How to Handle Stress
3 shifts to renew your mind
When you find yourself exhausted even after resting, irritable for no clear reason, or fixated on ways you can numb your feelings, your body may be carrying more stress than you realize.
In this empathetic episode of our newest series, How to Handle Life, Lynn takes a look at the ways chronic stress can lead to burnout, cynicism, numbness, or simply feeling disconnected from yourself and from God.
She’ll share 3 intentional shifts you can make, regardless of whether your circumstances change, so you can move out of survival mode and into a more grounded, present, and renewed way of living.
If life feels like too much right now, this episode will help you understand what stress is doing inside your body and how to respond with wisdom and grace.
Highlights from this Episode
Today’s topic is going to be relatable to you because it’s one that so many of us deal with: stress. I’m not just talking about the momentary stress from a tough day. I’m talking about deep, chronic stress that builds quietly until your body, mind, and heart start to feel the strain.
When you don’t know how to handle stress, eventually you turn to apathy, cynicism, or burnout because it all just becomes too much to handle. Today’s episode is going to empower you to handle stress in a new way that is strategic and effective.
What Stress Really Is
Let’s start by defining stress. Simply put, stress is your response to your circumstances, whether they involve change, challenge, or pressure—or all three. It’s a physiological activation you experience when life demands more than you can sustainably give.
There are many circumstances that can contribute to stress. Our world is broken and things are not as they are supposed to be. There is pain, death, suffering, heartache, toil, brokenness, trauma, and loss. Sometimes those hardships accumulate in ways that you aren’t even aware of, and take a toll on your body, mind, and spirit.
Here are some I frequently see as a counselor: facing an unwanted divorce, grieving the loss of a loved one, parenting a child with special needs, financial strain, relational breakdown, hurtful family dynamics, job pressures, facing big life decisions, moving to a new city or starting a new job, experiencing a painful breakup, caring for an aging parent, or having to accept a frightening medical diagnosis.
Often, you experience unavoidable stress; that is, things that happen to you outside of your control but that you must deal with. Other times you’re experiencing unnecessary stress that is the consequence of decisions you’ve made.
Regardless of the source, prolonged or chronic stress occurs when your body’s fight-or-flight response stays activated for a long time. While short-term stress often resolves itself without causing harm, chronic stress causes cumulative wear and tear on nearly every system in your body.
The effects of chronic stress include:
Persistent surges in adrenaline and cortisol (stress hormones)
Elevated blood pressure and increased risk of heart disease and stroke
Higher susceptibility to illnesses or autoimmune conditions
Nervous system disruptions including digestive issues, back pain, headaches, sleep difficulties, and hormonal imbalances
Heightened risk for anxiety, depression, irritability, panic attacks, and burnout
Triggered or worsening mental health issues, addiction, or other negative coping mechanisms
That’s quite a list! But here’s my disclaimer: this episode is not going to address your life circumstances or help you solve the reasons for your stress. Because the sources of stress are endless and complex, we recommend you get professional help if you find yourself in a state of chronic stress. In the meantime, there are 3 shifts you can make to handle stress, whether your circumstances change or not.
As you implement these shifts away from protective survival mode, you will experience many benefits, including feeling more comfortable in your own body, experiencing increased confidence to manage difficult life stressors, and being more present to love and serve others.
3 Shifts for Inner Renewal
Shift #1: From numbing to noticing. When you feel distressing emotions, it’s tempting to want to avoid them through busyness or distraction, like doomscrolling on your phone, binge-watching Netflix, mindless eating, alcohol, shopping, or countless other avoidance strategies. For me, reality TV is a way to avoid the stresses in my life.
Numbing is a great short-term strategy. It’s an anesthetic for emotional pain, and we do it because it works. As a pleaser and an avoider, numbing allows me to bypass distressing or uncomfortable emotions. The downside is that it pushes my negative feelings so far outside of my conscious awareness that I’m not actually dealing with them.
But sadly, those feelings haven’t gone anywhere. They are living somewhere inside my body and they will accumulate until one minor trigger brings them all to the surface and then there’s an overreaction or an explosion. Boom! I’m dysregulated and I don’t know why. Instead of numbing, noticing requires me to pay attention to my body and the stress signals that my body sends me.
Stress can show up in your body as a tightness or heaviness in your chest; tension in your jaw, neck, or shoulders; fast or shallow breathing; a lump in your throat; fatigue, lethargy, or exhaustion; or a buzzing or disconnected feeling in your head. Whatever it is for you, you’ll need to become an observer of yourself, almost like you’re the director of a movie watching yourself as the main character.
Shift #2: From negating to naming. The reality is that most of us were not shown healthy ways to notice and name our feelings. When you were a child, your parents probably responded to your feelings in one of three ways (if you are a parent, maybe you have done these): minimize or negate the feelings; ignore the feelings; or try to fix the feelings.
All three of these parental responses bypassed an opportunity for you to grow in self-awareness, self-expression, and self-regulation. As an adult, when you feel anxious, angry, sad, or disappointed, you will likely revert to one of these three responses. But when you name your emotions instead of negating them, you’re learning to tell the truth about what you are feeling.
Shifts #1 and #2 come together when you can connect what you noticed with what you named. Emotions and physical sensations often go together: anxiety can produce an increased heart rate; sadness causes a heaviness in the chest; anger shows up as back or shoulder pain; rage can be a sensation of heat rising in the body; grief and loss feel like emptiness.
Emotions and physical sensations often go together: anxiety can produce an increased heart rate; sadness causes a heaviness in the chest; anger shows up as back or shoulder pain; rage can be a sensation of heat rising in the body; grief and loss feel like emptiness.
When you connect the feeling you’ve noticed and named to your corresponding life circumstances, this helps you make sense of your perception of reality and take ownership of it. Check your perceptions with other people around you that you trust. You can ask them questions like, “Do you think this makes sense?” “Am I overreacting?” “Is this what you meant when you said this?”
Shift #3: From neglecting to nurturing. Many Christians believe that neglecting their emotions and ignoring their inner world is somehow more holy, more selfless, and more Christlike. You may have been trained to put your feelings aside to love others. You may believe that it’s selfish to pay attention to your emotional needs, and that your focus should be outwardly serving others.
The truth is, self-understanding does not have to lead to self-centeredness. God invites you to search your heart. You may be tempted to hide from God and others because you feel tremendous shame about the parts of you that still need work, but that leads to isolation, more pain, and more shame. With the help of the Holy Spirit, you can nurture yourself so that you can better help others.
What would it look like if you nurtured rather than neglected yourself? It starts with having the same compassion towards yourself that you would have towards a friend or loved one who is distraught or suffering. At first, that might feel foreign to you, but these 3 shifts are about re-wiring your mind and heart. You are God’s dearly beloved child and can treat yourself as such, tending to the hurt parts of yourself just as tenderly as Jesus would.
You are God’s dearly beloved child and can treat yourself as such, tending to the hurt parts of yourself just as tenderly as Jesus would.
10 Ways to Nurture Yourself
Give yourself permission to rest and recover without guilt.
Reconnect with the parts of yourself that enjoy fun, play, and joy.
Care for your body through intentional movement, healthy eating, calming practices, and medication when needed.
Regularly ask yourself, “What do I need right now?” and respond with compassion.
Say ‘no’ to both draining and even good commitments so you can create margin in your life.
Shift your self-talk from hopeless and negative to truthful, hopeful, and grounded in God’s presence.
Practice confession and repentance, trusting God’s promise to forgive and cleanse your heart.
Reach out to safe and loving people so you don’t carry stress alone.
Engage in spiritual practices like prayer, Scripture, worship, journaling, and rest.
Ask God for wisdom, trusting that he gives it generously in every circumstance.
I want to end this episode with some verses that I’ve chosen for myself this year. In 2 Corinthians 4:16-17, Paul says, “Therefore we do not lose heart, but though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day. For momentary light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison.”
If you’re feeling overwhelmed and stressed by life right now, don’t lose heart. The challenges before you may be daunting, but rest assured that on the inside, you can be renewed day by day. Our very real hope in Christ is that one day all will be well. In the meantime, my prayer is that these 3 shifts will help facilitate the renewal of your spirit and that you will be comforted by God’s promises and presence as you grow and mature in your inner life.
Looking for help naming your emotions? Download our free Feeling Word List.