What is the Stress Cycle, and how to smash it?
Have you been wondering what is the stress cycle and how to close it? The Titipoza Team recently read the book Burnout: The secret to solving the stress cycle written by Emily and Amelia Nagoski, and we thought you might benefit from their research.
Burnout has become a prevalent word during our current pandemic, but most of us have no idea how to deal with it. So what is the stress cycle? The stress cycle is the cycle your body goes to alert you of imminent danger. According to an article on Psych Central, there are five main stages of the stress cycle. These stages are, in order, the external stressor, internal appraisal, physiological response, internalization, and coping.
This stress response goes back to when we were cavemen and cavewomen, and danger was the stress response would kick into gear to keep us safe from imminent danger. This is how it works in our brain. When one or multiple of our five senses danger, it signals our brain to let it know we are in danger. This message arrives in the Amygdala, which is in charge of the fight or flight response, telling your body that you are in danger and you have to run away, hide or jump, saving you from being eaten by a lion or a similar danger.
Let's take this situation to the 21st century. Currently, this response is excellent when a car is coming toward you and your body can alert you there is danger on the horizon via a rise in your cortisol levels, saving you from being crashed. However, there is a big difference between when we were cavemen and cavewomen compared to today.
Today we feel we are in danger most of the time and have difficulty telling our bodies we are safe. For example, we arrive late at work, and our body tells us we are in danger of being reported to HR. The computer has a breakdown, and we cannot access our presentation, increasing the already alarmed Amygdala. Once we finally arrive home to "rest," we receive several messages that alert us that the world is on fire, either because of our notifications on our phone or our tv's breaking news, or the pings from our bosses' emails. This makes us have a tough time closing the stress cycle every day or, in other words telling our body we are safe.
Now that we understand the urgency of our body, we need to know why it is so important to lower our cortisol levels by closing the stress cycle. Cortisol is produced by your adrenal glands, which are located at the top of your kidneys. Cortisol works as an alarm system for your body and manages how your body uses carbohydrates, fats, and proteins, as well as keeping inflammation down, regulating blood pressure, controlling your sleep cycle, and so much more.
Now that you understand everything that cortisols manage in our body, we can better understand how important it is to control our cortisol levels. For starters, if our cortisol levels are high after the danger has passed, our body will react by having headaches, heart diseases, memory problems, sleep issues, anxiety, depression, or other adverse reaction.
So, if we want to avoid these adverse side effects of having our cortisol levels higher than they should, we need to close the stress cycle. As a reminder, we complete the stress cycle when we tell our bodies that we are safe and that there are no dangers ahead. However, it is not as easy as telling your body that you are safe. This is why we burn out. So here are some ways we can close the stress cycle and avoid burnout:
Physical activity - I bet you saw this coming. Nonetheless, it is essential to be active to help reduce our stress. Physical activity can be anything from running, dancing, swimming, stomping your feet, or being in a pillow fight! You see, it wasn't too bad.
Laughing, this is a good one. Watch a good show on, call your best friend, look for videos of kids answering adult questions, anything that makes you laugh. Being able to release our emotions is a very healthy way of closing the cycle.
Crying, yes, the opposite of laughing. However, crying is an excellent way of releasing your emotions, letting go of the day's troubles, and focusing on you and what your body needs at the moment.
Be creative! Get handsy! You can paint mandalas, garden, sing, write, or attend a pottery class. Anything that gets you going and lowers your stress.
And deep breathing! There are many ways to do deep breathing, so choose what is best for you. We like to recommend breathing deeply for 6 seconds, holding it for 4 seconds, and releasing it for 12 seconds. You can play around with the time that works best for you, but the idea is that you double the number of seconds that you use to breathe in. This will calm your body in no time.
So now that we explained what is going on in your body and the importance of closing the stress cycle, how will you be closing your stress cycle?
https://www.womenshealthmag.com/uk/health/mental-health/a708722/cortisol-test/
https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/understanding-the-stress-response
https://www.womenshealthmag.com/uk/health/mental-health/a27098268/how-to-de-stress/
