On Anxiety and Cortisol

This is not my first visit to the ER

Do you come here often?

The whole time I was a teacher, it was common for me to see everyone around me burning out — from teachers to students — but no one talked about it. The top students complained about the work and appeared miserable, and the typical conversation with a top teacher toward the end of the school year went something like this:

“I… just don’t know what’s wrong with me. I have been napping a lot, and no matter how much I sleep, I have no energy during the day. I have to drink like three coffees just to get through the day. At night, I can’t sleep either, no matter how much I try. And it’s not just the weekdays. It’s also on weekends. I’ve taken melatonin, but it’s not doing anything. I’ve also tried drinking a few beers before bed. Then today, I felt like my blood pressure suddenly spiked or dropped. I need to get checked out. Maybe I’m just getting sick or maybe there’s something wrong with me.”

Almost no one understood what their body was trying to tell them, assumed they were getting sick, or simply chose to ignore it. The majority of us who would work summer school could not afford not to work summers because teachers are underpaid and some of us had problems we could not even begin to talk about. The extra check was our opportunity to “get back on track” with some sort of maintenance for the car or house. Other times, it allowed us some money for a short one-week vacation with our families. So we would beat on when three quarters of the staff was off and our spirits depleted.

Almost no one understood what their body was trying to tell them or simply chose to ignore it.

The burn out at the high school level aligns pretty well with the state exams students have to take, and it was around that time that my stress levels would reach new heights, pushing the threshold of my capacity for stress, just like it did for many of my colleagues. Schools have become increasingly efficient at beating to the rhythm set by the state exams, and they have done so at the expense of creativity, actual knowledge, and the mental health of students and teachers alike. The issue was that I was also sponsoring an extra-curricular activity, I was a full-time graduate student, I participated in an internship, and I had responsibilities at home as a husband and father. There was little room for error in the organization of my day, and for the longest time, my biggest priority had been my students — even before my own family.

Photo of a glass apple, an award often given to teachers, produced through AI generation.

It is no secret that our endocrine system responds to stress by releasing a cocktail of hormones and chemicals that prepare our body to fight or escape our way out of a situation. Cortisol is known as “the stress hormone,” but for whatever reason, our bodies heal at a relatively slower rate when we have an excess of it as the result of actual stress. Apparently our body needs actual physical and mental rest to heal (wild, I know). While I was burning out, and (I assume) my cortisol levels were through the roof, I felt I was getting sick from a cold or some sort of sinus infection. I went to the doctor, and since my days were strictly structured, I opted for a corticosteroid shot to get back on track immediately. I had gotten one before, and it worked.

I felt completely fine after getting the shot. In fact, when I left the doctor’s office, I felt like I could breathe a little easier. My head even stopped hurting. When I got home, I decided to get some exercise in before I had to start my week once again, and I felt unusually exhausted during my exercise but dismissed it as just another symptom of burnout. By the time I laid down to sleep, my chest felt weird. It did not feel like anxiety. That feeling is all too familiar. No, this felt like my chest wanted to explode. I checked my heart rate. 145 BPM, laying down, watching my favorite show. I sat up, and it shot up to 160 BPM in a matter of minutes. For comparison, my resting heart rate is anywhere between 65-75. By the time it hit 160, I was getting tunnel vision and seeing spots.

My brother drove me to the hospital, and staff there ran several tests, noting an elevated blood pressure but no abnormalities with my chest X-ray before deciding that I was simply experiencing a side effect of the shot I had received earlier in the day. I called it cortisol intoxication. The doctor kept me in observation for approximately five to six hours until my heart rate was “elevated but manageable” at about 105-110 BPM. I went home close to dawn and slept for hours, but still had to deal with the aftermath. I lost 20-25 pounds that week, lost all appetite, developed a new fear of physical exercise, experienced an all-new level of anxiety, and missed a lot of work and school. The worst part was that I knew I had no choice but to continue trudging.

I learned much about my body’s biochemistry through the experience. Today, I enjoy exercise once again and value it greatly from a mental health standpoint, but I had to essentially treat myself for the fear of high heart rates through exposure therapy. I had to regain my strength, both physically and mentally, and I had to push myself to continue working in the profession that was slowly killing me — the profession where you are either a great, unhealthy teacher or a mediocre, healthy one. The school year that followed was my last, and I would go on to become “teacher of the year.”