Dog barking, baby crying, truck belching smoke nearby.
Cell phone tower pinging, deadlines looming, and this afternoon’s takeout lunch isn’t digesting so well.
Your spouse is angry, your child’s tired, and the boss has reached a new low. Dinner arrives in plastic, bills keep coming, and there’s a strange mystery beeping somewhere nearby. A new war broke out. Your shoulders are in knots. You just broke a glass.
Stress: It is everywhere, all the time, constant. It may even be growing.
Yet oddly, society has taught us that it’s customary to respond “Fine, thanks” to the greeting, “How are you?”
But we’re not fine, really, most of the time. Very rarely are we fine. It’s time we admit it.
Sure, there are good days when the weather is perfectly to our liking, everyone tells us they love us, and every meal tastes amazing. When the sun shines on your shoulders and you have a moment to breathe deeply, yes, that’s fine.
But even on those days, when we think we’re fine, we don’t have to dig down too deeply to find a problem.
The modern world is filled with problems, and this news flash is coming from a very positive individual. I just think that in order to address our stress, heal our bodies and minds, and lighten our loads, we must see the never-ending stress of modern life for what it is. We can’t deny the pressures we face every day of our lives.
Before my nephew started school, I found myself next to him in the backseat of a car. Whatever we were talking about, I responded, “Well, don’t stress out about it.”
“What is stress?” he asked innocently.
“May you never know, honey,” I replied.
Now he’s just started his first semester at a local university. I bet he knows what stress is now. We all know what stress is. We can feel it, even when we ask like we’re fine.
Just take a moment to give a big, deep inhale while reading this. Roll your shoulders back a few times. Feel those cracks and creaks coming from within? That’s your body holding stress. That’s you trying to process everything that’s happening that feels even minimally out of control, the stuff that brings this low-grade anxiety into our lives all the time.
Still don’t believe me? Try sitting next to a dripping faucet and see how long your inner peace lasts. Two hundred years ago, that wasn’t a problem. There wasn’t indoor plumbing. In the span of human evolution, that wasn’t so long ago.
How Most People Handle Stress
Of course, humans have evolved to handle stress. I’m not acting like life before indoor plumbing — or even sliced bread — was easy. It was a different kind of stress. For example, 200 years ago, no one was disrupting their sleep by texting all night with a friend, scrolling social media, or even reading pages illuminated by electric light. If nothing else, we were sleeping better back then.
That’s why so many biohackers, researchers, and doctors point first to sleep (with nutrition as a close second) to begin a healing journey or even prevent disease. Around 30% of adults suffer from insomnia, according to the National Council on Aging. More than 13% of adults report simply feeling exhausted, even when they sleep fairly well.
So, what’s the solution? Our brains work to figure out a self-soothing method. Unfortunately, we often miss the mark with these strategies. Most people handle chronic stress by eating treats, drinking alcohol, scrolling social media, and buying things they don’t need.
We’re so used to the Western medical ideal that we can just take a pill — that is, consume something — and magically, we’ll feel great. Again, it’s so rare that healing works like that. Our bodies are much more complex, and stress is, too.
You know the truth in your heart: You can’t buy your way out of misery. You can’t drink or eat or scroll your way around it.
The only way to address the chronic stress crisis in the modern world is to face it head-on. It’s an individual process since everyone’s definition and levels of stress differ. It’s our job to rid our lives of as much stress as possible, and I’m here to help.
Step One: Understand Why Stress Is the Enemy
Maybe you’re thinking, so what? Yeah, you’re tough and refuse to let all this chaos around you impact your life. You’ve built up a hard shell, like a turtle. Maybe you think we all shouldn’t be so sensitive.
But there’s a lot of power in sensitivity. It’s a quality we need to connect with others. It’s at the heart of the creative process. Without sensitivity, we are cut off from the world — part of self-mastery is fine-tuning the senses.
Besides, ever come across someone who is hardened like this? They push down their suffering. Yet, it’s always obvious when you really look, right? If they did an especially good job, it’ll still appear as some kind of disease.
The solution isn’t just hiding from the stress of life. We have to learn how to process it, and here’s why: Unprocessed, chronic stress is literally what kills us.
In science, this kind of stress is called oxidative stress, and it degrades the body in whatever way your genetics are most weak. Oxidative stress comes from the toxins we ingest in all ways. It can be the alcohol from an amazing and expensive glass of wine, which we enjoy in part because we feel like it releases a form of stress. It certainly dulls the senses so the little things — like that constant hushed beep from a construction truck down the street — are no big deal.
But a nice chianti doesn’t make the big stuff go away. All disease is dis-ease. So, if you want to live a long, healthy, and happy life, it’s a good idea to address your stress now.
Step Two: Identify Your Stressors
Don’t sweat the small stuff, they like to say, and it’s all small stuff.
Tell that to the dripping faucet! If you’re not mindful of the fact that there’s a drip coming from the kitchen, you won’t know that it needs fixing. That’s why the next step to reaching a more honest kind of “fine” is knowing what is stressing you out.
This step, I’ll warn you, feels overwhelming. The stuff you know needs to change in your world is the greatest source of stress. But those big knots are usually pretty tight and hard to unravel, otherwise it’d all be like water off a duck’s back.
Our complex relationships are filled with confusion and misunderstandings. And in this modern era, our relationships are more complex and greater in number than ever before. Just think about the last time someone you hadn’t talked to in years annoyed you through a social media site. It’s ridiculous, but it’s the reality of our chronically stressful lives.
Technology is a major source of stress. There’s not enough wine (or drugs or shopping or social media or sugar) in the world to handle the stress from accidentally deleting all your files on your computer (trust me there).
We don’t even need to get into environmental stressors that are basically beyond our control. Think “forever chemicals” aren’t really a problem because you can’t see them? Think again. You will always be sensitive to some things, no matter how hard of a shell you build up.
Step Three: Choose a Healthy Version of Stress
You may have thought the next step is to just chill out, but that’s not how the world works. Never does the barking command, “HEY! RELAX!” succeed. I sometimes wish there were such a thing as a chill pill, but we’ve already covered how drugs aren’t the answer.
Instead of figuring out how to fix all your external stressors, the next step to addressing chronic stress is to fortify your body to become less reactive. For this, I recommend bringing more stress into your life — but intentional stress. This kind of stress is different from chronic stress. You choose it. You gain control over it.
Exercise is a perfect example of this. No one really wants to sweat through their shirt. In fact, the mind fights against it at first because it’s trying to preserve calories for when you’re in the cave during winter and you can’t kill a wooly mammoth anytime soon.
It’s only when you push through that homeostasis that you find that it actually feels good to push your body in movement. Your muscles have that satisfied discomfort that shows its breakdown, which of course is necessary before growth. All the endorphins and other brain chemicals released by exercise make you feel better. You become stronger.
There are other forms of intentional stress as well. I often fast — which is different from starving because I’m choosing not to eat and burn a little extra fuel. I try to spend time in saunas or go cold plunging whenever possible. I stress my brain by learning a new language and playing a musical instrument.
These are healthy forms of stress that allow my brain to grow, rather than divert my mind and body from normal, everyday functions.
Step Four: Rest Before Burnout
Once you start to fill your days with activities that strengthen your ability to handle the realities of chronic stress, you may find your calendar is full. That’s when it’s time to implement the most powerful combatant to stress: rest.
Think nap time is just for kids? Think again.
In most cultures, adults stopped taking naps around the time that we decided that our brains and bodies stopped growing after our teenage years. With new neuroscience, we know now that the production of brain-derived neurotrophic factor, or BDNF, does slow down with age. With the right actions, however, we can keep producing it.
But just because we can keep growing constantly doesn’t mean we should. We need to rest. Otherwise, we’ll burn out.
Most people heard of this concept, but burnout looks different for everyone. Usually, it involves the feeling that the chronic stress of the world is simply too much. When you burn out, you give up. You just want to stay in bed. Your adrenal glands, responsible for dealing with stress, are overworked to the point of failure.
This is why we must rest. What does rest look like? It’s not scrolling social media. It’s not watching a series. It’s not kicking back with a cold beer. Sorry.
Rest is doing nothing. Here’s what I do: I set my phone timer for however long I can schedule for rest. Maybe it’s 15 minutes, maybe an hour. Then, I lie down in my bed and simply rest my body. I don’t think so much about trying to sleep. Instead, I focus on relaxing all my muscles. I try to adjust my body so that I’m completely comfortable, and this usually involves a few bones cracking. I breathe deeply. That’s it.
Sometimes, I can sleep. Not always. Sometimes, I listen to binaural beats or sound healing (my favorite recently is Chantress Seba on YouTube). But that’s it. If I want to read, I read. But reading is still stimulating the brain. It’s not full rest, and that’s what we need.
Step Five: Keep a Gratitude Journal
As we slowly become more rested — and for some, this may take a long time, especially if they’ve made a habit of constant productivity — we may be able to address some things that are causing chronic stress. Well-rested people are more likely to eat healthier foods. They make better decisions because the brain functions better. Their body can function better.
When we rest, we can do stuff like fix that drippy faucet or take a walk to escape noisy environments. We can figure out how to get a new job with a less demanding boss, or we can have more energy to make a wholesome meal.
But what about the electromagnetic frequencies from all these screens? What about that barking dog in the distance? What about the things that cause us stress that we cannot control? For these things, the answer is gratitude.
No, I don’t mean fooling yourself into acting like it’s a good thing that the baby next door can’t stop crying. I mean create a practice that focuses your attention on things that support your growth and development.
I keep a gratitude journal, where I write down 10 things I’m grateful for every day. It’s not always easy, but it’s a solid habit now. I spend the time I need to dig deep, even on the worst days, to find what I appreciate in my life. Sometimes I’m predictive about my gratitude. I’m so grateful that a literary agent will want to represent my book to option for screen adaptation! How exciting is that!?
A Final Word of Advice: “Just Say NO” to Stress
Do you have a friend who likes to gossip about others or someone who always sees ways that things can improve? After a while, all that drama gets exhausting. That’s why I started living in a drama-free zone as much as possible.
The same can be said for stress. You can act like my nephew when he was a little boy: You can decide that things aren’t going to impact you in a negative way. This is a nuanced difference from building a shell or avoiding reality. You can choose contentment and acceptance when there’s no way of addressing the stress.
Whenever something can change to bring in less stress, though, it should. Learn and make better decisions as you get in touch with what feels good and what feels stressful. You can take control of the external environment, but only after you regain control of your internal environment first.
Addressing chronic stress may feel like turning the Titanic, but it’s worth it. When you reduce the level of stress in your life, you’ll feel better physically, gain more inner peace, and may even live longer — just so that dripping faucet doesn’t drive you crazy first.