Tag: stress

As the holidays approach, we encounter big feelings such as excitement, stress, grief, disappointment, worry, you name it. But in this busy season, it can be so easy to stuff those feelings down and say the all too common lie of “I’ll deal with that later.” But later doesn’t come. Life doesn’t slow down. Next week proves to be just as busy as the last. And just like that, we never finished our feelings. Stress is a biological response and with all biological responses there is a beginning, middle, and end. The beginning is the triggering event and the initial release of cortisol in our system. The middle is the resulting emotion. And the end, well, that’s where we usually get stuck.

Emily and Amelia Nagoski point out many ways we can finish our feelings in their book Burnout: The Secret To Unlocking The Stress Cycle. When we encounter emotions, it is necessary to process those feelings and also to finish those emotions. There are four wa ...

As a society, we are in a strange time of adjusting to the new normal after a long and arduous couple of years. I know that the term burnout has been tossed around a lot and even just reading it can be triggering, but I wanted to take some time to go over what the symptoms are and what the antidote can be. Burnout symptoms can include, an overwhelming feeling of physical, emotional and mental exhaustion, detachment from work, and poor performance (InformedHealth.org, 2020). Exhaustion can seep into your bones and permeate all areas of your life. Detachment from work can cause even the simplest of tasks to seem overwhelming and daunting, decision making can be impaired, and you may feel unable to continue to manage your normal workload. The inability to perform at a normal level can affect work, home, and social life. You may become excessively negative, have poor concentration, and feel a sense of brain fog which is pervasive and lingers (InformedHeal ...

You feel your heart beating harder and faster in your chest. A lump forms in your throat. The sound of the person talking to you fades into the background as your own thoughts and concerns become all-consuming. Maybe you feel a turning in your stomach or no longer feel content to stand still. You feel like you are losing your mind!

Well, there’s a little bit of truth to that. Dan Siegal, an author and professor of psychiatry, uses a fun analogy to break down the brain and how it works in situations like these. At the risk of oversimplifying, we’ll name two main characters in our brain: the guard dog (aka our brain’s limbic regions) and the wise owl (aka our brain’s cerebrum). The main role of the guard dog is to protect us from danger, and to do it fast! The main role of the wise owl is to help us think through things, using logic and reason.

In these moments when we feel like we are losing our mind, our guard dog has sensed danger ...