3 Tips to Reset Your ‘Stress Settings’

Do you ever feel like your body is always on high alert?

Does your brain struggle to ‘switch off’?

It's not uncommon to feel overwhelmed when our bodies are dealing with stressful situations. While our stress response is designed to help us handle the various challenges life throws at us, many people find it difficult to 'wind down' after their stress response has been activated.

This can manifest as a racing mind full of thoughts and physical tension, making it hard to stay calm and focused. In moments like these, practicing proven techniques to reset your 'stress settings' can be incredibly helpful.

In this article, we share two unforgettable analogies that will change the way you think about stress, with three strategies to help reset your stress response.

Impacts of Stress on the Brain – a Nature Analogy

Imagine the nervous system within our human brain as a big, healthy tree with branches reaching high into the sky. When the weather is sunny and warm, this tree is vibrant and full of vitality. This represents the brain when stress happens in small spurts over time.

Now, imagine the same tree after weathering frosty gusts of wind, with hardly any sunlight. These conditions represent the impact of ongoing stress on the brain, making our 'tree' appear less vibrant and healthy.

Scientifically, this analogy describes what happens to certain parts of the brain under chronic stress over many months. Chronic stress can 'prune down' our healthy nervous networks, which help us balance our stress response.¹,²

This is when the brain can get stuck in the feeling of being unable to 'switch off' because the networks that help regulate our stress response have been impaired by the 'harsh weather' of chronic stress.

Why Can't I Switch Off From Stress? - Smoke Alarm Analogy

Now that we’ve covered what happens to the brain when stress is ongoing, we can understand why the body constantly feels ‘on alert’ as a response to stress.

Think of your stress response like a smoke detector. Just as a smoke detector might go off even when there's no fire, our body might react strongly to small threats to ensure we stay safe. It does this because it determines that the risk of overreacting is better than the risk of not reacting, even to small threats, leading us to feel tense or unable to switch off.³

So that’s the 'how' and 'why' of how stress impacts us, let’s explore 3 things you can do to help.

How To Reset Your Stress Settings 

Now that we’ve covered how ongoing stress can impact our internal stress settings, let’s explore what you can do about it. We’ve outlined three strategies below to help you build resilience to stress.

Tip 1: Build a Strong Resilience Routine

Habits that help guide the mind from racing thoughts to stillness are essential to resetting a heightened stress response. When practiced consistently, mindful habits like breathwork, meditation, and journaling discussed in this article here are the foundations of supporting a balanced stress response.

These help to rewire the brain to feel calm as its baseline setting, which can help you feel more balanced. When practiced between 10 to 20 minutes daily, calming benefits can be felt within a few weeks. However, if you struggle to sit still, combine mindful habits with Tip 2 and Tip 3.

Tip 2: Find Healthy Ways to Release Tension  

When feeling tense, exercise is an excellent tool to allow that energy to move out of the body. From high-energy sports to gentle walking, daily movement is an effective tool to help clear out nervous energy from your system.

In addition, a fasting-acting combination of traditionally used calming herbs, Zizyphus, Magnolia bark, Kudzu, and Passionflower found within NeuroCalm™ can also help take the edge off feeling nervous and tense, as a naturally healthy way to settle an overactive stress response.

Tip 3: Reach Out to a Health Care Practitioner

For more specific advice for your unique needs, we suggest reaching out to a Health Care Practitioner to make sure no stone is left unturned. Click here to find a Health Professional near you.

Take the First Step Towards a Healthier and Happier You

If you find yourself feeling unable to switch off, give yourself the grace to appreciate your body for adjusting your stress settings as its way of helping. Following this, carve out time in your schedule to adjust your daily routine with mindfulness, movement, and effective natural health tools to help support a healthy stress response. These approaches, combined with seeking professional guidance can all help support a calmer, more centered you in the face of stress.

References

1. Calabrese F, Rossetti AC, Racagni G, Gass P, Riva MA, Molteni R. Brain-derived neurotrophic factor: a bridge between inflammation and neuroplasticity. Front Cell Neurosci. 2014 Dec 22;8:430. doi:10.3389/fncel.2014.00430
2. Roozendaal B, McEwen BS, Chattarji S. Stress, memory and the amygdala. Nat Rev Neurosci. 2009 Jun;10(6):423-33. doi:10.1038/nrn2651
3. Nesse RM. The smoke detector principle: Signal detection and optimal defense regulation. Evol Med Public Health. 2018;2019(1):1. Published 2018 Dec 4. doi:10.1093/emph/eoy034