Happy Happiness Day, all.
This is very appropriate. I am sending out the article on how to close the stress cycle on Happiness Day. This is pure coincidence, I promise.
Over the past two weeks, I've been reading Burnout: The Secret to Solving the Stress Cycle by Emily Nagoski and Amelia Nagoski and have had an 'Aha' moment. You know, the kind you hope to have when you've been dealing with a particular problem you can't seem to find a solution to.
I'm not saying this 'Aha' moment was a solution, but it could be a step in the right direction.
Dealing with your stress is a separate process from dealing with the things that cause your stress. To deal with your stress, you have to complete the cycle.1
Complete the cycle?
Before, I used to think stress was just one thing, and I would deal with it similarly. But now I know it's a cycle that must be closed daily.
This may not make much sense right now, so let me unpack this further in more detail.
Just because you’ve dealt with the stressor doesn’t mean you’ve dealt with the stress itself.2
Whenever you’re dealing with stress, there is a two-layered solution. First, you must deal with the ‘stressor’, and second, you must deal with the stress itself.
Stress is not the same as the stressors. You deal with external stressors, such as work, money, time, cultural norms and expectations, experiences of wrongdoing and (for some of us) family. But there are also internal, more subtle stressors, such as self-criticism, identity, memories, self-imposed expectations, and comparison.
Something we all on the substack know too well. It is easy to get caught up in the comparison games, especially around the number of subscribers and post engagements.
All of these stressors may be interpreted as threats.
That leads us to stress. Stress is the physiological and neurological response that occurs in the body when one of the above threats is encountered.
Let’s take a look at what’s happening for you in your body when the stress response is activated.
Once your brain activates the stress response, neurological and hormonal activities follow, initiating physiological changes, all with the aim of SURVIVING.
Nagoski sisters explain this so clearly in their book:
Epinephrine acts instantly to push blood into your muscles, glucocorticoids keep you going, and endorphins help you ignore how uncomfortable all of this is. Your heart beats faster, so your blood pumps harder, so your blood pressure increases and you breathe more quickly (cardiovascular functioning). Your muscles tense, your attention is alert and vigilant, focusing on short-term, here-and-now thinking, your senses are heightened. Your digestion slows down and your immune functioning shifts.3
The frightening part is that all of these changes happen so quickly that you aren't aware of them. In fact, this wiring is so efficient that you don’t even have a chance to process what is happening fully.4
Natural reactions are fight, flight, and freeze. How you react is less of YOUR choice than you might think. Your brain has a lot to do with that decision. If your brain considers, after assessing the situation, that your best option for survival is to freeze, that’s what you will do. You don’t have to agree with this decision for your brain to help you shut down.5
The authors described it beautifully in their book; I am trying to do it justice here and convey the key message so it resonates with you, helps you (as it did help me), and hopefully, buy their book as it’s one of the top books on burnout I have read. And trust me, I’ve read and listened to so many in the past months.
Think back to the times you thought you should have fought or gotten out of a situation, but instead, you stayed there quiet—frozen. And have compassion for yourself.
The most eye-opening thing is that we all go through these stress responses over and over again during the day, every day.
One of the most frustrating things is that stress and dealing with stress is still not taken as seriously as it should be.
Perhaps because its effects are not flashed out in the open, they are more subtle and hidden from plain sight.
Most of the stress you experience is denied, ignored, or suppressed, and it could be built up over years or even decades (depending on your age and how well you do closing the stress cycles).
So, from the diagram above, you can see the visual stress cycle. A stressful event occurs. Based on your perspective, you respond. As with any response, the consequence follows, and stress continues unless you do something different this time. You release the stress, or in other words, you close the stress cycle and be done with it.
Closing the stress cycle
The book Burnout: The Secret to Solving the Stress Cycle by Emily Nagoski and Amelia Nagoski suggests seven ways you can do that and proceed to close your cycles daily.
Physical activity: Yep, after your body puts you through the ringer, you’ve got to pay back ‘the favour’. Based on the research, the authors suggest anything between twenty to sixty minutes a day.
“Physical activity is the single most efficient strategy for completing the stress response cycle.”6
Breathing: It is not feasible for me to exercise for 20-60 minutes daily; otherwise, due to time constraints, I’d have to give up my work on the
.
So, on the days when exercise is not feasible, I decided to take a deep breath and exhale, thinking of each frustration I experienced during the day. Once I was done, I felt a sense of empathy for what I’d been through. It shows how many frustrating moments you experience in just one day. No wonder I was being such an assling!
Now, it’s never a good idea to only take the single strategy you learn about and rush to apply it. But in terms of having one action for this week, it works.
Positive social interaction: This part goes beyond just meeting with family and friends. It’s about demonstrating to your body and brain that the world is full of jerks and good people out there who make life not only bearable but also enjoyable and worthy.
Laughter: Identify what brings you a good belly laugh—heartful, genuine laughter.
Affection: If you choose to close the cycle by affection, here are two ways suggested:
Relationship researcher John Gottman advised the six-second kiss. The idea is that it’s awkward to kiss someone for a full six seconds. Six seconds causes an unnoticeable ripple when it comes to time management, but when you’re kissing someone, six seconds feels like six minutes. That’s enough time for your brain to perceive it as an act of safety and close the cycle.
Hug someone you love and trust for twenty full seconds. Similarly to kissing, hugging someone for twenty full seconds feels awkward and is not something you’d normally do. However, it activates the same response in the brain—safety—and closes the stress cycle.
Cry: Crying might not solve your problem, but it surely makes you feel better.
There are times I can think of when I did my treadmill run, and I would suddenly burst into tears. I brushed it off, thinking I was weird, but it turned out my body closed the cycle.
Creative expression: Painting, drawing, writing, singing, storytelling—take your pick and embrace creativity. The aim is not to create a masterpiece; the aim is to close the cycle, get rid of stress, and feel better. You do it for yourself, not for the world.
This brings me to the task for this week: Do your best to close off the stress cycles daily. If this is the first time you have heard of positive release and closing off the daily stress cycle, remember the result will not be instant. There are rarely instant results—unless it’s a scammy advert on YouTube selling you instant results in seconds.
As the Nagoski sisters explain:
“Don’t worry if you’re not sure you can recognise when you’ve ‘completed’ the cycle. Especially if you’ve spent a lot of years—like, your whole life, maybe—holding on to your worry or anger, you’ve probably got a whole lot of accumulated stress response cycles spinning their engines, waiting for their turn, so it’s going to take a while before you get through the backlog.”7
The aim is to understand what physical and neurologic responses stress causes you. Remember that you can put extra effort into closing these cycles daily and prevent burnout altogether or move through it quicker.
Thank you for reading.
Until next week,
Jana
📢 Shout outs to the Substack community
While preparing this week's article, I searched the Substack for publications on burnout, specifically burnout recovery. To my surprise, there's plenty. Most stay within the 'coming soon' section, which is what burnout can do to you. You want to share your story, and it would resonate (I mean, the number of publications which start out intending to cover burnout speaks for itself —there are many), but the lowest points of burnout can make you feel there's no point in the beginning, who's going to read it. I hope and wish they would begin so that we can bounce off each other's ideas.
However, I have found some that have been providing a lot of helpful content, and it's worth mentioning at least a few.
I've been reading through an extensive archive from
; there's a lot to cover, but it helps me piece together my current experience and find actionable tips. Check them out if you are searching for good burnout content. I'd especially recommend the article: I Hit My Limit Point: Here's What Happened and What I Learned From It!There's also ABL #4: A Framework for Navigating Burnout by
, which provides the four-step framework for organising scattered thoughts and might help you with burnout, too. The least said it's an interesting read.Another fascinating and surprisingly relatable archive (surprisingly, as I am not a doctor) I've been burying myself in comes from
from I'd recommend it.Finally, I've been bashing on about Burnout: The Secret to Solving the Stress Cycle by Emily Nagoski and Amelia Nagoski.
can be found here on Substack, so check her out.
Awesome article Jana!
I think it's great how you present the complex aspects of stress in a simple and understandable way. I'm sure it will benefit a lot of people.
The part I found the most interesting was the effect of long kisses and hugs on nervous system and relaxation. I didn't know about that, so thank you very much.
Also, I'm glad that you found my publication and article helpful and thank you for the mention!