You've heard of burnout. But what if the real crisis starts long before the breaking point? In this short opener, host Stacie introduces allostatic load — the scientific term for the cumulative "wear and tear" the body accumulates under chronic, unresolved stress. It's not a bad week. It's what happens when the body never fully recovers, and the nervous system learns to treat survival mode as its new normal. Research shows women carry a disproportionate allostatic burden — driven not just by biology, but by the invisible labor, emotional weight, and systemic pressures that don't clock out at 5pm. And for leaders and HR professionals, this matters: what often looks like a performance problem in your workforce may actually be a health signal hiding in plain sight. This episode opens a series that follows allostatic load where it leads — into autoimmune disease, hormonal disruption, ADHD, and what it truly costs women, leaders, and organizations when we keep misreading the signal. Under 5 minutes. But it might change how you see everything else. Stacie Origins of the Term The concept of allostasis — meaning "stability through change" — was first introduced by neurobiologist Peter Sterling and epidemiologist Joseph Eyer in 1988 to describe how the brain dynamically recalibrates internal physiological systems in anticipation of environmental demands, rather than simply reacting to them. Building on this foundation, neuroscientist Bruce McEwen and physiologist Eliot Stellar coined the term allostatic load in 1993, defining it as the cumulative physiological "wear and tear" the body experiences when allostatic systems are chronically activated, fail to shut off, or never perform normally. McEwen later described this as "the price of adaptation" — the physiological cost the body pays for sustained attempts to manage chronic stress. The Biological Cascade: What Happens in the Body When the brain perceives a stressor — real or anticipated — it activates two primary physiological systems: the sympathetic-adrenal-medullary (SAM) axis, which releases catecholamines (adrenaline, noradrenaline), and the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis, which releases glucocorticoids, primarily cortisol. In the short term, these responses are adaptive and protective. However, under conditions of chronic, unresolved stress, this cascade remains activated. Over time, the brain and organ systems undergo measurable physiological changes: ↑ Elevated cortisol, epinephrine, and norepinephrine (neuroendocrine markers) ↑ Elevated inflammatory markers: C-reactive protein (CRP), interleukin-6 (IL-6), fibrinogen ↑ Dysregulated blood pressure, lipid levels, glycated hemoglobin (metabolic markers) ↓ DHEA (dehydroepiandrosterone) — the protective counterpart to cortisol A 2001 landmark study using the MacArthur Studies of Successful Aging demonstrated that higher allostatic load scores at baseline were significantly associated with increased 7-year mortality risk and declines in both cognitive and physical functioning. A comprehensive 2020 systematic review of 267 studies confirmed that allostatic load and allostatic overload are robustly associated with poorer physical and mental health outcomes across a wide range of conditions.
