The Stress Response: Understanding Your Stress (Part 2)

 Welcome back. If you missed part 1 or the original article in this stress series, I highly recommend you read that before you check out this next segment!

Now that you have (I hope) assessed the stress in your life—seeing the gap where demand exceeds capacity—and noted your reactions and symptoms of acute stress and chronic stress, let’s dive right into some understanding.

Understanding Your Stress

We already know from experience that stress sends out certain signals to our minds and bodies. Now, I am not a scientist or psychologist or anything like that, but based on my studies and understanding, I’m going to attempt to regurgitate some brain function basics; here we go!

There are many ways to break down the and analyze the function of our brain processing, but one way is do describe our brain as having three levels. 1. Survival, 2. Emotional, and 3. Executive. When a stress-inducing situation happens, we process information in that order—prioritizing things that our brains identify as threats to survival first, then moving to the emotional processing, then finally the logical thought.

Survival, the first level, is usually unconscious monitoring of our situation and it strives to always answer the question, “Am I safe?” If your brain cannot satisfactorily answer that question and feels threatened, your body will automatically go into one of those acute responses we discussed last week: Fight, Flight, Freeze, Faint, Tend, or Befriend. Sometimes those are exactly what we need in situation, (say, if we’re trying to avoid being sucked up in a tornado), but in daily life, dealing with ongoing stress, those are not helpful—especially if ongoing stressors are causing our brains to constantly scream “CRISIS!” so that our adrenaline levels stay high and our involuntary response is constantly triggered. All this is based on that first survival level of the brain, and for the duration of the experience (which can be ONGOING if you are in a chronically “stressed out” state!) we stay in that survival place, waiting for the answer to the question, “Am I safe?" In other words, your brain actually blocks you from moving into logical processing mode as long as it thinks you're not safe. Once that first level is answered satisfactorily, however, we can move on to the second level:

Emotional. The emotional level seeks to answer the question, “Am I loved?” This is where our feelings respond to what we are experiencing. (Side note: feeling stressed is very different from being stressed.) Our feelings are real, but they are not accurate. When we react to stress, our emotional response takes control. However, if we respond to the stress, we take control of our emotions! With that differentiation, you can essentially utilize the little boost of energy from the stress and figure out how the physical response of stress is trying to help us in that moment (for example, realizing you are up against a deadline; the stress helps you to sharpen your thinking and focus and get the job done in the allotted time). When we react in stress with hopelessness and a void of emotional control, we can perpetuate the cycle of stress and find ourselves stuck in this emotional processing level, causing that same chronic stress response as we saw if we got stuck in the survival level of the brain and, again, blocking ourselves from logical thought processing! Our next post will discuss the main idea answering this level of the brain, but for now, hopefully the mechanics make sense.

Executive or logical, the third level of your brain, only kicks in to function properly once your brain has satisfactorily answered the two questions, “Am I safe?” and “Am I loved?” This level can finally create plans for responding to the stress or stressful situation itself in conscious thought. This level can be curious about the stress and look for proactive ways to recharge or respond so that you are not overcome by this stress.

Now, all this processing can happen in less than an instant--but we can easily get "stuck" in one of the earlier two processing centers of our brain (survival and emotional), and in so doing, we can get stuck in that rut of being controlled by our circumstances (and the sins that can lead to!) instead of growing in the holiness through and in spite of our stressful situation. So what is the practical application of the understanding of our brains processing function this way?

God designed your brain to process information this way (Survival-Emotional-Executive). He created us as physical beings, not merely spiritual, and that comes with certain limitations and impacts our cognitive health--recognize that if your capacity is low, one of the factors involved is physical. That being so, consider what that tells us about the need to take care of our bodies (and brains)? "Do you not know," as I Corinthians 6:19 says, "that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit?" The Bible urges us to take care of our bodies, and (shocker!) it will actually benefit you in multiple ways to do so--including with your capacity to handle stress!

Considering what you might call your "Stress load," look back at the assessment we did last time to discover your capacity percentage in conflict with demand. Think about those areas which you rated particularly low--are any of those things for which you can take responsibility and correct proactively? They may not all be (and probably shouldn't be!) but consider and ponder areas of responsibility that you have, and take a moment to ask if you ought to be taking responsibility for that thing. (Perfectionists--take note!) Take this silly example: I need to take responsibility for feeding my kids breakfast in the morning. It is what it is. But do I need to add in the responsibility for using the good china that is super-breakable and has to be hand-washed for their breakfast, along with a gorgeous centerpiece and perfectly served, multi-course culinary event for my kids for breakfast every day? No--obviously not. I'm not saying you should always cut back and do the bare minimum--I am saying, make sure that you are not adding unnecessary expectations. More to the point, do not make demands of yourself that God is not demanding of you. 

We should obey God, and not neglect what God calls us to do; but note also the pitfall of demanding of ourselves things outside or beyond His calling. When we do this, we are no longer serving God--really. We're serving our vanity, or a fear of man, or an idol of "how it should be" in our minds, or perhaps some other master entirely. God's calling may be high and hard indeed--but take care who it is that you are serving!

Today I want to leave you with two action points to think about:

1.    Are there physical actions, proactively, that you could take to help increase your capacity for stress? Is there any conviction in your spirit as to in how you steward your physical body that you should start addressing in obedience? 

2.    Are you making demands of yourself (or taking on the demands of others) that God is not demanding of you? Are you falling into one of the pits of either lack of obedience to what He has commanded, or responding to some demand not from God?

Click here to go to Part 3, "Am I Safe?"

This article is part of a series originally written for the Crossroads Women's Ministry Blog, cbcwm.blogspot.com