Stress Isn’t the Problem. What You Do With It Is.

See if you can relate…

Someone tells your just stressed and THATS your problem and you’re like,

“Okay GREAT! I’ll just quit my job, hire a nanny I can’t afford, go back in time, and get new parents, and run off to Tahiti never to be seen again.”

Tempting…but that’s not the real solution. 😉

And yet, this is how stress is usually framed:

Remove the stressor and you’ll feel better.

Here’s what people get wrong.

Reducing stress doesn’t mean controlling your life or eliminating stressful situations. That’s not realistic — especially in midlife. And it’s not how your body actually works.

What matters isn’t whether stress shows up.

It’s whether you know how to metabolize it. What to do with it.

What Stress Actually Does in the Body

Your body doesn’t care if the stressful thing goes away.

It cares about what you do with the activation that the stress creates.

Here’s the pattern most of us live in:

Something stressful happens.

Your boss emails you.

Your kid melts down.

You get news you weren’t expecting.

Your nervous system activates.

Cortisol rises.

Adrenaline floods your system.

Your muscles tense.

Your heart rate spikes.

Your body is doing EXACTLY what it’s designed to do —

preparing you to run or fight.

But you don’t.

You sit. You toughen up.

You keep working.

You keep functioning.

You move on to the next thing.

While your body is still holding all that charge.

Why Stress Starts to “Stack”

That stress response never had a chance to resolve, your body doesn’t release it — it stores it.

Stress begins to stack. Not just from today, but from yesterday, last month, even years ago.

This is chronic stress.

Heavy.

Exhausting.

Hard to name, but impossible to ignore.

Eventually it shows up in ways that seem disconnected: disrupted sleep, anxiety, inflammation, weight changes, burnout. You end up in a doctor’s office and hear the phrase “stress-related”.

No-one ever tells you what to do with that information.

No one teaches that stress needs to be metabolized.

It doesn’t mean calming down or thinking differently. It means completing the cycle your body already started. You already know this instinctively — it’s why you say things like “I just need to shake it off.”

Your body isn’t being metaphorical. It’s being literal.

Stress was designed to move through you, not live in you.

The next time you feel stress hit, don’t power through it. Take thirty seconds and let your body move.

Deepen your breath. Shake your arms.

Stand up.

Walk around Stretch.

Jump.

Let the activation discharge before it has a chance to pile onto everything else you’re already carrying.

Do this next time you feel stress!

It’s just basic physiology.

Your body already knows WHAT to do.

We just stopped listening — cause someone told us to quit fidgeting. 🙄

Let that shit go. 🤓

Hope that helps. I would love to hear from you!

Val