In a world full of repetitive hard things, our bodies are accumulating quite a bit of stress. 2020's been like getting in a car wreck over and over, without enough time in between each one for even your heart rate to slow down. The constant state of frazzle over time does a job on all your internal organs.
I think of my body as super smart about keeping me alive—it pays very close attention to threats to my survival and gives me incredible energy to fight them off. But, in general, it's kind of dumb about the big picture. My body feels what's happening to me, but it doesn't listen to longer-perspective logic. It knows what happened in the past. It knows what's happening now. But it can't really guess the future. So if there's a threat, I can tell myself all day long that I'm going to be just fine and that there's hope for tomorrow, and my body will still stayed keyed up. It doesn't believe me.
How do I diffuse the stress? I need to let that energy out. I need to go for a run. I need to scream maybe, or throw a fit. I need to say a few cuss words and laugh hard with my friends. I need to jump up and down or punch something so my body, my gut, can feel me doing something about the stressful thing. Then it will let me calm down.
Photo Cred: Patrick Hendry
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