Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls! Welcome to our new exciting game show, “Stress or Stressor?!”

Can you tell the difference between the two? It’s really important because one is more easily manageable than the other….

Here are a few examples from someone’s life, not necessarily me:

1. {For each of the following, ask yourself: is it a stressor or stress?}
   • • Leave home for a doctor’s appointment just a little bit too late to comfortably arrive and find parking. (Some people live on the edge!) 
     • Unexpected traffic builds up. (Unexpected? Really?) 
     • Start getting really fidgety and angry. 
     • Imagine being late and finding the doctor’s office locked, or worse, it’s open because the doctor stayed there waiting. 
     • Stomach in knots, start feeling a little sick. 
     • Cursing ensues. 
2. {As above, stressor or stress?}
   • • Fussy baby cries. Again and again. 
     • Raise, pat, rock, speak to baby in a hushed voice, more crying. 
     • Teething? Colic? General malaise at the state of the planet? Who knows?? 
     • Feeling exasperated, tired, upset, worst-mother-in-the-world by far. 
     • Wanting to cry and scream at the same time.
3. {You know what to do}
   • • Staring at the computer screen working toward a deadline. 
     • Feeling confused, off-track and scared. 
     • Not sure what to do, so surf travel sites and dream of exotic vacations. 
     • Stare at the clock. Realize that it’s too late to do a good job. 
     • Try to breathe deeply but can’t. 
     • Feel worthless and depressed.

So? How did you score??

Is it becoming clear? 

While the STRESSOR is the difficult situation, the STRESS (or stress response) is our emotions and our bodily reaction in response to the stressors.

The good news is that while we’re not always able to mitigate or resolve the stressor, (except leave the house 10 minutes earlier, for crying out loud!) we can always deal with our emotional and physical response. 

It’s important to respect the fact that some stressors can in no way be resolved, like the death of a loved one. Some are beyond our individual capabilities. But our bodies are designed to cycle between stressful and calm situations, so we do have the evolutionary mechanisms to close the stress cycle and return to a calm or calmer feeling. This is critical for avoiding chronic stress, which can lead to burnout.

Our stress response evolved as a survival mechanism, enabling people and other mammals to react quickly to life-threatening situations. A carefully orchestrated, near-instantaneous sequence of hormonal changes and physiological responses helps someone to fight the threat off or flee to safety. 

This is the famous “Fight-or-Flight” response to threat, now more often referred to as “Fight, Flight of Freeze”. When there’s no chance to either attack or escape, the body automatically shuts down, freezes, and this is what often happens to trauma victims. 

This response is automatic. It’s not a planned, deliberately thought-out reaction, but a rapid-fire, automatic, total body response that we share with other animals. But unlike animals escaping predators in nature, the human body can also overreact to stressors that are not life-threatening, such as traffic jams, work pressure, and family difficulties. It responds in the same way, as if it were facing a predator. 

The same hormonal cascade takes place, and we experience the same negative emotions, (fear, anger) and bodily reactions (elevated heart rate, dry mouth, knotted stomach) that prepare us to run or attack. Or we black out and feel like we can’t think straight.

Fortunately, all mammals, including us, have biological means of calming the body down after a stressful situation, to reduce the stress hormones and increase feel-good hormones that induce a feeling of calm. This is called closing the stress cycle.

When we regularly don’t close the stress cycle, it builds up and becomes chronic stress. And chronic stress may lead to burnout.

This is me, in nature, looking for predators, such as traffic buildup (Photo by Alex on Unsplash)

So how do we close the stress cycle?

In this (not very high-quality, sorry) video, you’ll see an impala physically shake off its stress. Notice that at first it “plays dead”, which is the Freeze stress response, but at 0:36, it starts shaking:

So just like the impala, our bodies are designed to lower our stress hormones by movement (see here for ideas), and other recommended techniques. As explained in more detail in a previous post, here is an executive summary of my personal faves:

• • Exercise
  • Laughter, best together with other people
  • Sleep, especially REM sleep
  • Spending time in nature
  • Connection with pets
  • Using imagination to fight, take revenge on your stressor, break stuff, etc. 

Imagination works best with movement. This is my recent go-to strategy, often involving air kicks and an imaginary flame-thrower… It works so fast (30-60 seconds) and so well, I can’t recommend it enough! 

So the next time that COVID news makes you feel tightness in your chest, don’t worry about the fact that you haven’t developed a vaccine and figured out its effective distribution all on your own. That’s the stressor. You don’t have to deal with it this very second. To protect your health, you have to manage your stress. Take a few deep breaths, dance around to some music, punch the air, and imagine vividly what you would do to those evil viruses. I’m sure even they can’t survive a good flame-thrower.

Photo by Stephanie LeBlanc on Unsplash

Feeling like your stress is building up and may become chronic? To schedule a free assessment session, take a look at my calendar and book a call!