Completing stress cycles and healing burnout - why and how?

We planted mint in the backyard a few years ago, and also oregano, thyme, and rosemary. Now the mint seems to have taken over everything and the oregano and thyme are barely visible. If we leave it as is, soon the whole backyard will be a mint backyard.

While over-enthusiastic mint is not a huge problem, there are some issues that are highly pervasive and dangerous - Stress and Burnout.

The constant feeling of not being in a safe space can wear our body and mind out, and sap the joy out of our life. And unaddressed stress can wreck our physical and mental health, relationships, and even a desire for life. In their book Burnout - The secret to unlocking the stress cycle, Emily and Amilia Nagoski say,

“The stress will kill you faster than the stressor will…if your stress level outpaces the resources you have available to drain off the stress, it keeps accumulating.”

Stressors, emotions, and incomplete stress cycles

This book has been an eye-opener in terms of learning about stress, emotions, and the impact of unprocessed emotions on our mental and physical health.

I would strongly recommend reading the book or listening to their podcast interview with Brene Brown or watching their Ted talk.

The Nagoski sisters talk about our bodies' natural response to different stressors - the Stress Response Cycle,

"[A] complete stress response cycle:

it has a beginning, when you perceive the threat;

a middle, where you do something with your body;

and an end, where your body receives the signal that it has escaped from this potential threat, and your body is now a safe place for you to be. ”

In olden times, the stressors we faced were real and tangible e.g., coming face to face with a wild animal, so we could run, scream or hide and complete the stress cycle. But these days many of us face stressors that are constant and low-grade or are encountered in polite situations. This means our bodies are not able to process the stress the way they want to.

Worse, we may not even feel the emotions in our body because we are taught to be practical and pragmatic in life or we might be afraid of feeling uncomfortable emotions.

All this means that we have many incomplete stress cycles in our body which cause our body to be stuck in an emotion. And as we get older these incomplete stress cycles pile up, leading to severe exhaustion or burnout.

What can we do to complete stress cycles?

If you have dealt with problems or stress in the past and wonder why your body or mind is still not “over” it even though you solved the problems, it could be because of incomplete stress cycles.

They say that to get ourselves out of the stress response, we have to do something to signal to our bodies that we are safe. They talk about different ways of completing the stress cycles and here are some of them:

• Any form of physical activity: Exercise, Walking, Dancing, Jumping…
• Breathing slow and long, especially slow long exhales
• Positive social interactions, e.g., connecting with other people you like or feel safe with
• (Real) laughing
• Hugging someone you love until you feel a shift in your body to relax
• Crying
• Creative expression (e.g., painting, sketching, knitting, gardening…) - yay!!! I am so happy Creative Expression is on this list :D
• Tensing every muscle in your body really hard for a count of 10 and release to relax completely
• Shaking (e.g., Tension and Trauma Releasing Exercises)

Some of the above might work better for you than others. So try different things and see what feels better. Also, it might take some time for the backlog to clear up until you start to see noticeable effects, and move from a place of being stuck towards addressing stress dynamically and regularly.

I hope that you found this helpful, please share this email with people you know because this could be super useful to anyone who has experienced stress, i.e., is alive :D.

Thank you and till later!

Beant