Stress Isn’t What you Think It is
When you hear the word “stress”, what do you think of? Too much work to do? Maybe demanding bosses or teachers? Maybe family conflict? All of these are great examples of stress. But they barely scratch the surface.
Stress is actually any challenge that the body must adapt to.
When you encounter a challenge that you have the resources to adapt to, you learn, grow, and get stronger! But when you don’t have the resources you need, you’ll start to get stressed out – you might feel anxious, or get frustrated when you can’t seem to make any progress. If you aren’t able to get those resources you need and the challenge persists, your body will no longer be able to keep trying, and you’ll burn out.
“Your body responds the same regardless of whether the challenge you’re facing is mental or physical.”
You know how this looks in a typical work or school stress scenario:
When you have the resources: you solve problems, and learn how to solve similar problems in the future
When you don’t have the resources: you feel anxious and start stress-eating (your body’s attempt to give you resources!)
If the challenge persists: you burn out, stop caring, and feel super tired (because you’ve burnt so much energy trying to solve an unsolvable problem)
But what about a different kind of stress. Let’s look at exercise:
You’re well-rested and well-fed: you get stronger and can increase your reps or weight!
You’re tired and only eating salad: you can’t seem to make any progress (you’re also hungry and exhausted but ignoring that)
You keep doing hour-long weight lifting workouts on 6 hours of sleep and a diet of rabbit food: you can’t lift as much as you used to, and have sore muscles for several days after every workout
As you can see, the way your body responds is the same regardless of whether the challenge you’re facing is mental or physical. The response includes releasing hormones that increase your alertness and change the way you use energy. When you have the resources to adapt to challenge, this is super helpful! It keeps you on task and gives you quick energy. When you don’t have the resources, or you’re responding to a challenge that there isn’t a solution to (like watching the news), these same responses are very unhelpful – they’re responsible for the jittery feeling of anxiety, and stress eating.
Because the body responds to all types of stressors in the same way, being challenged in different ways at the same time makes it harder to successfully adapt to each one. I KNOW THIS SEEMS OBVIOUS – when you’re stressed because of a work project and a home renovation at the same time, you’re clearly more likely to burn out. But it’s important to acknowledge this because we might not notice when we’re stacking stressors. For example, if we’re really stressed out from that work project, we might take a break and do some exercise – but the exercise is a stressor too! For me, I know that chocolate (which is a common migraine trigger) is a delicious treat most of the time, but I should avoid it when I’m super stressed, dehydrated, or about to get my period, because it increases the chance that I’ll get a migraine.
So how can you use this information to avoid overwhelm?
Catch Your Stressors Early
We know that the same challenges that can help you learn and grow can also trigger stress and overwhelm. So how can you tell when it’s “good stress” and when it’s “bad stress”? The trick is to learn your body’s stress signals. Learn to recognize the sensations, thoughts, and symptoms that pop up when you’re dealing with a challenge you don’t have the resources to adapt to.
Here are some good indicators to pay attention to:
When you have the resources: you feel excited, prepared, intrigued, energized, and focused.
When you don’t have the resources: you feel apprehensive, afraid, anxious, shaky, and you may have difficulty sleeping and tense or tender muscles.
When you’ve pushed it too far: you feel burnt out and overwhelmed, you stop caring, and you may notice headaches, upset stomach, tight hips, irregular periods, back pain, flare-ups from an old injury, or overwhelming fatigue.
I know I need to ease off when I feel the muscles in my neck and shoulders get tense and tender to touch. If I ignore this signal, I’ll almost always develop a headache. I wrote a whole blog post about how the body and mind are interconnected, if you want to learn more about this.
Reduce Your “Dose” of Stress
I’m not telling you to quit your job, drop out of school, stop doing anything remotely challenging, and spend your days meditating on a beach somewhere (although that sounds nice). Once you know how to recognize when a challenge is too much, you can work to lower the “dose”.
This usually means removing stressors that are within your control so that the ones outside of your control don’t tax you as much.
You don’t have to do high intensity workouts. You don’t have to make dinner from scratch every day. You can set a loving boundary with that friend who is always coming to you with problems that need solving. You can limit the amount of news and social media you consume every day. You can ask for help.
You may not be in a position to quit your job or school, and you may always be subjected to discrimination, so give yourself a little grace on the things that you do have power over.
Photo from The Gender Spectrum Collection.
Build Up Your Resources
Now this is where the real growth happens.
So you’ve lowered the “dose” of the challenges that aren’t worth struggling over. But what about the challenges that you do want to face? And what about the ones you don’t have control over?
Remember, there are two parts of this equation. Challenge + Resources = Adaptation.
So get those resources!
Every task requires different resources. But here are some key ones that are always important, no matter the task:
Eat nutritious foods
Your food LITERALLY gives you the energy you need to do…everything (read that entire line in a Chris Traeger voice). Plus, many of the stress hormones mess with blood sugar regulation. Eat in a way that gives you a steady stream of energy throughout the day rather than relying on your body’s ability to give you energy when you need it.
Get enough sleep!!!
Your body repairs its cells and removes waste products from your brain while you sleep.
Possibly more importantly, a regular sleep/wake cycle is crucial for the healthy function of cortisol – the stress hormone that will MESS YOU UP if you mess with it, but will keep you energized and on task if you treat it right.
(If you struggle with sleep, make sure to grab my free stay-at-home sleep guide!)
Spend time with people who give you energy
I don’t think anyone questions the importance of social connection, after a year of physical distancing. If you feel like you need more social support than you have, check out my step-by-step guide to building a community of care.
Practice your mindset and coping skills
Therapy and meditation are among the many tools that can help calm your nervous system’s response to threats. This can help reduce overwhelm across the board, from the anxiety that comes from watching the news, to the anger and hurt of being discriminated against.
There Will Always Be Challenges
Learning to recognize when a challenge is too much, and build the resources we need to learn and grow from them are some of the most important skills we can build for ourselves.
And as for the challenges that shouldn’t exist in the first place? Well, it’s gonna take a lot of well-rested well-nourished, determined folks to make the world a better place. Let’s do it.