Stress… it’s something we are all familiar with to some degree. Some of us are more aware of our stressors than others. Some of us are so used to our stress that we don’t always notice the toll that stress can take on our mind and our body over time.
Most of us are used to chronic stress. The kind that sneaks up on us. It compounds over time and we don’t even realize it. For example, if I give you one tennis ball to hang on to, that’s not too challenging. If I give you two tennis balls, again, not that challenging. If I keep giving you one more tennis ball, at what point does it become too many tennis balls to manage? This is what I mean by sneaky stress. There comes a tipping point where it’s not so easy to manage any more.
We all pick up stressors throughout our lives. Some of us started back as teenagers. We may stress about time management or social stress. We then go into our early twenties, where we may add financial stress or work stress. We continue on in life adding on family stress, household stress, etc. See how it is similar to the tennis ball example?
Many of us manage our stress. We’ve come up with strategies to manage the stressors in our day to day lives. Now throw in a pandemic. Throw in a charged political environment. Throw in social justice movements. Are we dropping some tennis balls yet?
Think back to a time where you really were stress free. Really think about it. Give yourself a chance to sink back into that feeling and recognize the stark difference between how you feel now. I know if I do this, it becomes very apparent that I am generally stressed.
Here’s why this is important. When we are under chronic stress, a hormone called cortisol is released. This is a super helpful hormone if you need to utilize your fight or flight response. It helps our bodies to adjust to a threat to ourselves and turn our bodies almost into a mega-bot to either fight a stressor or run away from a stressor.
What if the stressor isn’t something tangible, like a bear? When we are under chronic stress, our bodies don’t get a chance to calm out of their mega-bot form. Over time, this can lead to mental health concerns, heart disease, headaches, digestion issues, weight gain, and sleep issues.
The first step to improving your chronic stress, is to recognize it. Once you know it’s there, you can take a better inventory of what is in and out of your control. From there we can set boundaries, take space for ourselves, and recognize which stress we can work to eliminate. A therapist can also help you sort through this.
My main goal in therapy is client awareness. I want everyone to understand why our bodies and brains work the way they do so we can work to take back our control.
What are some chronic stressors you have been facing? How have you worked to manage them?