Reduce Stress by Tuning Into Your Body’s Cues
Lost In the Eye of the Storm
Not knowing what else to do, I just sit down on the kitchen floor, my back pressed against the cabinets, my head in my hands, the storm swirling around me, overwhelming my ability to do just about anything else.
Waves crashing down on me again and again, my body vibrating, hands shaking, head and heart racing, my breath getting shorter and tighter, my mind an uncontrollable bouncy ball, my world seemingly collapsing around me in a smaller and smaller box.
As I desperately search for a way out, I find nothing but dead end after dead end. The frantic pace continuing to accelerate until I’m essentially an incapacitated puddle on the floor.
Maybe this time there’s no escape.
Maybe this time I’ll break and not recover.
Ever had a panic attack? Yeah, not fun.
Unknown Causes of Effects
There are times when feelings of anxiety directly link to catastrophizing events not going as I wish, cascading through several doom cycles – at least these instances are understandable and traceable. The kitchen floor party I just described happened in early 2023.
Each of my companies were navigating significant changes, challenges, and uncertainties, compounded by a rental property my wife and I were close to finishing renovating having a major fire. The final blow tipping me over the edge? Finding out that insurance may not cover over $100,000 of the restoration. Pretty direct connection there for me.
But sometimes, a wave crashes on me unexpectedly, my body starts to vibrating and my mind becoming frantic, with no apparent root cause, prompting the questions, “Why am I feeling so anxious? Why am I feeling so stressed?”
Our minds will try to answer any question it is asked. For leaders, “Why am I feeling so stressed?”, is a permission slip for our minds to get very creative in conjuring up a very, very loooooong list on how and why a van down by the river will soon be a part of daily life.
Have you ever noticed a sudden shift in your mood or energy levels without knowing what was behind it?
Some have noticed how our emotional state impacts our thoughts, and our thoughts then determine our actions which influence our emotions…so forth and so on.
Once I learned about a previously hidden driver at the beginning of this cycle, it unlocked my ability to understand more of my physical and emotional health.
Chemicals.
Our Hidden Drivers: Hormones and Neurotransmitters
A growing body of research is uncovering just how significantly hormones and neurotransmitters, like adrenaline, cortisol, dopamine, oxytocin, serotonin, are what is driving much of the tone, tenor, and direction of our lives.
Before we have a feeling, a thought, or take any action, there first is a subconscious chemical reaction triggering the process.
Our chemicals drive our emotions which drive our thoughts which drive our actions which then elicit chemicals continuing the cycle.
This was a vital discovery in my health journey.
It took over five years of intense introspection to realize the subtle differences between the physical sensations of anxiety coming from my Mind (stress/worry) and my Body (food triggers/detoxification). Things like the location and texture of heat emanating in my body (somewhat like telling the difference between just being hot and feeling the heat of fever starting) or in the order and speed in which my heart starts feeling jittery and my hands start shaking
Both invade my life with similar clouds of stress, anxiety, and despondency, but identifying the root cause is crucial as each requires different strategies for management and calming the storm. In fact, what helps manage Mind-stress, like a hard workout to elicit adrenaline and burn cortisol, will actually create additional Body-stress pushing me down deeper for longer.
Have you noticed days when your usual stressors seem unbearable and wondered what’s different?
Reading the Signs
Think about the last time you went out and had just a little too much fun and woke up the next day vowing to never drink again. Do you remember how you felt two days later, after the main hangover symptoms subsided? Just a guess, but I bet you weren’t feeling calm, centered, and present with the ability to handle whatever curveballs life could throw at you.
Although most days you likely aren’t navigating Body-stress from hangover toxins, I invite you to explore where else your body may be giving you subtle (or maybe even not so subtle) signs to potentially reduce Body-stress. These show up most often in deviations in areas like your sleep, diet, exercise, and Mind-stress management. By identifying and addressing the things dragging you down, you’ll be able to increase your energy, performance, and happiness.
It’s Not Just You Getting Older
Often times I hear people dismissing a loss of vitality and energy as part of the natural aging process. But it may not be you “just getting older”. It may be a lot of little things all piling up inside your body that you have more control on than you realize. You have the power to decide if you want to do something about it. To explore what your body wants and needs to create more energy, more connection, more joy.
I know how I feel has an enormous impact on how I interpret, react, and respond to the people and events in my life. I invite you to start paying attention to how well your body and mind responds to similar stressors of life on different days, and then look for patterns in what you ate, your level of hydration, if you worked out or not, if you’ve connected recently with friends or family or not, amount and quality of sleep…or any other patterns. The important thing is to just start noticing the places where physical chemicals are impacting your mental and emotional well-being.
You owe it to your team, to your family, and most importantly to yourself to mitigate your Body-stress culprits, so you can show up for the people that matter most in our lives in a way we can be proud of and enjoy this journey of life even more.
Lead With Energy,
Derek