Are You Addicted to Stress?
Blog post by Heidi Gustafson
Mindset & Transformation Coach
Mastering Midlife with Heidi is dedicated to helping middle-aged women live their lives with confidence and joy, instead of merely surviving.
Learn what causes stress and anxiety, how hormones and mindset impact your brain, and what you can do to reduce stress responses in your life.
Dr. Joe Dispenza says the biggest reason people stop being creators in their life is because they're living in survival. And living in survival is living in stress.
Stress today has become normalized, as if it’s a natural state to live in.
👉 You rush around being busy
👉 You speed to work because you’re late
👉 You playback conversations
👉 You’re anxious because a looming project is overdue
👉 You feel pressure to plan a vacation
👉 You’ve avoided responsibilities for so long you can’t start them
👉 You fear you won’t have enough money
👉 You’re worried about a sick loved one
👉 You beat yourself up because you forgot to buy a birthday present
👉 You don’t like who you see in the mirror
👉 You’re overwhelmed when you step on the scale (eek) or avoid it
👉 You can’t sleep (even though you’re f’n exhausted) because all these stressful thoughts are spinning in your head
It. Just. Won’t. Stop.
Obviously it’s normal to have stressful things happen periodically in your life. And luckily your body is equipped with a fight or flight response to get you through that specific event.
the “norm” for our bodies isn’t what you’re experiencing
Our natural state - homeostasis - is free, calm, peaceful, happy. In a calm state, our body emits endorphins, oxytocin, serotonin, and dopamine - feel-good hormones.
But when we’re stressed, hanging on by a thread, doing everything for everyone because we’re conditioned to think that’s what we’re supposed to do, those feel-good hormones are depleted and the body is flooded with cortisol and epinephrine.
Those are the hormones needed for fight or flight. The thing that’s stressing you doesn’t even have to be real. It can be something you imagine happening… thinking about your finances, what’s your boss gonna say about your project, thinking about the upset you anticipate happening when you tell your significant other something you’ve been wanting to say. These are all imagined fears, but your mind doesn’t know the difference between real and perceived. As soon as you think the thought, it goes into action to protect you.
anxiety is triggered by this imbalance
You see, the mind’s main goal is to keep you safe. And what your mind deems as safe is the known, the familiar, the predictable. So you’ve thought about something that produces a feeling of anxiety in your body and immediately the mind perceives danger, just as if a tiger is chasing you. Your body is alerted to produce stress hormones and send all its resources to the limbs so that you can fight or run. So resources - like oxygenated blood - that are normally used for digestion, brain function, normal heart rate, etc are taken away from those organs and sent out to the arms and legs. The mind knows in order to stay safe, it has to equip you to fight the tiger or get away from it.
But again, the vast majority of the time you are not in actual danger. You’re just thinking about something that makes you feel anxious.
Here’s the kicker: You merely thinking about your problems turns on the stress response and floods your body with stress hormones!
And the double whammy? Stress hormones are addictive!
You’re literally becoming addicted to your stressful thoughts!
Not only are you addicted, but this constant flood of cortisol has a huge list of possible health problems:
😩 Weight gain
😩 Extra fat stored in the body, especially around the midsection
😩 Depression
😩 Elevated heart rate
😩 Digestive problems
😩 Headaches
😩 Memory impairment
😩 Sleep disruption
No one LIKES living in stress 24/7 so you’ve probably tried to change what’s making you anxious or have adopted avoidance strategies.
But now it’s hard to change because your body is addicted to the hormones that stress is putting out. This stressed state becomes your new normal. The mind sees stress as the new safe place, the predictable. So when you’re trying to relax, the cells of the body figure out they’re not getting their hormone hit and they send a message to the brain asking for something to stress about. Your body is actually craving the stress now and so your brain will send you something or someone to kick in the feeling of anxiety again.
And if it can’t come up with something currently happening in your environment, it will create the anxious feeling by having you start dwelling on past memories - negative experiences, old defeating patterns, or your inner bully will rear its ugly head.
you’ve fallen into a negative habit that you’re unknowingly reinforcing
These stressful thoughts and behaviors have become how you handle daily life. But it’s not your fault! You have been programmed to believe that busy and stress and living in survival mode is what’s normal. You’ve been programmed to believe a tiger is always chasing you and the programming happened unconsciously.
This means you can reprogram your mind and body to get back to homeostasis - for your new normal to be calm and peace. You can rewire the mind to see inner peace as the new safe place and it seeks to keep you there.
“Oh, my gosh… this sounds like me. How do I break this cycle?”
First, know you’re not alone. People become addicted to a life they don’t even like! Living in struggle and mediocrity becomes the norm.
Here are 3 steps to start breaking the stress habit:
✨ 1 — Awareness is the first step.
Most people aren’t aware that this is what’s happening to them. You know you’re experiencing yucky things and that you’re not living a life you like, but you don’t understand why. You keep pushing to change your external circumstances, but continue to get more of the same ol’ yucky stuff. You feel stuck.
✨ 2 — Attention is key.
Start observing what you have your attention on as that’s what you’ll get more of in your reality. Is your attention on something nasty someone said or did to you? Ruminating about it won’t solve it or make it go away. In fact, it will just make it worse because you’re keeping your attention on the negative. Negative begets more negative. And you stay stuck and addicted to the negative feelings. You further enforce the habit.
✨ 3 — Action is imperative to change.
Waiting for “it” or “them” to change will again result in you continuing to get what you’ve already been getting. Creating something new in your life will require you to step out of survival mode and take action on learning how to handle the stress in a new empowering way and break that stress habit.
Does this feel impossible without help?
It’s okay to feel overwhelmed right now. You’re processing a lot and when we come to terms with a bodily state we’ve been trying to ignore, it can cause a variety of emotions. You may be feeling tired, frustrated, or numb.
If you feel like you need help, that’s okay! There is so much support out there. From traditional in-person therapy to virtual coaching, you have many choices. You just need to find the program or person that can not only address your stress issues, but will help you create an action plan and offer guidance throughout the process.
The great news is:
🌟 You can train your body to regulate stress better
🌟 You can give yourself better tools
🌟 You can build awareness
🌟 You can find professional support
🌟 You can live a better life
Hypnosis is the fastest way I’ve experienced to get out of the overwhelmed state and back into your natural state of happiness and calm.
The methods of hypnosis get you in a relaxed state so your mind is open to accepting new empowering beliefs and thoughts in place of the stress, anxiety, fear, doubt, and worry. With repetition, just like any habit, these new beliefs and thoughts become your new norm, your new safe.
This is the reason I became a hypnotherapist. Whether a client wants coaching, hypnotherapy, or both, I want to be able to serve my clients in a way that works best for them. To use the path that they choose to a place of healing. Whether it’s stress, boundaries, depression, self doubt … all of these issues compound unless we give ourselves the grace and courage to resolve them.
the benefits of hypnotherapy are that you’re able to …
🌟 Heal issues you’ve never been able to successfully move past before
🌟 Address issues you haven’t been able to articulate
🌟 Resolve past conflicts and learn tools to resolve future ones too
🌟 Set up new habits that aid your goals
🌟 Talk freely to someone, without judgment
🌟 Find strength through encouragement and accountability
When you’re stressed, you’re not thinking about possibility. And when you’re not thinking about possibility, you’re not creating. Do you frequently feel like you’re living in survival mode?
If so, that is the exact reason you’re not getting what you want in your life.
It’s time to trade stress in for something REAL.
Say goodbye to survival mode & claim your FREE 30-minute consultation to determine if coaching and/or hypnosis feels right for you.