Completing the Stress Cycle

Principles

Controlling the chaos of parenthood — especially during the holiday season — is futile. However you can manage the impact of stress on your body and mind by completing the stress cycle—a critical step many of us unknowingly skip.

When stress strikes, your body activates a "fight or flight" response, flooding your system with stress hormones like cortisol. In an ideal world, once the stressor passes, these hormones clear, and your body returns to a state of calm. But in today's world of endless to-do lists and holiday obligations, unresolved stress can linger, affecting sleep, immunity, and mental health. The good news? You can actively release stress and reset your system.

Instead of numbing stress with distractions like binge-watching or comfort eating, try engaging in these activities proven to complete the stress cycle and clear your body of stress hormones:

• Physical activity: (Bonus quote from Emily Nagoski: “Physical activity is the single most efficient strategy for completing the stress response cycle and recalibrating your central nervous system into a calm state. When people say, 'Exercise is good for stress,' that is for realsie real.”)
• Belly laughter
• Breathing
• A 20-second hug
• Creating
• Crying

This season, take moments to nurture yourself. Whether it's a brisk walk or sharing a heartfelt laugh with loved ones, these small but intentional actions can help you release stress and savor the joy of the holidays.

A Few Perspectives

New York Times bestselling, award-winning co-authors and sisters, Emily and Amelia Nagoski, reveal the actual harms of stress:

The good news is that stress is not the problem. The problem is that the strategies that deal with stressors have almost no relationship to the strategies that deal with the physiological reactions our bodies have to those stressors. To be “well” is not to live in a state of perpetual safety and calm, but to move fluidly from a state of adversity, risk, adventure, or excitement, back to safety and calm, and out again. Stress is not bad for you; being stuck is bad for you.

from Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle

Psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi reminds us that:

It is how people respond to stress that determines whether they will profit from misfortune or be miserable.

from Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience

Pause for Reflection

How will you complete the stress cycle this holiday season?

Continue this reflection in the Moment for Parents app

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