Navigating Chronic Stress: A Mindful Approach to Finding Calm in Uncertain Times

The state of the world is causing mass chronic stress in all of us. How do we still exist, do things, find joy, and continue on? In this episode I'm sharing the patterns I've been noticing in my own stress cycles and responses, what we can do, decisions we can make, and the reminders you need to remember that we are not done yet. There is still hope for our future.

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Transcript

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You're listening to episode 211 of the Mindful Productivity podcast, and I'm your host, Sarah Steckler. I'm just going to get right into it this week. I'm not even going to go find the intro music on my external hard drive or bother with editing this episode. I just want to talk to you human to human, microphone to ear buds. If you live in the United States right now, it's scary. There's a lot of bad stuff going on. Project 2025 is scary, and if you haven't googled it yet, please do it. But before you run off or get mad about me making this political, this podcast is not going to be a political episode. In fact, this podcast is going to be specifically tuned to managing chronic stress, what to do about it, and the patterns and cycles I'm seeing in my day-to-day life. Specifically since July first, although this has been going on for a lot longer than that with lots of different news events and other things, I noticed that I started going into chronic states of stress and I couldn't seem to find my way out. I have not been able to do much of anything in my business, do work tasks as I normally want to, or even think or have access to parts of my brain like I normally do because I'm so stressed and anxious, which is a totally normal and regular response to fascism. But again, going back to my main point of this podcast, I want to share with you a little mind map that I actually just drew up. I'll post a photo of it somewhere. Maybe I'll make another little video of me going over how it all comes together. But I thought it would be helpful to share what I'm noticing about my brain when I hear something stressful going on in the state of our country, specifically, right? And what's so hard about stuff like this right now is that you hear something and You can't always control when you're going to hear about it, right? You can limit your time listening to the news. You can limit your time on social media. You can even tell your friends and family like, Hey, today, let's not bring up what's going on in the news because I can't handle it today in this moment. We can set boundaries, right? And we all deserve to take breaks. But there are going to be times when no matter what you do or how many boundaries you take, even if you go try to spend a day in the woods, something's going happen and you're going to find out. So I want to walk you through this little mind map that I've created and talk you through what I'm noticing. So the first thing that happens is that there is a stressful incident, right? We're hearing something on the news We're hearing what's going on. We freak out. We're worried, right? We all know we can vote. We all know there's different things we can do. But in this moment of stress and doom and gloom, it's really, really hard to function. And I wrote down here something. I just wrote a amygdala shutdown. Like, that is immediately what happens to me, right? It's an overwhelming state of fear. And my little almond-shaped amygdala can't handle it all, right? Which leads to things Like decision fatigue. I'm not able to make decisions. I have trouble with emotional processing, right? And you probably experience this, too. It's overwhelmed. Maybe it's tears, maybe it's anger, but it doesn't feel like we have control over our emotional state when we're in this increased state of fear and worry and concern and anger, right? And that also leads to that state of constant fear, but it also can affect our sleep, right? It affects my sleep. I'm not able to calm down. I'm not able to sleep well. I notice myself having a short temper. I notice myself having poor problem solving skills in my business or in general, or if something's going on with the pets, normally I'll be like, oh, it's just this. I need to do that. But when I'm in that state for the life of me, I can't do those things. What happens then is I just find myself... That's a state. And these cycles, granted, mind you, they can be 24 hour cycles. They can be a couple hour to go through this whole cycle. And sometimes these cycles can be days. Sometimes Sometimes I'll find myself in each one of these phases I'm going to mention for an entire day. So my goal in trying to understand this pattern of what's going on is to be able to have more awareness so that in each phase I can know where I'm at and give myself what I need in those moments. It's not about trying to skip these phases, right? Because when you're experiencing a mass trauma or anything like that, you're going to have to go through the phases. Just like when we experience grief, we can't skip a step. We can't skip the sadness we're going to feel or the pain in our chest or the soupless nights or anything. Those are all a part of the process. So allow yourself the process. But in going through this, I'm hoping that I can at least draw attention to where I'm at. It's a lot like tracking your cycle if you're someone that menstruates, right? Like knowing what phase you're in gives you a lot of comfort. It's like, oh, I'm in my luteal phase. That makes a lot more sense about why I'm feeling the way I'm feeling, right? And that's what I'm trying to do with this. So that amygdala shutdown happens. And then I find myself going into a dissociative state, right? It's like this freeze response, where I really can't seem to process or think about what's going on. It feels dystopian. It feels like a movie. It feels like it's not my life. And it feels like just 10 years ago, 20 years ago, the world felt different. And now all of a sudden, everything has changed And it's really hard to process, right? And so, and this, granted, this what's happening now is just one experience, right? People have experienced this for hundreds and thousands of years. People in our country have experienced this on all different levels. But what's happening now, I think a lot more people are experiencing it, right? Sometimes for the first time. So we get into this, I say we, but I, this is my story, my experience, maybe you can relate, let me know. I I get into this dissociative state and I freeze. This is where I find myself unable to do much of anything. I'm sitting in my desk in my chair, but I'm just staring at the wall or staring at Google. Or I'm in bed with my Bulldog, trying to regulate my nervous system. And all I can do is scroll on TikTok, which isn't helping. Or all I can do is watch a YouTube video, but I'm not really paying attention. So I get in this dissociative creative state. And what's hard about this state is what I desperately need to do is make a decision. I desperately need to make a decision to get up, to go do something specific, to clean the kitchen, to go on a walk, right? You name it. But in this state, in this freeze response, that's impossible. I cannot make a decision, and I cannot make a commitment because I'm stuck. So the only way out of that is movement, right? Movement of thought or movement of body, movement of mind or body. If you can pick up a book, that's a movement of thought. If you can distract your thoughts or give your brain something to think about. If someone can talk to you and share something different. If you can listen to someone else speak on a podcast, giving your brain movement of thought. Now, yes, it is a slight distraction, but there's something about that that gets me out of that stuck response, right? It gets my thoughts moving again. It's like there's literal sludge in my synapses in my brain and movement of thought helps me start getting get moving, right? Also, It's also a movement of body. But again, it's hard to figure out what to do. When you're in that freeze response, you could say, hey, we need to go on a walk right now. But that might feel impossible. So And I find that for me, it's the overwhelm of decision. So what we're trying to do here is instead of staying in that freeze response for way longer than we want, we want to have decisions made ahead of time. So as I'm walking you through this cycle, I've been in that freeze state and I can't move. I can't think differently. And what I'm hoping to do is by noticing that, instead of staying there in that spot, I've been stuck in those spots for hours before. By noticing this pattern, hopefully I can make better decisions ahead of time, right? I can know what I can do when I find myself in that place. So we get into the movement phase, right? We actually finally are able to pull ourselves out. The movement of thought, the movement of our body pulls us out of this dissociative state, right? And it just gets things going. Like, I notice I have a treadmill in my living room. If I can just put on the treadmill, just walk like a two miles an hour and just start walking. Within five minutes, I can think again. Within five minutes, I can do it. I can do something. Oh, there it is. There's my brain again. It's working, right? So we have now went through. We have the stressful incident, the amygdala shutdown. We are in a dissociative state. And eventually we get out of that through movement of either thought or body, preferably both. And this is where we're then provided with the reprieve, the reprieve or the escape, the momentary like, oh, my God, I'm not thinking about that stressful thing. Or it's not overtaking my entire brain. I have a moment of clarity and reprieve, right? Much like when you hear or you're going through something really emotional and then you let yourself cry it out. And then after you cry, it's that feeling of something moving through your body. Moving actually through your mind and getting out. Again, this is all anecdotal, okay? This is not some scientific-based thing. This is my experience in the cycle I'm noticing. So if it resonates with you, let me know. So we experienced that provided reprieve, that escape. And this is where the magic starts happening. Because once I get on that treadmill, once I start reading a book, once I start feeling less emotional pain and less fear in my little amygdala, right? It's like if you've ever had a migraine, the second you get relief, it's like everything's possible again. Or if you have the flu, when you finally stop feeling nauseous and you finally can start stop throwing up. It's like, oh, my God, life is so great. There's so much more that's possible, right? That's what that reprieve does. It gives us that moment of, oh, yeah, life can be good, And in that moment, that's where ding, ding, ding, we're able to make decisions again. So while I'm on the treadmill, after 10, 15, 20 minutes of walking, pumping up the speed a little bit, maybe putting on some music, I'm feeling good. Then I can make decisions. What do I want to do? I can ask myself questions. And instead of my automatic response being like, I don't even know. I don't have capacity. I can't even think. I don't know. I couldn't even tell you what's on a peanut butter jelly sandwich. All of a sudden, we can. After that movement, all of a sudden, we can make decisions. So we do. We make better decisions that improve our mental state. And in making those decisions and taking those actions, like, oh, I haven't eaten anything all day because I've been so stressed. Once I get off the treadmill, I'm going to make a PBJ. All of a sudden, we start feeling better. We're nourished. Sandwich is just one example of that. So many other things we can do. That starts the nervous system regulation. Okay, that brings us back to a homeostasis state, feeling better. Then we start meeting our baseline needs again, because this is part of the chronic cycle. Is that when you're constantly chronically stressed and scared and worried, and we go into these freeze responses, we're not meeting our baseline needs at all. And then we wonder, what's wrong with me? We start questioning, why can't I think straight? Why am I having I'm having trouble speaking in the evening? Why can't I do the things I wanted to do? Why can't I not... I can't make any decisions. It creates a cycle, right? That's what is going on right now with the state of our country. Is we are being inundated with stress, with all these things to make us feel like nothing's possible, to make us feel defeated, to make us feel like the country is never going to be the same again, that our rights are going to be taken away. We go into this whole response. And I actually find it really fascinating. When I look at it like this, I'm like, this is great. This is great for them for that plan. Yeah, just a whole country of stressed out, defeated incapable human beings. Oh, my God, how wonderful for them. No, absolutely not. I don't think so. So in noticing this cycle, I'm empowering myself. And hopefully in noticing your own cycle, you're empowering empowering yourself. So your baseline needs start getting met. And when your baseline needs start getting met, guess what can happen? You can have a deep brain reset. And there's a book. I love it so much. I can't seem to find it because I'm decluttering my house right now and I can't find anything. It's very frustrating. But there's a book I highly recommend you read. It's called Your Brain on Nature. I've recommended that book many a time on this podcast. Scientific Studies. If you're nerdy like me, you don't find that stuff dry or boring. It's like, whoa, that's fascinating. But it goes into all the different ways that nature helps your brain. Nature, being out in nature, being out on a nature walk, helps activate your amygdala, helps reset your brain, so to speak, and clear it out. These are not scientific terms, but it really does help reset your brain and it lowers that fear response, right? So all the blood isn't going to your amygdala. It can then go to your prefrontal cortex, right? In fact, there's a quote. Where did I find it here? I have this website open. Give me a second here Okay, yeah. This is from Psych Central. I can link this. What happens in the brain? I'm going to read this direct quote. An amygdala... Oh, no. Yes. Okay. Research from 2016 suggests an inverse relationship between the amygdala and the prefrontal cortex. For For example, when the amygdala is activated, the prefrontal cortex is less activated. When emotions run high, the blood and oxygen flow in the amygdala... I'm sorry. The blood and oxygen flow to the amygdala rather than the prefrontal cortex, reducing our ability to think and solve problems. Man, doesn't that make a lot of sense? Yeah. So frustrating. So once we get into nature, once we start this deep brain reset, and that can look like I have anything for you. And now here comes my fun little side story. I have been feeling so stressed and I have not been able to get rid of the anxiety in my chest. I've been walking. I've also been eating a lot of junk food, which is not helping me, but I'm stressed. I couldn't get rid of the anxiety in my chest. Today, I finally decided whatever we're doing here is not working. So I'm going to take my Bulldog Bella. We're going to go to a really nice park. It was wonderful. It was 10 degrees cooler out there, closer to the ocean. We spent two hours at this park. Hardly any people there today, which was chef's kiss. Also really appreciated that most people had their dog on a leash. I don't know what it is about Southern California. People do not leash their dogs. Guys, Please leash your dogs. I hate it when dogs run up to my dog. My dog is not friendly with other dogs. She's going to bark and attack. It's not going to go well. But everyone, for the most part, had their dog on a leash. And the dogs that weren't had really good recall. So we were happy that we weren't approached by any dogs today. But being at the park, staring at a tree for literally 40 minutes, that's what I did. We were there for 2 hours, and for the last 40 minutes, Bella and I sat on my little blanket I laid on the ground. She was right next to me, my cute little potato, and I stared at a tree for 40 minutes. I can't tell you how much that helped my brain, how much that helped my whole being, watching the leaves twinkle in the wind, the dappled light coming through the trees with the sun, the wushing sound of the rustle of the wind through all the leaves and the tree branches, and the distant sounds of dogs and seagals and some really annoying guy talking on his phone. But that's okay. We can forgive him because in that moment, I was at one with that tree, and it felt great. The other super cute thing that happened was my Bulldog Bella, she loves kids, loves them. I don't have any. I feel bad because if I did, she'd be all about it. These two toddlers walk by with their mom. Bella starts getting super wiggly. Now, imagine if you haven't seen photos of my Bulldog on Instagram or social media, Bella's a big girl, okay? She's an 85 pound bulldog. She's got short little, stubborn back legs. No, front legs. Basically, okay, the front of her is lower than the back of her. Her little touche sticks up in the air. She's got a big barrel belly. Like, imagine the biggest, cutest big hot potato you've ever seen in your life that has legs. That's her. She's the love of my life. You see her, you're going to fall in love with her. And she's like 85 pounds. I I don't remember if I said that. So she's a big girl. And when she wiggles, she's really excited. But some people get intimidated by her, right? I get it. But most kids know that's a dog that's going to love me and I'm going to love that dog. So Bella starts wiggling and I make an in contact with the mom. And at one point I say, My dog loves kids. So if you want to say hi, she's all about it. And Bella does. And she's so intuitive and smart. She is really difficult sometimes with me, but as soon as there's babies or children or kids of any age, she will calm down. She relaxes her whole body. She's calm, she's patient, she's still, and she's silent. Wonderful. These kids come over, and let me tell you, this was one of the cuteest interactions I have ever witnessed in my entire life. It almost brought tears to my eyes because it restored... It was a moment of humanity, and that's what I really needed today, was a reminder of all the kindness and wonderful things about humans, right? Because tuning into the news is not helping. This little boy comes up to Bella first. He's probably about three years old, okay? Imagine a cherub as a child. Super cute. He has a little helmet on and he throws his little scooter to the side. He runs up to Bella. But he's smart because he doesn't just jump on top of her, right? He takes a minute to assess the situation. I automatically know he's probably got a dog at home. His parents have probably taught him. You can't just run up to dogs, right? He stands in front of Bella and he's looking at her, assessing her demeanor, if you will. I know he's a three-year-old, but that's what he's doing. And she's looking at him. She's the most perfect posture. She's sitting up tall. Her ears are perked up. She's looking at him eye to eye and her mouth's agape. She's panting. She's so excited. He takes his tiny little hands and he puts them on each side of her face, and he brings his lips to hers, square on the mouth, gives her a kiss, and he's like, muah. She was so taken aback. I don't know if I've ever seen anyone do that to her? And she loved it. She was just like, what? If you can imagine a dog making that noise. And it was the cuteest thing ever. He probably did it five more times. His sister came over who was probably a year or two older. She gave him a kiss on the head, and it was the most sweet and wholesome interaction. It was so heartwarming and sweet that I almost started crying. I could feel the tears welling up in my eyes. It was just such a moment, a pure moment And in weeks and weeks and months and months of so much turmoil in the news, it was so amazing to see that. And it was a good reminder that we own our humanity and we own kindness. And no, Nobody, no matter what, can take those things away from us. And so I really needed those reminders. And being out in nature really, really, really, really helped me reset and recenter my brain. And before I go into the other parts of this cycle that I've been noticing, the biggest takeaway for me today was that I noticed that after spending time in nature, after not being on my phone, but more intentionally so, being present in nature, in the present moment, noticing how I felt in my body, noticing how the wind felt on my skin, and being able to journal and read a little bit and spend time with my dog. It was also such a wonderful time for Bella and I because I had noticed that in my stress response lately, I felt like a disconnect in my relationship with Bella. I felt like I was getting more irritated with her, and she was getting more irritated with me. And today it felt like we really had this wonderful visit. And I could just tell by the way that she was looking at me with her puppy eyes that she was so happy. And it was a moment in hook, like, there you are, Peter. That's how she was looking at me. There you are, Sarah. There you are. And so I hope that if you're able to get out in nature, you can have that moment, too, of, oh, here I am, right? Here I am back in nature. Here I am back with myself. Here I am, apart from everything that's going on in the world, I still exist and I still relate to everything around me. I also read this quote While I'm telling you the story, and I'm going to bring it up, I have a photo on my phone. I was planning in my Hobonichi. I have an English A6 version, and I don't always read all the quotes. Sometimes I put stickers over them. But today's quote, I really liked. And it reads as follows. It says, The world gave birth to me. I became a part of the world. The world is my mother. I become a little bit of my mother. Everything becomes my mother. And unfortunately, in this photo, I don't have the name of the person who wrote this quote, but I can find that. Oh, wait, I do have another photo. I'm going to say this horribly incorrectly. Shigesato, I think, is the name. Just love that quote so much. It really reminded me that everything's connected, that vibe. We're all connected. We're all human. And that was the experience today, watching this kid come up to my dog and share a moment of pure joy and then locking our eyes with the mom and both of us just being like, That was so cute. So with all that being said, this is your moment to notice patterns in whatever cycle that you're going through as these stressful things happen. Because after you can experience a deep brain reset like I did today, you'll be able to access the parts of your brain that are going to help you the most. The other thing I noticed today was that after I got back home and I had a meal and I drink some water and I was just reflecting on the day, I noticed that my brain was back on. I was starting to be able to think about my business again and what I want to do next. All those higher level thinking skills started to return And it was in that that I realized I've got to dive deeper into some of the pattern recognition, which is the next part of this phase. There's only one more after this. As you're going through all of this, start taking note of how you feel when you hear something stressful in the news, because there's going to be more. Before the before the election, there's going to be more. And you don't have to pay attention to every single detail, okay? But there's going to be more things. Start noticing the pattern of your response and where you go in your brain and what you need and what order those things happen in. Because the more clear and aware that you can get with those things, the better able you'll be to take care of yourself, make pre-made decisions, and nurture those around you, right? Because we all need that. We all need each other and we need ourselves. So after pattern recognition comes the last step of the phase, and that is better your capacity planning. And when I say capacity planning, I mean understanding your emotional capacity, all the different capacity you have or lack thereof, and planning accordingly. I've had so many big goals this year to do so much because last year I was sick and burnt out and I couldn't do much of anything in my business. It sucked. So I was like, I'm going to make it up this year. That hasn't been the case. I know now that every time I get an idea and I want to do something, I'm going to have to divide that into four-ths. I have a fourth, I'd say, of what I normally can do. And I've accepted that. I'm not trying to magically find a way to get back to 100 %. I'm at 25 % right now. But that doesn't mean that my business results will be 25 %, right? Or whatever goal you have has to be at 25 % if that's where your capacity is. We get to decide, we get to look at the ROI on our time investments and our energy management investments. And there may be things that you can do in your life in business, right, that take up less % of your capacity, but that give you more. So that's what I'm doing in my business now is what are the things I can do if I'm only running a 25 % of what I normally can do? If I'm having to work fewer hours, If I'm also just not as able to make as many decisions in a day or do as many things or have as many Zoom calls because they're tiring right now, then what can I do to keep the momentum going? So all these phases roll out, right? And this is the order that mine have. And then they all lead back to another stressful incident. But here's the thing and here's the kicker. These stressful incidents are not going to just wait, right? They're not going to just occur when you're done with your whole cycle and you're ready to plan for the next event. Unfortunately, stressful things and stressful stuff in the news and fears and worries and concerns and arguments and all these things that we're all trying to navigate to the best of our ability, they're going to happen in between all of these stages. And sometimes they're going to be more than one. Sometimes they're going to be stacked. Right when you are trying to pull yourself out with movement from the disassociative freeze response state, you may be hit with three things that are just so unfathomable that you don't know what to do. The goal is not to move through this phase in any necessary order or speed, but to know and recognize where you are. I mean, if you think about anything in your life, that's the most important thing, is the self-awareness. It's the most important thing, right? If someone's operating on you and trying to save your life, it's not so much that they know they need to sew you up at the end and get you in a stable condition. It's what's going on with you right in this moment. Is there something wrong with your artery? Is there blood splurting? Is there a way with what's going on? What do they need to do in this moment? That's what you have to ask yourself every single moment, now leading up to when you vote. What can you do right now? What is the state you're in? And then we all have to rally together to save our democracy. And that is this week's episode. This is about stress, but it's also about educating yourself. And as much as self-awareness is important, so is our civic duty to have awareness around the state of our country, around things that are impacting it, about Project 2025 and how it can change everything that we've worked so hard for in our democracy. So educate yourself, educate others, and take care of yourself, and notice your stress response, and notice the cycle you're in. We can do this, we can beat this, and you are not alone. Thank you so much for listening to this week's episode. If you found it helpful, please feel free to reach out. I'd love to hear from you. You can send me a message on Instagram@sarahsteckler, or comment on any of my posts. I'd love to know you're listening, and I'd love to say hi. Talk to you next week.