Certain triggers occur that cause us to develop stress. It could be a looming deadline at work. It could be a white water adventure. When a trigger happens it produces cortisol.

Cortisol gets a lot of blame for the adverse effects of stress. While it certainly plays a significant role in that process, that’s not all it does. Your body wouldn’t produce a hormone just to hurt you.

It has a purpose. The main problem with cortisol isn’t the hormone itself, but rather the amount of time that you spend producing it. In small bursts, cortisol is a necessary and beneficial hormone.

It keeps you going when you’re feeling exhausted from stress, and it helps you with your fight or flight reflexes by acting as a pain killer. In fact, in small doses, cortisol does a lot of really important things for you, and you would definitely miss it if you had to go without it.

However, cortisol is only meant to help you in short, quick stressful situations. You’re meant to be able to relax afterwards and let its production slow down. If your entire life is a stressful situation, then your body is going to keep on producing cortisol continuously, leading to a number of adverse effects.

The key is to be able to bear with what happens and to cope with it.

Meditations 10.3. states Whatever happens, happens such as you are either formed by nature able to bear it, or not able to bear it. If such as you are by nature form’d able to bear, bear it and fret not: But if such as you are not naturally able to bear, don’t fret; for when it has consum’d you, itself will perish. Remember, however, you are by nature form’d able to bear whatever it is in the power of your own opinion to make supportable or tolerable, according as you conceive it advantageous, or your duty, to do so.