John OsborneChief Medical Officer at ClearCardio LLC

How Stress and Danger Affect Your Metabolism

21 Oct 2026 · 1 min

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In this monologue, the presenter distinguishes everyday psychological stress from physiological pathological stress that occurs when breathing stops during sleep, as in sleep apnea. Each apnea episode triggers the body's danger response: a surge of stress hormones (e.g., adrenaline, cortisol) and a spike in blood pressure. The speaker emphasizes that these events can happen 100–200 times per night, repeatedly activating the stress system. This chronic nightly stress fragments REM sleep, reduces overall sleep quality, and leaves the individual feeling exhausted during the day despite believing they have slept several hours. The overall message is that the hidden, repeated physiological stress of apnea has significant metabolic and health consequences.

Chapters

So when you stop breathing, your body feels you're in danger. So you have a lot of stress hormones being released, your blood pressure goes up, and imagine that happening, a lot of the stress hormones being released to compensate for that significantly stressful event to your body. But we have to differentiate what we call stress, stress in our daily life versus physiological pathological stress to your body. So many times we think of stress as, oh, I had a bad day at work, and obviously that's, that's distressing, and that is annoying and disturbing. But what I'm talking about is stress where your body feels that it's in danger. And so when you stop breathing, your body feels you're in danger. So you have a lot of stress hormones being released, your blood pressure goes up, and imagine that happening on and off 100, 200 times every night. Number one problem. Number 2, you wake up even though you thought perhaps that you slept for 7 hours, maybe you slept for 2 or 3. In reality, with REM sleep, and then you, as if you are walking around exhausted.