#40: Completing the Stress Cycle

We continue our discussion on stress.  This is the second of 2 podcasts that explain what stress does to our mind, brain and body and how we can choose ways to complete the stress cycle. In this episode, we discuss ways to creatively complete the stress cycle and real life examples from our clinical lives of how stressful situations affect us professionally and personally. From breathwork to creative writing, there are many different ways that we can cope with stress. 

Favorite comments:

•  People living with residual trauma are continually getting ready for the next attack or life-threatening event.
• “When someone is preoccupied with a real or imagined threat, the resulting fear, rage, or disappointment will be reflected in the body. Research shows that trauma survivors suffer more illnesses”
• ...physical exertion, literally discharging the extra energy that's pent up in your body. It's that movement that tells the body that it's in a safe place.
• We were born to connect. That is what makes us human. That’s what makes us individual and unique to like a mammalian species is that we were made to connect. So sometimes another way to finish that stress cycle is to connect.
• Either writing creatively or writing as a thought download or a thought dump. This is something we use and recommend for our clients all the time. So much information can be gleaned by just writing down what's in our brains and what our brains are saying. Once we get it on the paper, it's so much easier to assess what's going on and use the rational part of our brain to process it and make sense out of it.
• If the stress's coming from your brain, you definitely can use your brain, you know, with the imagination or the mindful self-compassion or those sorts of things to finish it too.

Referenced in this podcast:

"Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle" by Emily and Amelia Nagoski

https://www.amazon.com/Burnout-Secret-Unlocking-Stress-Cycle/dp/198481706X

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/in-the-body/201910/when-trauma-gets-stuck-in-the-body

Nate Bargatze - https://natebargatze.com