Have you ever had one of those weeks? Me too. Nothing outlandish happened, just some more-than-usual busyness, travel, and caregiving. I knew a lot was going on, but I was self-regulating and coping well. Then something bigger happened. I thought I had handled it, but when I tried to go to bed and couldn’t sleep because I kept ruminating on it, I realized I had bottled up my stress instead of acknowledging and dealing with it.
Shortly after, I randomly started a meditation about vagal tone, and a lightbulb went off: I hadn’t completed the stress cycle. You see, stress or stressors aren’t the problem; it’s when we don’t intentionally recover from them that we start to have problems.
When we perceive stress, whether internal or external, our body responds with hormones to mediate the stress response. As neuroscientist Dr. Bruce McEwen says, these hormones (glucocorticoids and catecholamines) have “both protective and damaging effects on the body. In the short run, they are essential for adaptation, maintenance of homeostasis, and survival (allostasis). Yet, over longer time intervals, they exact a cost (allostatic load) that can accelerate disease processes.” This allostatic load is toxic stress. Beyond the “flight-or-fight” response to acute stress, when we don’t return to baseline, stress begins to accumulate in the body, causing wear and tear that comes with living in a state of high alert without coming back down to recover.
McEwen further writes. “The brain is the key organ of the response to stress because it determines what is threatening and, therefore, potentially stressful, as well as the physiological and behavioral responses which can be either adaptive or damaging. Stress involves two-way communication between the brain and the cardiovascular, immune, and other systems via neural and endocrine mechanisms.”
When I listened to the meditation, here’s the part that struck me: “When we’re stressed, we often try to think our way out of the state, but because the stress response happens automatically in our body, sometimes we’re not able to just tell ourselves, ‘Calm down.” The vagal nerve, which increases our parasympathetic response, carries 80% of the signal from the body to the brain. So, this means that we can show our body that it’s safe, and in turn, our body will tell our brain that we can calm down.”
It reminded me of an old Unlocking Us podcast by Brené Brown, in which she interviewed the Nagoski sisters, who wrote a book called Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle. There are SO MANY lessons packed into that hour-long podcast, but the biggest for me was learning about the stress cycle. The first thing to know is that the stressor (what’s causing you stress) is different from the stress itself. If you remove the stressor but don’t deal with the stress itself (the physical and mental responses in your body or allostatic load), you get caught in a stress cycle, leaving your body in a constant, chronic, fatiguing state of elevated mental and hormonal responses that, over time, can wreak havoc on your body. You need to complete the stress cycle to return to allostasis. It’s like being stuck halfway through a tunnel. You need to go all the way through. McEwen again:
“When something happens to us, whether it’s getting out of bed in the morning, which some people find stressful, or having a conversation, or almost anything we do, especially if it’s unexpected, the body amps up and produces a harmonious orchestra of chemical mediators, including cortisol and adrenalin, as well as neurotransmitters, metabolic hormones such as leptin and insulin, and cytokines from the immune system. They make the heart rate go up, trigger the release of glucose, increase the amount of oxygen that reaches the brain. It’s all designed to keep us alert to meet the challenge. But the key is that the body turns on this response when you need it and turns it off again when the challenge is over.”
How do you complete the stress cycle? McEwan says that social and behavioral interventions, such as regular physical activity and social support, reduce the chronic stress burden and benefit brain and body health and resilience. That vagal nerve mediation (here are some others) took us through a breathing exercise since “one of the most direct ways to talk to our brain is through our breath. Specifically, slow rhythmic breathing can send a powerful signal of safety and relaxation to our nervous system and help strengthen our vagal tone. We can think of our vagal tone as our body’s built-in calming system. The stronger it is, the easier it will be to return to baseline after a stressor.”
Here are 7 ways to complete the body’s stress cycle according to the Nagoskis.
- Physical activity is the single best way to complete the stress cycle
- Breathing
- Positive social interaction
- Laughter
- Affection (there’s science behind the 20-second hug!)
- A big ole’ cry
- Creative expression
Sometimes a long walk is just what I need, or some good cardio movement. Other times, a 20-second hug takes the edge off. Often it’s a combination, but it needs to happen often, preferably every day. So find what works for you, or do a little bit of each. I recently read how listening to birdsong can boost your wellbeing!
No matter what, find your own way to reduce the allostatic load. Your entire being will thank you for it.
Here’s more inspiration if you need it:
