Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle

by Emily Nagoski

Stress is the neurological and physiological shift that happens in your body when you encounter one of these threats. It’s an evolutionarily adaptive response that helps us cope with things like, say, being chased by a lion or charged by a hippo.1 When your brain notices the lion (or hippo), it activates a generic “stress response,” a cascade of neurological and hormonal activity that initiates physiological changes to help you survive: epinephrine acts instantly to push blood into your muscles, glucocorticoids keep you going, and endorphins help you ignore how uncomfortable all of this is. Your heart beats faster, so your blood pumps harder, so your blood pressure increases and you breathe more quickly (measures of cardiovascular functioning are a common way researchers study stress).2 Your muscles tense; your sensitivity to pain diminishes; your attention is alert and vigilant, focusing on short-term, here-and-now thinking; your senses are heightened; your memory shifts to channel its functioning to the narrow band of experience and knowledge most immediately relevant to this stressor. Plus, to maximize your body’s efficiency in this state, your other organ systems get deprioritized: Your digestion slows down and your immune functioning shifts (measures of immune function are another common way researchers study stress).3 Ditto growth and tissue repair, as well as reproductive functioning. Your entire body and mind change in response to the perceived threat.