How to Stop The Stress Cycle
Sharing my takeaway from reading ‘Burnout’ by Emily and Amelia Nagoski so far…
We often try or have to deal with a stressful situation the best we can in that moment. Sometimes it’s resolved and other times it doesn’t and we find a compromise if it can’t be dealt with or resolved there and then.
Most of us think that is that and often we don’t deal with how we feel as a result of the situation. According to Amelia and Emily Nagoski, we need to deal with how we feel after a stressful situation. They’ve found that stress has a cycle and it needs to be completed.
When we don’t complete the stress cycle, we store the stress in our body and the emotion is suppressed. It becomes an internal stress and over time it makes our body become out of balance. And this is what causes burnout.
Therefore it’s vital that we do something physical to complete the stress cycle. By completing the stress cycle, we deal with the internal stress. In other words, we need to acknowledge the emotions, feelings that we feel, move them through our body and release them. It’s no good telling ourselves that ‘everything is okay now’ or ‘everything is sorted and move on’ or ‘it’s fine’ which, by the way, I hear a lot! But it’s not fine. Suppressing emotions isn’t fine.
Suppressing our emotions will cause the body to erupt one way or another. Physiological shift is needed to minimise or even prevent this.
How we do this can be through:
Movements - any physical activity that will make you feel good (I like dancing, jumping about and shaking my body)
Crying
Hugging
Laughing
Talking to someone
Letting out a scream safely (onto a pillow or towel)
Breathing your normal breaths or breathing slowly
(One of my favourites is talking to my dogs on a walk and letting out a few swear words!)
When my clutch failed me the other day on a wet, cold and busy Monday morning school run, I felt so frightened and anxious that my heart started to race faster and harder. At the same time, my mind was trying to work out what was happening. All was well in the end. But it was not quite the end. When I got home I kept saying to myself how lucky and grateful I was that I didn’t break down in the middle of the traffic, and how things could have been worse; I could have broken down in the middle of the traffic and caused a massive jam holding everyone up, my son would’ve been late for school, I wouldn’t have had a car to pick him up and so on - my mind went wild for a while. This made my body stay on high alert - the fight and flight mode. I has to take myself for a short walk trying to calm my nervous system down whilst trying to pin down the emotions that I was feeling. But I was still on edge when I got back. I knew I had to do something more vigorous! So I danced and jumped around for about 5 mins shaking out what turned out to be fear and anxiety, and brought my body back to the equilibrium. I completed the stress cycle.
As you’ve gathered, I had to do quite a bit of movements.
This is not always the case, so what I would say is do something that works for you. A different day may need a different strategy, depending on how you’re feeling, how it’s affecting you, where you are etc. It’s important to listen to your body and give it what it needs for however long it takes. Sometimes when it’s not possible to deal with your internal stress straight after the event, even on the same day, in this case, you can shelf it but at some point soon you need to do something before it creeps up on you and builds up.
It’s not possible to escape the daily stress, so Amelia and Emily recommend that setting aside 30 mins each day for physical activities is beneficial. My add-on to it is that it is crucial, so make it non-negotiable. With practice, you’ll get to know your body better and you can get a sense of what works in certain situations.
Let me know in the comment below if this resonates or if it’s helpful.
Or if you have any questions, feel free to reach out.
If you want some help with processing your internal stress, especially if it’s built up over time, book your free no obligations call here.
Love Claryn x
