Stress

= cortisol = me. Yeah!

Symptoms and effects of hypercortisolism

• Facial acne—def have this right now…
• Fat redistribution, e.g. truncal obesity, thinning of extremities, moon facies
• Hypertension—scared to check mine
• Immune suppression—better not! cannot risk getting sick before the big ole exam
• Osteoporosis
• Abdominal striae
• Hyperglycemia
• Emotional disturbance

^Self portrait. Jk. Obviously, my situation is not that extreme. People who have some constellation of these symptoms usually have something more serious going on—adrenal hyperplasia, pituitary adenoma, cancer somewhere that’s secreting ACTH as part of a paraneoplastic syndrome, taking steroids as treatment for another disease, etc.

So, too much stress is no good! …Yet not enough cortisol isn’t good either…it’s what keeps you alive after a stressful event like an illness, surgery, or trauma. So it’s not much different from what we learned in middle school about emotional and physical well-being, haha. I swear, we learned everything important about life in elementary and middle school.