Today, however, if we are stuck in a traffic jam and about to miss that urgent appointment, our stress hormones are rushing around and it’s a bit like slipping our body’s clutch with our foot on the accelerator. Our adrenals pump out cortisol which galvanises the body during stress. The heart speeds up, blood pressure rises and our demand for energy means we switch from eating proteins towards sugars to fuel the muscles. Under normal circumstances, after the stressful event has passed, another hormone called DHEA acts like a handbrake to reduce the cortisol levels and the adrenals go into a resting phase.

So what happens if the stress is ongoing? Firstly, the physiological effects of sustained stress can cause cravings for sugar which wildly affects our blood sugar levels and takes us on a roller coaster ride. We may find ourselves waking at 3 am, just as if a boiler timer had gone off, because of the adrenals shifting out of their 24-hour rhythm and starting the anabolic cycle too soon. We don’t reach the restorative REM (rapid eye movement) state even when we are asleep, so we feel TATT (tired all the time). Our immune function becomes impaired and, in addition to potential depression, we are liable to get allergies of all kinds and osteoporosis. Wow! we should have a national flag day for the adrenals to draw attention to the physiological effects of stress.