How money stress affects your health and longevity

You likely know one major biology lesson about stress: your body has been designed—through a primal need to survive—to instantly evaluate a stressor and then decide which of two ways you’re going to engage with it. Do you take flight or stay and fight?

Evolutionarily and biologically, this instinctual choice makes a lot of sense. Way back, when we gathered around the campfire, grilling up the scrumptious catch of the day, you had to react when the tables were turned and some beast wanted to make you its catch of the day. So when a four-legged beast growled, grunted, stalked and then lunged forward for its in-the-wild appetizer, you had to decide whether you’d be better off hauling butt or kicking butt. Flight or fight.

Your body, even back then, knew what it needed to do. Your heart rate increased to pump blood through your body in order to fuel your muscles, and hormones surged to give you a rush of energy, strength and chutzpah to do whatever you needed to do in order to survive. Above all, there was no shame in either course of action—fight or flight—as long as the outcome remained the same. If you survived, so did the species.