never comes, and immunity stays down.
Impairs Digestion
Blood flow diverts from digestive organs to muscles. Stomach acid decreases. Gut motility slows. You can't absorb nutrients from food you can't digest.
Disrupts Sleep
Elevated cortisol at night prevents deep sleep. Without deep sleep, the body can't repair, detoxify, or reset. The terrain accumulates damage.
Damages Gut Barrier
Stress hormones loosen tight junctions in the gut lining. Toxins leak into the bloodstream. The terrain becomes polluted from within.
Stress creates more stress.
Stress depletes magnesium
Low magnesium increases stress sensitivity
Heightened stress depletes more magnesium
The terrain spirals into chronic depletion
This same cycle applies to zinc, B vitamins, and other stress-sensitive nutrients. Without intervention, the terrain degrades continuously.
Modern stress is relentless.
Our ancestors faced acute stress—predators, conflicts, hunger—followed by recovery. Modern stress never stops:
Financial pressure
Work demands
Relationship strain
Information overload
Social media comparison
News cycle anxiety
EMF exposure
Sleep deprivation
The body can't tell the difference between a tiger and a tense email. It responds the same way—burning resources, suppressing repair, degrading the terrain.
Restoring the terrain.
Activate the parasympathetic
Deep breathing, cold exposure, meditation—anything that signals “safe” to your nervous system.
Replenish what stress steals
Magnesium, B vitamins, vitamin C, zinc—replace the nutrients chronic stress depletes.
Prioritize sleep
Sleep is when the terrain repairs. Protect it ruthlessly.
Remove unnecessary stressors
Audit your life. What stress can you eliminate entirely?
Build stress resilience
Exercise, sunlight, social connection, purpose—factors that buffer the stress response.
Calm the terrain.
Your body can't heal in survival mode. Create safety, and watch the terrain transform.