Keir Starmer has become the sixth UK prime minister to resign in a decade, prompting experts to point to a psychological phenomenon known as 'allostatic load' as the underlying cause. Psychologist Lucy Beresford explains that allostatic load refers to the cumulative impact of external instability on the body and mind when subjected to prolonged or regular stress. While originally a biological term, institutions can suffer from 'institutional allostatic load' when trapped in a cycle of adaptation without recovery time.
What Is Allostatic Load?
Hannah Jackson-McCamley, a UKCP psychotherapist, tells Metro that the government likely suffers from allostatic load, especially at the leadership level. 'When you go into a role where that institution itself has a static load, it's difficult to make change when things are so intrinsic to how the country is run,' she says. 'Think of the amount of stuff day-to-day that you have to process. Keir wins an election, so that's three months of stress, then he goes into the job of leading the country, and he's never had a chance to recover from the wear and tear of any of this.' She adds that 'the institution and the state of the country wasn't going to allow him to flourish, so I can't believe there wasn't an allostatic load.'
Contributing Factors
Both psychologists cite major events from recent years, including the Iran war, which raised concerns about commuting costs, and the war in Ukraine, which added pressure on prices. 'You only have to look at the last five to 10 years of politics to see life has been quite chaotic for a lot of people,' Lucy says. 'There's the white noise of the financial crisis, the pandemic and lockdown, not to mention six prime ministers in a short period of time. Automatically the body is kind of bracing itself. What's the next crisis? What's the next announcement? Who's going to be the next prime minister?' She explains this creates an environment of instability that is 'very stressful for human beings.' Hannah adds that personal stressors like relationship problems, difficult work projects, or hating your job compound the issue.
Effects on the Body and Mind
Psychologist Lucy explains the physiological impact: 'The body releases quite a lot of hormones to cope with stress in the moment, like cortisol and adrenaline. It's fine if it happens as a one-off or very infrequently, but if your body is exposed to a lot of stress, this can build up and have an effect on the muscles, tissues, and organs. It wears the body down without having time to heal or replenish.' This can exacerbate existing issues such as high blood pressure and weaken the immune system, leading to more illnesses and infections. Mentally, it can cause anxiousness, helplessness, and depression. Lucy even notes a theory that allostatic load can increase fat deposits around the abdomen due to stress hormones.
Five Signs of Allostatic Load
Hannah distinguishes allostatic load from regular stress: 'What makes up the allostatic load are environmental stressors, physiological stressors and trauma and life events. It's when you start noticing that there are physiological aspects, mood changes and a sense things are just never ending.' Unlike a stressful work project or moving house, which have an end point, allostatic load is a constant hamster wheel of symptoms with a sense of helplessness. Key signs include: feeling weary or more tired than normal; changes in eating habits (over-eating, under-eating, excessive alcohol use, reaching for sugar); being ill more often or getting more infections; putting on weight; and feeling helpless or depressed. Hannah adds that when Keir got emotional and choked up at the end of his speech, it could have been a sign of burnout where 'emotions are spilling as opposed to being processed.'
