Introduction
Expect the unexpected because unexpected happens. Stress isn't inherently bad but chronic stress is. Humans have a stress response for a reason: it prepares our mind and body for what we need to do in the moment and in the moments ahead. Gives us a surge of energy and clarity to deliver the physical and mental resources we need to meet a challenge. And a healthy, "peak-and-recovery" stress response--where we experience a shot of stress and then recover quickly afterwards--is actually good for the body.
But these days, most of us do have a stress problem. We're "turned on" to stress all the time.
We can't eliminate stress....we can change our response to stress...we can learn to expect the unexpected.
Stress is interwoven into even the most joyful and fulfilling aspects of her lives.
Chronic stress leads to elevated blood levels of the triad of important stress factors --cortisol, oxidative stress, and inflammation.…your telomeres--those protective caps at the ends of your chromosomes--get worn down. Short telomeres damage our mitochondria.
Many of the tissues in your body must regenerate to stay healthy. This regeneration has to happen in critical areas in the body like immune cells, the cells in your cardiovascular lining, and the hippocampus, the area in the brain that is so vital for memory and mood. The longer you're telomeres, the more times your cell can divide, replicate themselves, and refresh tissues. When they get too short, this can no longer happen. They cell dies or spews out inflammation.
Our overarching goal is to expect the unexpected.
Four levels of stress:
Acute stress (red mind) release glucose galore
Cognitive load (yellow mind) we think of it as baseline resting but nowhere close to rest
Rest (green mind) just being, not being asked to do something
Deep rest (blue mind) state of restoration
...from genetics to our personal history to our current life circumstances, that establish our “stress profile”. But we also have neuroplasticity, the brain’s remarkable ability to form or reorganize neural connections.
Embrace uncertainty.
Put down the weight of what we can't control.
Use our stress response to help overcome challenges.
Train ourselves to "metabolize stress" better
Immerse ourselves in nature to recalibrate our nervous system.
Practice deep restoration.
Fill our busy schedules with moments of joy.
Practice self-kindness, flexibility and forgiveness.
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Uncertainty stress is one of the most pernicious forms of chronic stress because it is subtle, quiet, and pervasive. It is something we don't often notice that we have habituated to which drives up our baseline trust state. It can stay with us while we rest and even while we sleep, if we don't attend to it.
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Physically, the body shifts into a prepared state, readiness for fight or flight. Subtle shifts..heart rate and some muscle tensions. Stress response to rapidly developing situations can include the cortisol that your adrenal gland releases into the bloodstream which makes glucose more available in the body.
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Chronic anticipation stress can lead to dramatic telomere shortening.
The healthy ideal for our bodies is a balance between activity of the sympathetic nervous system (fight or flight) and the parasympathetic nervous system (rest and digest).
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Uncertainty raises the sympathetic nervous system (right or fight) as reflected in high vigilance, heart rate increase, and pupils dilated. Also results in degrading making decisions. Higher uncertainty tolerance is associated with lower rates of anxiety and depression.
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Some techniques (certain types of breathing, high intensity interval exercises) are effective, but the benefits fade if you don't continue the specific practice.
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We think that even a short meditation training can leave us with a different mental fiber, a new awareness of how our mind works, and the capacity to recognize our thoughts just as thoughts - fleeting observations rather than real events or true statements - draining them of their power to trigger an unnecessary stress response. This ability to observe our mind is called metacognition.
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The attitude of our body can reflect where our mind is going. Leaning forward we can feel we're looking at the future and leaning backwards and breathing more slowly can help stay in the present.
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Embracing uncertainty and openness
Tune in to your body
Scan for embodied stress
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Ask yourself what's on your mind right now, what are you feeling most uncertain about, what expectations are you holding about how things will go?
Let go of expectations
Lean back in your chair
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Repeat occasionally
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Make a realistic assessment of the probability of risk. What's the worst that can happen?
Make a plan and set it aside
If it's world news that's intruding reduce your exposure to the news
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A high sense of perceived control in life is associated with being happy, healthy, and wealthy. Feeling in control of our lives helps us regulate emotions and be worried resilient. After a stressful event, people with a high sense of perceived control not only feel less anxious but also have fewer physical symptoms, like headaches, stomach aches or pain.
But when we try to control the uncontrollable, the opposite happens. Control is great when you have it, but if you're striving for it it can't achieve it, you suffer.
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A quote from the Dalai Lama
If a problem is fixable, if a situation is such that you can do something about it, then there is no need to worry.
If it's not fixable, then there is no help in worrying.
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For a lot of us especially those who use social media have this FOMO - fear of missing out. Sometimes the best thing you can do for your well-being, your relationships, and your capacity to handle stress in your life is to say no.
Simplify your day.
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A powerful way to figure out what you can delete, and where to focus your energy, is to work backward from death.
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Am I living my best life? Where do I want to put my energy, and what can I let go of? What are my priorities?
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Radical acceptance is, at a basic level, accepting that something terrible or traumatic happened. It's a mental stance that embraces the reality that we cannot change the event, and that radical acceptance is a better option than the alternative: avoiding, rejecting reality, fighting the riptides, and feeling victimized.
There are many things that have happened or will happen to us in life ...that are tremendously disappointing and painful. Most are uncontrollable events or situations. These are opportunities for building strength and resilience, even though we didn't ask to build it.
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We have more of a "predicting brain" than a "reality brain".
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...hold these two important points in mind:
My stress response is an asset - it helps me rise to the challenge.
I can recover quickly from stress - my body was built to do it.
Stress is not inherently unhealthy or to be avoided, and that your natural response is not "wrong".
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Threat Stress Belief: If I fail, it means I'm not cut out for this.
Reframe: If I fail, it means I'm challenging myself.
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I can only do my best; everything else is out of my control
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We get cultural messages that shapes our values unconsciously. Don't put all your eggs in one basket, none of us are just one thing. Remind yourself of the things you care about and the other roles you play in life, besides the one at stake. Daily affirmations can help. List your core values, such as creativity community/relationships, good friends or family member, gaining knowledge / curiosity, helping others, honestly, courage, kindness, nature environment, spirituality.
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I am enough, I have enough, and I do enough.
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Hormetic stress, is short, concentrated burst of acute stress, the kind you can easily and naturally recover from - like a brief bout of exercise or plunging in the cold water for a swim…. exposing the body to manageable positive stress does the opposite of what long-term toxic stress does; improves the health and regenerative life of your cells, instead of slowly wearing them out. Intense "shots" of it will prompt your body to initiate recovery processes that are beneficial for your cells and that help them they become more resilient to future stress.
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When the sympathetic response turns on, the parasympathetic response shuts down, and vice versa. So you get that sympathetic nervous system spike, but it’s followed by a big swell of activity in the parasympathetic nervous system to help shut off the stress response (called vagal rebound). It's this counter- regulatory stress response that helps us recover. And not only recover, but refresh.
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Your body loves acute stress. This process of peak and recovery--of sympathetic nervous system action followed by parasympathetic nervous system action, triggering cell cleanup and repair - is wonderful for us….. especially as we age, we tend to have lower vagal tone at rest, which leads to sluggish autonomic stress responses.... This makes getting "positive stress" even more important.
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High intensity interval training, HIIT, is a potential way to improve stress resilience. It is low-time-commitment, low-cost, fairly straightforward exercise that people can do at home, immediately, to start improving their stress resilience and triggeringing that health-boosting "cleanup crew" in the body cells.
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When it comes to the power of hormetic stress to trigger the natural rejuvenating ability of your cells: you can get this effect by exposing yourself to cold for just a few minutes or practicing certain types of hypoxic breathing with expert guidance. Hypoxic breathing is basically a type of cyclical hyperventilation. You take deep, vigorous, fast inhales, followed by powerful exhales..... But not all the way. You inhale quickly, slowly exhale; then repeat.
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We don't want to be experiencing low-level stress all the time - the human body wasn't built for that constant yellow mind state. It was built to experience acute red mind stress and then recover afterward with some green mind relaxation. And we can't get to recovery unless we intentionally put our bodies through a positive stress experience - even just a short one will do the trick.
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Two techniques for a shot of healthy stress.
1. Slowly work up to brisk walking. Then take on 30 seconds of exercise with 10 second rest. Repeats three or more of them for a total of 7 minutes. Jumping jacks, plank, squats, wall sit, knee plank, triceps push-ups, push-ups, crunches, knees up, need push-ups, step ups, and lunges.
2. At the end of your usual warm shower turn the dial to cold - as cold as you can stand it. Can you stay under the cold stream for 15 or 30 seconds? A minute? Push yourself to the edge.
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If HIIT doesn't work right away expect the first week to be the hardest.. give your body a chance to get used to this one so you can really feel the benefits of your day-to-day.
If you're struggling with the depression
.... it can feel impossible to work up the motivation.... Know that any movement, even for 5 minutes to start, is meaningful and significant to your brain. Gentle yoga maybe a great choice..... or if you can, try hiring a professional coach.
If you have high anxiety... You might find that some of the HIIT exercises make things worse. Suggest that you go slow and continue to progress your body will gradually adjust. Getting used to the psychological changes that can feel like an increase in anxiety but also respect that reality and be kind to yourself. Recommend that you try a hormetic stress practice at a slow pace, because it may be that after a few attempts, as it becomes more familiar and less of a "unknown threat", your body will gradually adjust.
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The human brain works as a master prediction machine based on our past experiences, our memories, and our bodies signals, we are constantly predicting what the next moments will bring.
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Let nature calibrate your nervous system. Shift our physical environment and we can shift our mental state..... Forces a mental break.
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Exposure to water - whether it's being in the ocean or a pool, or floating in a saltwater tank - introduces psychological benefits of peace and well-being.
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Dacher Keltner, a professor of psychology at the University of California, Berkeley, is a emotions researcher.... has found when we feel awe, we experience immediate biological effects, like better heart rate variability, reduced blood pressure and a measurable drop in stress levels.
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Believe that awe may turn out be a powerful "prescription"for things like stress, anxiety, depression, and PTSD.... Awe makes us committed to the community we share; we put aside our differences and become more interested in other people. It is believed to last a lifetime.
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Let nature shrink stress
1. Immersion - go out in nature --another scene with open ears the feel of the wind get close-ups move slowly remind yourself you are made of nature.
2. Reset with Urban nature observing wildlife focus on the natural world
3. Bring nature to you sensations, smells and sound affect the nervous system.
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Don't just relax..... Restore
Several studies have found when people are working, they breathe more times per minute; they're breathing is more shallow.
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Shallow, fast breathing sends a signal to the body: get ready for action. That means a subtle version of fight or flight: vigilance in our nervous system. Our breath patterns - - which are usually on autopilot and largely unconscious - - both influence and are influenced by the stress and tensions we hold in our body.
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This yellow mind state of constant nervous system activation, and the insufficient, light, fast breathing that goes with it, is just normal to us.., we've accepted it as our baseline. So, when we face a period of higher stress, or a daily stressor that triggers a spike to our sympathetic nervous system, we ratchet up even higher - - we go full red mind. When we come back down to our baseline of yellow mind, it feels like we've "relaxed". The problem is we haven't.
When we reach blue mind, even just for a short periods, it not only leads to biological rejuvenation, but also has a potential to bring down our default stress baseline.
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When we are in deep rest, our breathing pattern becomes slow. More oxygen crosses the barrier between our lungs and our blood vessels. Nitric oxide levels rise, which causes blood vessels to dilate, letting blood and oxygen travel more quickly through the body. Blood pressure goes down; heart rate drops. These physiological processes are tightly linked to our breathing patterns. And all these happenings in the body indicate that we are entering a blue mind state - - a state of true, deep rest and relaxation.
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A mistake we all make is confusing brakes and leisure with true restoration.... A form of relaxation: green mind category. But these do not bring you to deep restoration for two reasons. The first is that most likely you still have a busy mind. Second, you are busy, and blue mind is easily achieved when you are not doing but being - - when you are sitting or lying down, receptive, and focusing your attention on something other than your mental content. There is a big difference between green and blue mind.
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Deep rest causes biological restoration: it improves growth hormone and sex hormones, and as these increase, the body is better to restore, heal, and regenerate tissues.
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Retreat in the true sense of the word can simply mean to remove yourself from your usual environment, the one filled with stimuli and demands.
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Emotions are, most basically, the brain's best guess at how it should respond to a situation given the signals it's getting from the body, along with its memories of similar situations.
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It turns out that just living at the retreat center - - regardless of whether the participants trained in meditation - - created dramatic changes in gene expression activity in the immune cells, so much that the machine learning could predict the post retreat profiles with 96% accuracy.. we saw reductions in inflammatory activity, oxidative stress activity, DNA damage, and mitochondrial degradation.
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If you don't put in the time for self-care, including deep rest now, you'll be forced to make time for illness later.
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Breathing, it turns out, can be the quickest, most direct path to deep rest. When you can't go to a retreat, you can bring the retreat to you. And all you need is your breath.
First: realize that you probably aren't breathing correctly most of the time!
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Breathe well
Sit up straight to leave your air passages open and clear colon chest up, chin down. Breathe with your mouth closed, through your nose. Breathe easily and comfortably, using the light, slow, deep method:
Breathe lightly dash dash softly, gently, quietly
Breathe slowly
Breathe deeply - - down into your diaphragm (ribs widening to the sides)
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Brief breath holding? Why? Because when we hold our breath, even briefly, we increase the amount of CO2 in our blood. This allows hemoglobin, which carries oxygen, to release that oxygen into our blood and into our tissues. In short: it increases the amount of oxygen available to our body and brain briefly, until it's used up. Higher oxygen levels can be both energizing and relaxing, decreasing stress and increasing calm, clarity, and focus.
Studies of slow breathing exercises, in which participants are guided to exhale longer than they inhale, show that this can change the autonomic nervous system almost immediately.
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Breathing for restoration (4-6-8)
Breathe in for 4 seconds through your nose.
Hold for 6 seconds
Breathe out slowly for 8 seconds. Try exhaling through pursed lips to slow your breath if that feels easier.
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Mindfulness is, in a nutshell, paying attention to our momentary experience without judgment, and with kindness. This is simple, but not easy! So do this with 100% commitment and 100% forgiveness.
Place attention on your breath. Notice they breath-related sensations in your body as the air goes in and out. When your mind wanders away, to worries or thoughts, move your attention back to the breath and the sensations in your body.
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What sensations and energy level do you feel?
As you breathe in, think of the word refresh. Breathe out, and think, Relax.
If changing your breathing made you feel anxious....
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... particularly true for people with asthma or anxiety. Breathe shallowly(lightly), naturally and slowly.
In studies of breathing retraining, people sometimes get worse before they get better. So start slow, stick with it, and know that you might feel worse before you feel better, but it will be worth it.
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Start full, end full.
Think of these two short spans of time like bookends - - first thing in the morning and last thing at night - - that frame and contain our daily experience.
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We know that when we experience more joy - - not fleeting pleasure, but what we call endaemonia, or "happiness with purpose," we are more stressed resilient for a simple reason: we just don't feel as much stress.
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Reframing --focusing on the silver lining in a bad situation -- takes some mental work. It requires a cognitive bandwidth to accomplish.
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We students learn that we are really not that different from monkeys in clothes - - we are driven by survival instincts run by our nervous system, hormones, neurotransmitters, and other invisible influences more than we know or want to know -- but that can also transcend our biology and live meaningful spiritual lives.
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Happiness is a wonderful salve for stress, but you can't go out seeking it. If you say, "my goal is to be happy," then, the research shows, you are actually more likely to achieve that opposite.
Dr. Ben - Shahar refers to the ingredients for happiness with an acronym, SPIRE, which stands for spirituality, physical activity, intellectual activity, high quality relationships (in other words, deep, not superficial), and positive emotional experiences.
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True Joy isn't something we can buy or acquire -- it comes from within..... Because it's the opposite of all the social and media condition we've received.
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And neuroscience, we have a similar but simpler practice called affect labeling, and which we ask you to describe in words what you might be feeling right now. Fear. Embarrassment. Jealousy. When we don't resist, fight, or run from negative emotions, but instead face and embrace them, we deserve their activating power. We go from red mind to yellow mind, and eventually to green mind as these negative emotions fade away. Plus, the research shows that the more types of different emotions we feel and name the more stress resilient we are and the lower our inflammation. Like biodiversity, emotional diversity may indicate an adaptable ecosystem.
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Both pleasure and happiness are important to our well-being, but pleasure is short-lived. We often get it from consuming things (food, sex, consumer goods) which delivers a dopamine hit.. and which feels good. That dopamine hit reinforces are desire to seek out the experience again - - which isn't always the best thing for a long-term happiness, because the pleasure of consumption isn't lasting.
There is nothing wrong with pleasure! Sensory pleasures - taking a scented bath, savoring delicious food, enjoying a massage, listening to music dash dash are an integral part of the rich tapestry of human life.., and they reduced stress as well.
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Another potent example is sex, which is one of the most amazing ways are brings our word for pleasure. The research on sexual activity shows that it tends to be related to better cardiovascular health and is stress buffering. Oxycontin, the "love hormone" that is released during orgasm or physical intimacy, reduces blood pressure, for example ... couples who have more frequent sexual intimacy tended to have longer telomeres and better metabolic health.
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We should remind ourselves that hedonic pleasure -- pleasure that is achieved through experience of enjoyment from consuming or acquiring isn't going to bring us the more lasting feelings of satisfaction and fulfillment there are the foundation of true happiness.
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Our goal here is "eudiamonic well-being," which has to do with feeling content, satisfied with life, and filled with purpose. While hedonic happiness -- happiness that is cheap through experience of pleasures and enjoyment -- is fueled by burst of dopamine transmission, eudaimonic happiness is regulated by serotonin. It isn't vulnerable to the sometimes wild up and downs of hedonic pleasure.
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Dr. Sonja Lyubomirsky at the University of California, Riverside, one of the earliest pioneers in the field says that while some of our "happiness level" is determined by genetic factors and life circumstances, a good proportion is under our control. One of the best ways to boost happiness is through small acts of kindness and compassion. Lyubormirsky found that acts of kindness are linked to lower inflammatory gene expression.... In fact, strong relationships with partners, family, or friends are one of the most important factors in stable eudaimonic happiness.
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Positive emotion is powerful, and sometimes it's the small interactions in relationships that matter most. Even fleeting, passing interactions with a stranger can give you a powerful zing of positivity. Smiles can be a source of joy!
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The amazing thing about eudiamonic happiness is that it builds up your stress resilience. It gives you a deep well of reserve capacity -- mental and emotional.... Ask you to wake up, and to wind down, with gratitude, and to focus on what is meaningful to you... taking the time to focus on them may become the reason that the next day is even better, as we were able to meet it with greater resilience, openness, and joy.
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I hope you are waling away from this stress-resilience training with a new approach to the stress in your life:
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I hope you are walking away from this stress-resilience training with a new approach to the stress in your life:
+The unexpected will happen, and that's okay. I can soften my expectations. I can lean back, relax, and let experiences come to me.
+I can let go of the things I can't control. I can drop the extra baggage.
+Stress can be exciting! I can feel motivated and energized by challenges.
+I can relax into acute stress and metabolize it. My body loves a good stress response.
+I can let nature do the work of recalibrating my nervous system. I am part of nature.
+I deserve rest. I will no longer starve myself of relaxation, sleep, and deep rest.
+Joy shrinks stress. The more I fill my cup with joy, the less I can taste the bitterness of stress and struggle.
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One thing that’s clear from the science: having purpose in your life is stress buffering.
Permission to quote; email Elissa Epel, PhD, May 10, 2025
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