Completing The Stress Cycle – How Stress Impacts Us And What We Can Do

It’s no secret. Stress has dramatic impacts on our physical and mental health. It even increases our disease risk and can considerably shorten our lives. It can make us feel pretty awful too.

Part of those effects are due to cortisol, the stress hormone. In short bursts, this hormone helps us to respond to immediate stressors giving us the kick we need to move forward. That’s great when the threat is critical and doesn’t last long. But, when things are difficult week after week, cortisol starts to be a serious problem. But, in the long term, cortisol isn’t nearly as helpful.

What do we do?

Our lives are filled with stressors, these days more than ever. Some of these can be reduced, but many others can’t be. We need ways to reduce the stress response in our body and its impact on our health. 

A big part of this is completing the stress cycle. This is a way of moving our body through the stress response and out the other side. Don’t worry if the idea sounds unfamiliar – it’s simple enough in practice. 

What Is Stress?

We often think of stress as external events that are difficult, overwhelming, and often ongoing. However, those can more accurately be considered stressors.

They’re the things that place pressure on us, but they’re not the whole story.

It’s important to make this distinction between stress and stressor, because it’s possible to change your stress response even if the stressor itself remains unchanged.

Here’s a good model:

Your stress response is partly based on your perception of the stressor and your perception of your ability to respond to it.

Makes sense, right? If you don’t think the stressor is a big deal, it’s not going to stress you very much. The same is true if you think you’re more than capable of handling it.

This distinction is partly why people can respond very differently to the same stressors.

When we talk about the stress cycle, we’re looking at the way your body responds to stressful things, rather than the stressful things themselves.

Completing The Stress Cycle

An interesting model of stress suggests that it is meant to function kind of like a wave. You begin with an alarm phase, where your body perceives the threat and starts to respond to it. This dramatically raises cortisol and sets your body into fight or flight mode.

After this, your body calms down a bit into a resistance phase. But, your immediate reactions have decreased, your body is still on high alert.

Ideally, there is then an end stage, where your body releases the tension and you can move forward. The danger is over. You’re safe.

In Burnout, Emily and Ameilia Nagoski talk about how that approach works well for acute stressors, as there is a natural end point, where the body recognizes that the stressor has ended.

But, things are different with chronic stress.

We still get the first two stages of the stress response, but there’s no natural end because the stressor is still there. Or, the stressor is gone, but our bodies haven’t realized that.

As a result, we don’t progress out of the stress cycle. Instead, we simply oscillate between the first two stages, getting increasingly exhausted as we go.  

Completing the stress cycle is all about stopping that loop and actually getting out of the stress response. Doing so stops the overwhelm and allows our bodies to recover. When we are able to complete the cycle like this, then we actually have resources to deal with stressors when they arise, without them overwhelming us.

Now, completing the cycle won’t solve everything, but it can make a surprising difference.

Ways To Complete The Stress Cycle

The following approaches can all help your body to get out of the stress response. The best one will depend on the situation and your own responses. You might need to experiment to find the best fit.

You may also need to take these approaches regularly, particularly after intense days. After all, most of us are dealing with frequent stressors, so our bodies will quickly re-enter the stress mode.

Physical Touch

The touch of another person is how we feel comforted and safe. This is particularly true in times of stress.

Even a longer-than-normal hug can have a big effect. Massages are helpful too, especially as they stimulate your body and improve blood flow.

Somatic Shaking

Here’s an interesting one. It’s sometimes called a shaking practice or a somatic shaking practice (i.e. a body-based shaking practice). And, yes, the idea really is to shake your body

Doing so is linked to the stress cycle. The physical sensations help activate your parasympathetic nervous system – sending a signal to your body that the danger has indeed passed. Indeed, our bodies sometimes naturally shake when releasing trauma. 

There’s another advantage too – somatic shaking is unusual. It’s different from the self-care strategies you’ve been practicing. This could mean it has a stronger effect. 

Exercise and Dancing

Many types of physical movement have the same effects as somatic shaking. This includes going for a run, hitting a punch bag, and even simply dancing. Energized dancing can be particularly good as you’re getting a mood boost from the music as well.

These approaches work because they get that charged fight or flight energy out of your body.

Social Connection

We need other people. It’s as simple as that. Johann Hari talks about this a lot in his book Lost Connections.

This is a crucial topic, as it’s so easy to be isolated these days. You’d think technology makes this easy, but often technology encourages superficial connections. Such connections often make us feel more isolated rather than connected.

We don’t just need to talk to people. We need to feel seen and understood.

Self-Expression

Self-expression is powerful as well. This includes many creative practices, like art, writing, singing, scrapbooking, and the like.

This approach is partly helpful because it puts your head and heart somewhere else. You might even be in a flow state, where you’re fully engrossed in the activity at hand.

Self-expression also helps you feel that you – and your life – are more than just the stress you’re facing. This is particularly relevant for caregivers, as it’s easy to lose yourself in the caregiving role.

Sleep

Sleep is a natural way for the body to calm and reset. This is an important part of recovering from stress. Plus, we all know that sleepless nights tend to make the stress response much worse.

This means you need to do whatever you can to improve your sleep.

For some people, this will mean scheduling things a little better, so you have enough hours to sleep well.

Alternatively, you might need to practice good sleep hygiene habits. These approaches increase your chance of getting a decent night’s sleep.  

Laughing or Crying

Laughing and crying are huge emotional responses. While they’re completely different from each other, they both help with our stress levels.

You’re getting the emotions out! Out and away from you. That’s incredibly relieving. Besides, no good ever comes from constantly repressing your feelings.

This effect may be why the family members who cope the best are those who find humor in the strangest places, who laugh regularly, and sometimes simply have a giant cry.

Of course, these responses work best when they’re authentic. Trying to force yourself to laugh or cry won’t help much.

If you find yourself getting stuck or numb here, why not experiment with movies and music? These are very effective at shifting emotions and might be just the push you need.

Completing The Cycle Isn’t Always Obvious

Here’s an important point – you won’t always notice when you’ve completed the stress cycle, particularly not at first.

That can be because the changes are small at the beginning or because you don’t know where to look or what you’re looking for.

A change in your mental state, mood, or physical tension is a good indication. But, you might even miss this change.

Thankfully, all the stress cycle completion approaches are healthy in their own right. Why not experiment? See what helps you and when it is the most helpful.

If you’re stressed and overwhelmed, no worries. Just start small. Small changes are often the most sustainable anyway. You can always increase your practices as time goes on.

Other Ways to Respond to Stress

Completing the stress cycle is a valuable idea, but it is still a theory in many ways. It’s also not the best response in every situation, especially as the stressor is still in place.

Here are some other approaches that might help. Sometimes you might use stress cycle completion techniques first, so that you’re strong enough to take the next steps.

Work On Your Perception of the Stressor

Remember how we said that the stress response is related to how we perceive the stressor and how we perceive our own strength? So, why not change that perception?

Let’s start with the stressor itself. 

Some CBT techniques help here, such as weighing up the evidence for your perception.

• Is the stressor really as bad as it seems?
• What is the worst case? What would it mean in practice? Is it really that bad?
• What is the likelihood of the worst case?
• What else could happen?
• What is likely to happen?

Most of the time, the worst case isn’t as bad or as likely as it first seems.

You might also consider why the stressor is so scary.

For example, someone with an unsettled childhood may find moving house very difficult. Similarly, a person strongly identified with their role as a breadwinner may find a job loss and subsequent job search devastating.

You could experiment with a CBT worksheet or simply journal on the topic. Most of the time, you’ll find that the situation isn’t as bad as it feels.

The exercise probably won’t remove your stress entirely. But, it can have a surprisingly strong effect. 

Work On Your Self Perception

Then, of course, there’s how you perceive yourself.

The more you recognize your strength, the better you’ll feel about whatever is stressing you.

Affirmations could help here. They do for some people.

Others find that affirmations simply feel incongruent. You may need to prove to yourself that you are strong. Some of the approaches in Awaken the Giant Within can actually be powerful here.

Change the Situation

Many chronic stressors aren’t fixable, but some are. Other times, you might be able to make things a bit better.

Take the stresses that come with caregiving as an example. Your loved one relies on you, so you’re probably not going to stop caregiving entirely (although doing so is sometimes the best approach).

But, you can often cut down your workload while still being a caregiver.

Many caregivers are going above and beyond anyway. There are often many things that you don’t really need to do.

Remember, your goal isn’t to make your aging parent’s life perfect. Life is hard for us all and the challenges of aging can’t be fixed. You’re there to help, true, but not to the extent that you torture yourself in the process.

Look For Your Triggers

Finally, pay attention to your personal stress response.

You don’t respond to all triggers in the same way. Some things have a much stronger impact than others.

The more you understand about your response signature, the better you can be prepared. Over time, you’ll learn effective ways out to feel better and to thrive.

In the process, you may teach your body that those things aren’t as scary as you think they are. Just be patient. Our bodies don’t really know what to do with chronic stress, so the process is going to be a gradual one.

Final Thoughts

We’ve covered a variety of techniques in this post, including social connection, touch, laughing, crying, and exercise. There are so many because we’re all different. You might also find that different approaches work well at different times.

So, you’ll need to experiment. Try different things out and see what helps. ,

Also, as you’ve probably guessed – completing the stress cycle isn’t going to solve everything overnight. People already following these approaches mightn’t see much success at all.

Still… there’s no harm in trying. Even if some of these approaches help you feel a little better, they’re worth it – right?

If you want to learn more, check out the book Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle. While this isn’t one of my favorite books, the authors make some good arguments for the stress cycle and provide a host of techniques for you to work with.