A seal’s life is relatively simple. Find food, find mate and avoid 2-ton, jumping Great White sharks.

Seals are perfectly adapted to diving to great depths to find and chase food. They have developed the ability to hold their breath underwater for amazing lengths of time. And they have the uncanny ability to dodge the most stealth and ferocious of all predators in the sea.

A Great White will stalk its prey from deep below and charge upward in a vicious vertical attack that is likened to a violent car crash – with teeth. Fast and powerful, the sharks approach is nearly undetectable. Its favorite targets are surface dwelling animals, like a seal or sea turtle, a fact that is deeply unnerving to us surfers.

A seal’s entire physiology changes with a shark encounter. Stress hormones course through their body and immediately an explosive symphony of neurochemical reactions produces the “fight or flight” state. This short-term visceral change is physiologically expensive, but promotes the survival of the organism for the long run. Stay alive now, rest and repair later. This dance is part of a seal’s everyday life. It’s taxing – I know, because I’ve done it.

I’ve been forced out of the water because of sharks in four countries. Unfortunately, sharks are also part of a surfer’s life. They have cut my sessions short in Costa Rica, Mexico, Panama and Australia. You think that you’ve got stress? Try creeping across the water pass to South Stradbroke Island in Australia.

I was in Australia to teach a three day seminar in Melbourne in 2004. I quickly befriended a group of impassioned surfing chiropractors and spent the week scouring the local line-ups and enjoying world-class waves. They were eager to show me the best surf that the Gold Coast had to offer – which, unfortunately, meant a requisite trip out to South Stradbroke Island. “South Straddie” is known for two things: dredging beach break peaks and lots of big sharks.

To get to the island, surfers must first paddle across the Seaway Spit, a 100 yard outlet that serves as the sole portal for ships – and sharks- to pass in and out of the huge Runaway Bay. My short paddle across this notorious shark pit was so charged by adrenaline that I can barely recall it. Barely.

What I do remember was feeling my heart beat against my board as I paddled. I also remember thinking about the fact that sharks can pick up on a normal heart beat from over a mile away. I might as well have been chumming the water.

The mental stress that I was dealing with during that paddle triggered a powerful physiologic adaptation that was totally appropriate for the reality of my situation. This neuroendocrine response created a cascade of chemical and hormonal changes that shifted my body away from a rest, repair, digestion and reproduction state and slammed its gears into a DEFCON 5 “Do or Die” state. This survival mechanism is highly effective and a totally appropriate response to a real and present danger.

The fight or flight response begins with a stimulus. Whether the stimulus is real or perceived, the brain assesses the situation and responds accordingly. If the stimulus is perceived as a threat, the body prepares to act. In this case, a region of the brain called the hypothalamus calls your survival system into action. Your nervous system works with your hormone system (the adrenal-cortical system) to produce the stress hormones that will act as catalysts to trigger the appropriate physiological adaptive responses. In other words: all systems go!

Stress hormones like cortisol, adrenaline (epinephrine) and noradrenalin (nor epinephrine) course through your blood stream and stimulate your organ systems to jump into action. The adrenal-cortical system becomes activated by way of the pituitary gland. The pituitary gland secretes a hormone known as ACTH (adrenocorticotropic hormone) which journeys – via the bloodstream – to your adrenal cortex, which produces a host of different hormones to address the stressful situation at hand.

If you are being pursued by a shark, you want your body to be ready to move. Your eyes dilate, hearing sharpens, focus narrows, blood pressure builds, heart rate skyrockets, breathing intensifies and muscles tense. Below perception your blood sugar and blood lipids elevate for energy; clotting factors increase in your blood; and your immune, digestion, and reproductive systems are shut-down in the name of energy prioritization. All this for great surf?

In nature, danger is usually short-lived. The outcomes vary, but typically the danger passes and the threat is over – or your life is over. With the exception of weather and famine, there are few forms of sustained stress in nature. Historically man experienced a fairly predictable cycle of rest and repair, with brief, yet stimulating brushes with danger and the occasional intense life and death situation. All days were physically active and challenging, but overall, man was designed to enjoy a generally simple lifestyle.

Now consider modern man.

We now find ourselves in a constant state of low-grade stress, or more accurately, somewhere between “low grade pressure” and “moderately chaotic” on the lifestyle stress continuum. I love Mark Sisson’s take on the post-modern world’s affect on our health today:

“Theoretically then, persistent, low-level stress – which the body unfortunately interprets as warranting a “fight or flight” response – is destructive to health. In other words, being stuck in traffic for two hours a day, every day, is the equivalent of a serious survival threat to your as-yet “primal” brain, and the adrenals pump accordingly. Cortisol serves many important functions, including the rapid release of glycogen stores for immediate energy. But persistent cortisol release requires that other vital mechanisms effectively shut down – immunity, digestion, healthy endocrine function, and so on. Among other stress-health associations, the link between elevated cortisol and weight gain has already been established.

“The tremendous volume and scope of stressful stimuli present in the modern, fast-paced lifestyle may play a very critical role in the high rates of diabetes, metabolic syndrome, obesity, depression and anxiety we’re seeing.”

The reality is that our world has become more complex and stressful around us. As a natural consequence, so have our lives. There are countless contributors to the aggregate stress that we feel. Some things are out of our control, some things are not. Well People focus on developing more effective coping mechanisms to the unavoidables, while mitigating the reducible stressors with better decision-making.

Start every decision today with one simple question: Is this going to add to my stress or reduce it? Sometimes the waves are just as good on this side of the channel.

Choose well,

Dr. Stephen Franson