The Stress Response: Assessing Your Stress (Part 1)

 I recently had a stress epiphany. If you get my mom’s Women’s Ministry Newsletter, you may have read the short version of this, but I wanted to take a few posts to share an extended version—because what I learned was so incredibly helpful and because pandemic stress is real and widespread. I tried to hit the highlights in my newsletter article, but we’re definitely going to go deeper and wider in these posts; so if you want to learn how to master your stress—not just manage it—keep reading!

After taking a stress-mastery course (based on the HeidiHanna method), I sat back and looked at what I learned and realized that even though the method she taught was predominantly from a secular perspective, it resonated with many Scriptural truths. In fact, it was one of those moments where memory verses in my mind stood out with neon lights. As I pursued the ideas further, it was incredible how the science behind the psychology of mastering stress (and heading off the long-term physical manifestations of chronic stress, including physical issues, anxiety, and types of depression) so closely mirrored a Biblical theology of dealing with stress and anxiety—I felt like I should have realized all these thing years ago!

As a brief disclaimer, this is purely my own research, experience, and analysis—I have no certifications in cognitive development or anything else like that. I have struggled with depression and anxiety throughout my adult life, and—of course!—I’ve experienced chronic stress. My specialty is more Christian apologetics and worldview, and that is the angle from which I hope to present these ideas. So with that understood, let’s dive in!

I’m going to break this discussion into four parts—Assessment, Understanding, Gratitude, and Adjustment. Let's dive in!

Assessing Your Stress

To begin, I’m going to borrow a definition of stress as, “When demand exceeds capacity.” 

So now, question: is stress a good thing or a bad thing? We use a variety of terms somewhat interchangeably when talking about stress (stress, anxiety, worry, etc.) but when we’re talking about “stress” in the sense of the actual physical and mental response to a situation, I would argue that it can actually be a good thing! In the short term, stress gives a beneficial boost to our brains and bodies, flooding our system with adrenaline and sharpening our minds—which is great if you’re trying to finish a project before a deadline or avoid being hit by a truck. Not all stress reaches the level of anxiety or even worry, sometimes it’s just that notch up in our minds and bodies to get us over a short-term crisis. In that way, stress is actually a gift, part of God’s design for us to cope with living in a fallen world with dangers and crises.

When stress hits the level of triggering an involuntary, reactive stress response, we consider that “acute stress,” and there are three groupings of involuntary responses:

1. Fight or Flight
2. Freeze or Faint
3. Tend or Befriend

Can you identify your usual stress response from these options? In stress of day-to-day life, I tend to get short tempered (fight). Depending on the type of stress, sometimes I feel totally overwhelmed and can’t even get started on my to-do list (freeze)—and I realized that one of the reasons I thrive in running events is because that kind of stress triggers my “tend” function…which again, isn’t bad short term—but what happens when it’s NOT short-term?

The problem is, if we are in a constant state of high stress, our bodies simply cannot sustain it, nor can our brain functions thrive (we'll get into the brain functions more later on). Constant high stress moves us from an instance of acute stress to a habit or rut of chronic stress. And even worse, if we are chronically acting in one of these acute stress responses, it is harder to resist sin—because our conscious thought is barely involved (if at all) in our behavior—we’re just reacting to situations, allowing our circumstances to drive our actions, and completely relinquishing self-control and self-governance.

Let’s take a look at this as Christians. My Bible doesn’t say, “Be anxious for nothing, unless it’s a really stressful situation where your kids make you lose your mind; in which case, go ahead and yell at them.” Or how about, “Cast your cares upon Him—but respond in the flesh and in your weakness of sin and selfishness when your health is threatened, because venting is part of self-care, and even though He cares for you, you really have to handle this your own way.” Or maybe, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart—but when you get to the year 2020 then all bets are off and you can turn into a demanding, hangry, stress-eating, wine-guzzling, control-freak.”

No—that’s really NOT what it says.

We’re told—nay, COMMANDED to, “Be anxious for nothing, but in everything, by prayer and supplication, let your requests be made known to God.” (Philippians 4:6) and “Cast all your anxiety on Him, because He cares for you;” (I Peter 5:7) and, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding.” (Proverbs 3:5). And as we mentioned before, our knee-jerk reaction to stress is not giving you the opportunity to avoid sin. Reacting out of anger, fear, and worry is human—but we don't want to live there--and practicing anger, fear, and worry is not what we are called to as Christians.

We live in an undeniably stressful world; maybe even a chronically stressful world. What’s a believer to do?

The most simple and foundational answer is, we cannot excuse sin because of being “stressed.” Sin is sin, and part of the Christian walk is sanctification, that is, pursuing holiness—which is literally looking to become more and more Christlike and sinless. And as you doubtless recall, Jesus experienced acute stress. Can you even imagine being so maligned, abused, and ultimately crucified all while being perfectly right and sinless and literally THE SON OF GOD?! Even in the midst of His most acute stress, Jesus didn’t sin, and that’s what we’re called to, you and me.

Note, we are not called to lead stressless lives—we’re not called to avoid stress, lest it tempts or drives us to sin. No, we are actually warned that our lives will definitely include stress (burdens, anxiety, fears…), and probably even persecution! (Though I would argue that it's not wrong to ask for alleviation of stress when possible--"Lead us not into temptation," might indicate that in the Lord's Prayer, or think of when Jesus was in the garden right before His crucifixion, asking that if it was God's will, "take this cup from me.") 

But the point is, being stressed is not, in and of itself, a sin. Our actions while we are stressed might be, and we are still responsible for our actions before our Holy and Just God, no matter how stressed we are. I can personally attest that some of the greatest work God has allowed me to do has been the most stressful parts of my life. But don’t despair! God has given us a way to master stress, a way to obey Him, and even thrive—despite our circumstances!

A HUGE chunk of this discussion requires an understanding of our desire to walk by the flesh and by our own power as opposed to walking in the Holy Spirit. As we can see, walking in our human weakness is not going to give us the solution to mastering stress, is it? We need to walk by the Spirit; and we’ll get into that in more detail later. All the physical explanations and tips that I can give you won’t solve the problem for real if you continue to walk in the flesh. But for now, let’s continue in our stress assessment so we can accurately diagnose and address the problem.

Take a moment to assess your stress level. I challenge you to take this test: grab some paper and write out these five things:

1. Energy
2. Time
3. Money
4. Social Support
5. Meaning and Purpose

On a scale from 1 to 10, rate how you’re doing in each area (where 1 is terrible, 10 is totally awesome). You should end with five numbers.

Add your numbers together, and multiply by 2. The total is a spitball percentage of your capacity in conflict with your demand. (So, if you rated all five areas as awesome with 10s, you’d have a 100%.) Right now, I’m guessing you’re somewhere less than that.

When your stress continues unchecked, consider if you see any of these symptoms cropping up:

• Increase irritability or shortened temper 
• Racing thoughts
• Acne or other skin issues
• Nausea 
• Change in appetite 
• Shoulder or neck pain 
• Clenched jaw 
• Headaches 
• Chest pain and heartburn 
• Diminished sex drive 
• Restlessness
• Insomnia
• Paralyzing indecision

Some of these are behavioral and possibly sin issues, but many appear to be solely physical, and all may be signs of unchecked, chronic stress.

Unchecked, every single one of these symptoms can become chronic and serious conditions—leading to long-term health problems, depression, anxiety, extreme fatigue, and tons more issues that hurt not only our physical health and quality of life, but also our spiritual health, our ability to minister, and our marriages and other relationships.

I’m not telling you this to stress you out MORE—but I want you to see the difference between a short-term jolt of stress, aiding in your response to an immediate crisis, and a long-term, chronically stressful state of being, which handicaps your ability to resist sin and wears on you in mind, soul, and body. The former is a God-designed “tool” for emergencies; the other is dysfunctional misuse of that same tool.

So for today, I want to leave you with two questions to assess your stress.  I ask you to prayerfully examine in yourself, and next week we'll dig in to Understanding stress a little more.

1) What is the first sign you see in yourself that you have too much stress, that is, that your demand is exceeding your capacity? (You should be able to narrow your response into one of the 3 general types of acute stress responses: 1. Fight or Flight; 2. Freeze or Faint; 3. Tend or Befriend).

 2) What symptoms show up in your behavior or physically manifest when your stress continues too long? (These may be one of the symptoms listed above, or something else).

Click here to go to Part 2, Understanding Your Stress.

I originally wrote this article and the full stress response series the CWM blog at cbcwm.blogspot.com.