Addicted to Stress?
How the modern world has us in a constant state of flight-or-flight
I woke up to the familiar feeling of anxiety. It was a Saturday morning but my heart couldn’t stop racing and my thoughts kept wandering to worst-case scenarios. There were a few loose ends I had to take care of after spending my entire Friday investigating a data problem (the life of a data engineer, right?).
Luckily, the problem appeared to fix itself as best as it could until Monday, and I was able to quickly get dressed and head to a yoga sculpt class I had scheduled the night before. While living in DC, I’d frequently walk to Core Power Yoga to take a rainy-day hot yoga (but more like HIIT than yoga) class.
I knew this class could be quite intense, but I brushed it off.
It’ll be fun Madison. You love starting your day with yoga.
The room began dark, hot but not too hot. I felt at ease, relaxed, and ready to move my body. And then the class began. The instructor yelled into his mic and turned his already-bumping music on full blast.
We started off with a fast-paced yoga flow. My kinda thing.
Then it took a turn for the worst with speed-focused weighted moves. I watched as everyone’s form went to shit and bodies began flying around like noodles. The cortisol began pumping through my veins.
Just when I thought I had enough, “WE STILL HAVE CARDIO" blasts over the mic. Apparently, we weren’t doing cardio for the last 45 minutes. Then, everyone proceeded to do jumping jacks and butt kicks while being screamed at for the last 15 minutes of class.
Don’t get me wrong, I love a good hot yoga class. But I like mellow music and loving energy rather than intense energy. Why do we think moving for the sake of sweating while being yelled out over loud music is good for us? Especially for us women?
Once again, I caught myself in my self-sabotaging behavior of seeking out what stresses me out. Identifying as a Type A personality, I often associate stress with success, self-improvement, and growth.
However, you don’t have to be stressed to grow as a person, find success, or become the best version of yourself.
Ironically, the thing that made me successful in the first place is now the thing sabotaging me the most.
We cannot put ourselves in prolonged states of stress if we want to feel good in our own bodies and lead a healthy life. Stress plays a huge role in autoimmune disease, heart disease, and mental illness. So why are we so addicted to it and how do we break this pattern!?
A Product of Our Environment
Modern life breeds stress. Stress was once a survival mechanism used to help us escape our predators. Now, it has become a part of us.
We stress when we are stuck in traffic.
We stress when we have a deadline coming up that we forget about.
We stress about horrific events happening halfway across the world.
We stress about what we will have for dinner tonight or an important conversation we need to have with a friend.
Constant connection to the world and everyone in it isn’t good for us. Everyone has access to us at all parts of the day due to technology, so we are constantly in defense mode of what may pop onto our screens.
Our work always has a pull on us because there’s simply no separation between work and home life (although I will gladly take my remote job over an in-office one any day).
Because life is so easy compared to what it was, we’ve adapted to stress over the tiny things that make life life.
The Millenial Mentality
I’m not quite sure if this is a characteristic of millennials or something our parents’ generation ingrained in us from a young age, but it is the idea of glorifying stress.
Do you remember a few years ago when dark, loud spin classes were extremely popular? Everyone thought that was the best workout because of all the calories you’d burn and how tired you’d be after.
I’m guilty of attending one too many of these workouts.
My theory is that they became so popular due to the mindset that was encouraged during that time. The harder you push yourself, the more tired you become, and the better you will look. Notice that this was never about how you felt after.
And this wasn’t only with workout classes, for so long we’ve been encouraged to be the first to the office and the last to leave, even if we weren’t producing anything of value. It was all about keeping up the appearance that you were working the hardest.
Modern society has glorified the idea of being busy and stressed to find success in how you look and in your career, as seen with dark spin classes and the post-grad 9-5 motto of “working hard”.
Time to Shift Our Perspectives
We should be living for our purpose and our passions, not the things that make us look the best or that make us money. This means doing the workout that you feel good doing, not the one that burns the most calories. This also means focusing on the activities that bring us the most joy and focusing our time on those outside of our jobs.
In this modern world, we stress ourselves out for things we don’t really want, or may not care about. That’s the problem.
When you're stressed because you think you should be doing something and don’t actually want to be doing it, you are setting yourself up to live a life you don’t want to be living.
While working hard for the sake of being busy and exercising for the sake of sweating are two common examples of how this is engrained in our society today, this shows up in so many different ways.
It’s important to have awareness of when our limiting patterns and beliefs are taking over. During that class, when the cardio portion started, I could have easily let my ego take over and gotten up to do jumping jacks. But I knew they weren’t going to serve me at that moment, so I didn’t do them.
Part of me was comparing myself to everyone else in the class- Am I just being lazy? If she can do this, I definitely can. I’m in better shape than all of these people.
But this was my ego talking. At that moment I chose to listen to my body, helping to break my addiction to stress and honor what I needed in that moment.
Take action: If you feel yourself doing something that stresses you out because you “should” be doing it, stop yourself. Grab a journal and write down why you think you should be doing this thing.
Ask yourself the following questions:
does this bring me joy?
does doing this help me get to my highest end goal?
what limiting belief is this bringing to the surface?
is my ego involved in this choice?
what would I rather be doing instead?
You won’t break your addiction to stress right away, as it’s a slow process. I’ve been aware of this addiction for a few years now, and I still catch myself relapsing. Right now, I’m focusing on awareness and reshifting my perspective when I find myself falling into stressful situations.
This is all to heal my nervous system and reduce my overall stress levels. After all, I don’t have much to be stressed about. I have a beautiful family, a roof over my head, organic food in my fridge, and a stable job. There’s nothing even close to a sabertooth tiger chasing me!
This is what I try to remind myself of when I feel the familiar feeling of my heart starting to race and my mind jumping from thought to thought.
I’m curious…
Are you a Type A person? Can you relate to this addiction to stress?
Have a great rest of your weekend!
Madison