On a very basic level, your mind manages your energy by toggling between two bodily “settings:” the Activated state (stress response—fight, flight, freeze, fawn) and the Relaxation state (rest and digest). These two states are governed by two pretty different parts of the mind and nervous system.
The activated state is basically when you are faced with a situation that your brain thinks is threatening or challenging. It is also called “Fight, flight, or freeze.” (Can even be true for things that are upsetting, stressful, annoying, boring…anything that gives you a jerk reaction of, I hate this and I want to get away from it.) The brain starts working harder, trying to figure out what threats are going on in your environment so that you can get away from them. (This can also be an enjoyable state, like when you work on a problem that is fun and interesting. you are still “activated,” as in, you maybe excited, your heart rate may be slightly elevated, and you are using your body’s energetic resources rather than letting them rest and refill.) It is mostly controlled by the sympathetic nervous system (automatic bodily reactions), the amygdala (controls fight-or-flight, regulates emotion and memory) and the prefrontal cortex (controls regulation of behaviors like concentration, decision making, judgement).
When you are in this state, say when something stressful happens, first adrenaline surges to deal with a short term challenge. It makes you very energized, preparing you for quick action.
If the challenge is going to last longer than that, say more than a few hours or more than a day, then cortisol kicks in. Cortisol prepares you for a long-term challenge by breaking down all available easy energy in your body—sugars, carbs, and then even muscle. It is trying to circulate a lot of nutrients in the blood so that you will have a readily available source in case a threat or challenge arises. It also shuts down digestion, and diverts blood flow to the extremities and away from your organs.
Needless to say, being in a prolonged state of activation or stress is not very good for the body—it’s not meant to be. It’s meant to get you somewhere where you will feel safe, so that you can rest and recover. And it’s using all of your body’s resources to get you there.
The problem is that in our modern society, we often no longer face the kinds of stressors this system was evolved to deal with: urgent dangers that we needed to run away from. Your body is priming itself for movement, but if you are working sitting at a desk, you may not have the instinct to do that. So the brain has no cue that you have dealt with the perceived threat, so it can relax; the threat may in fact not have been dealt with or be ongoing, just not physical. So your brain is just going to keep sending these signals, but you don’t know what to do about them—leading to more stress, and more energy expended as you try to do what you want to do while dealing with an overhead of danger cues.
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The relaxation state is mostly controlled by the parasympathetic nervous system, primarily the vagus nerve, which counters the signals of fight-or-flight to let your body know it’s okay to relax and digest your food again (rest and digest). It slows down the heart beat and diverts blood back to your organs so that they can function properly. The immune response, which has been suppressed by cortisol (possibly because it draws too much energy), comes back online.
People with very healthy stress systems make much heavier use of their relaxation state; they are able to sustain a relaxed state in even pretty activating situations, or move from a heightened, activated state back into a relaxed state quickly, which allows them to conserve energy and likely to think more clearly under stress. It gives them more energy to attack problems when they need to, because they have not dug into their reserves of energy as much, the way the body does when in a highly stressed, prolonged activated state.
(Think about yourself or people you know who are always in a heightened state of stress: they often are able to continuously sustain this state, and do things to perpetuate it, like getting into mental loops of stressful thoughts. They are rarely coming back down into relaxation until they have to, such as when they have an energetic crash. As such they are taxing the body and mind more, drawing more energy, and getting more easily exhausted. They see challenges as frightening and taxing, as opposed to exciting or manageable, and reasonably so—because they have literally depleted their reserves. This leads to burnout, where your body just has to force you to rest for a long period of time. Quality of rest, asleep but especially awake, is VERY important! To quote Tricia Hersey: This is about more than naps.)
So those are the basics. What can we do to get into relaxed states, what can we do to calm down in stressed states, and how can we learn to manage emotional push and pull so that we can get done what we want to get done even in a stressful circumstance? How can we interrupt cycles of stressful thinking and feeling?
https://alex-svelte-experiments.netlify.app/cat-qs?section=relaxation
This is a learning process, and as such, you may have to practice it a little bit, which is mildly effortful and takes some time. Hopefully these methods will provide at least some quick relief, so you will be more inclined to continue to use them. I will also say that while these things seem like they might not be effective, they absolutely are for most people—and if something doesn’t work for you, the best thing is not to give up but to explore other options, or try the exercise from a different angle that suits you better. Stay open and curious. Be willing to receive feedback from your mind and body. The only person you’re trying to help is yourself. Get to know yourself, be in conversation with yourself, start picking up on what works for you and what doesn’t.
The first step is always, just give yourself complete permission to rest. Give yourself five, ten minutes, an evening, or a day to really and truly not think about the stuff stressing you out. You know you will come back to that stuff. It won’t have gone anywhere. But you will have gotten time to refill your reservoir.
Movement
Movement is an incredible way to immediately address a stress response, and it’s usually my first line of attack—as you’ve read above, it is what the body expects you to do when faced with threat, so moving even a little bit will help cue the body that the danger is dealt with.
This could be a walk or a workout at the gym, but it doesn’t have to be nearly so involved. Just stand up and shake around a little, moving your hands, feet, legs, torso. Do that for thirty seconds, or put on a song you like and boogie. I do a little shake frequently after something stressful happens, or even if I just notice I’m tensing up.
Mindfulness
Always a classic, mindfulness is very powerful even if it seems easy or trite. Tune into your surroundings, your body, and deepen your breath. Allow whatever good or bad sensations you’re having to just exist without trying to change them. You can do this for a few seconds, or a few minutes. It allows you to slow down and taps into the vagus nerve, as well as other parts of the brain that don’t contribute to stressful thought circling. Here curiosity can play a good role—curiosity, awe, and gratefulness are all emotions that can undercut negative thought cycles. You can learn to be curious about your negative feelings, rather than shying away from them instinctually.