Are you one of those women who’s always busy, always getting tasks done, and even planning every weekend and vacation with activities?
You’re not alone. In our western society, you’re taught to normalize and even glorify being stressed and busy.
You might wear your busy schedule like a badge of honor, believing you need stress to be productive, to be important, to get anything done at all.
Your relationship with stress often goes deeper than you might think. It’s not only having a lot to do. It’s an addiction that’s keeping you stuck in survival mode.
Today, I’m going to talk about why you’ve become dependent and, yes, addicted to stress, as strange as it might sound, and most importantly, how to start breaking free from this cycle.
Find the full transcript of this episode at theselflovepath.com/podcast
Stress Response Decoded: Why High Achievers Can’t Stop Being ‘On’
So, let’s start with defining what stress actually is. I think it’s important to understand the definition.
Stress is a real or perceived threat that disrupts your physical and psychological balance. This triggers what we call the fight- flight- or- freeze response and your body releases stress hormones like adrenaline and cortisol to help you respond to the threat and get yourself back into balance.
- A real threat is grounded in an objective, often physical threat to your safety, e.g. a car speeding at you, being attacked or chased by a T Rex.
- A perceived threat stems from your subjective interpretationof a situation, such as feeling triggered by a co-worked, public speaking, worrying about future events or even negative thoughts about the body.
A perceived threat can feel just as intense as a real threat. The body doesn’t know the difference between being chased by T Rex or the annoying co-worker.
In both situations the fight, flight or freeze response is activated. When this happens, immediate survival is prioritised over long-term functions. All the body’s energy is mobilized to get you to run, fight or hide from the predator.
The body systems and functions that are not needed for immediate survival are suppressed or slowed down to conserve energy, like digestion, reproduction, immunity, restorative functions, higher cognitive functions, empathy, growth and tissue repair. This is why rest and sleep is very difficult when you’re stressed.
This design makes sense. If you’re running from a T Rex, you’re not gonna want to fall asleep. You’re going to want to stay very alert. You also don’t need empathy because connecting with the T Rex won’t help you survive.
Now, if you manage to outrun the predator, the stress response is turned off, and your body is brought back into balance and into rest and digest.
All organisms can tolerate short term stress. It’s even vital for our survival.
The problem is that in our modern world, we never outrun the perceived predator. The annoying co-worker is still there, the future feels as scary as ever, and we haven’t lost the weight we think we need to lose.
This means that what once was very adaptive, becomes very maladaptive. If the stress response is not turned off, we are constantly mobilising all of our resources for the threat in the outer world, and so there is no energy for long term functions, for growth and repair, for connection and empathy.
Over time, our bodies learn to run on these stress hormones so much so that we get addicted to the constant “high” of adrenaline. Many people even turn into stress junkies, they need the problems in their life to affirm their dependence on the stress chemicals. The stressed state becomes the new normal. They need the bad job, they need the poor relationship to feel anything.
And here’s what I notice specifically with the women I coach – not only do they get addicted to stress, but they’ve also been conditioned to wear this constant stress like a badge of honor.
You start believing it’s just part of being successful, part of being a high achiever. You convince yourself that without this stress-fueled energy, you won’t be productive or good enough.
This is my stress pattern. When I get stressed and tired, it’s very difficult for me to slow down. I can get very hyper, and at first this feels like productivity. If it continues I might get agitated, frustrated with other people. I just want to get it done, and if it gets really bad I even feel that I don’t have time to eat or sleep.
Why You Can’t Relax: The Productivity-Safety Connection
So why do we perceive things like deadlines or imperfection as threats?
Why does our body react as if we’re facing real danger? Why can’t you just tell yourself to think differently?
Let’s look deeper into this conditioning.
This happens because a part of you, we can call it the inner child, somewhere along the way learned that constant movement equals safety,
That productivity equals worth and love.
The inner child, we can call it the little achiever, got programmed in different ways to believe that the only way to be safe and worthy is through constant doing.
It’s the child that gets triggered when you try to slow down. When this happens, the program that says “you’re not worthy if you rest” starts running.
For the child who learned that the only way to get love and approval was through achievement, it therefore feels very scary to slow down.
In the child’s mind, it’s an actual threat to survival!
The little achiever inside of you, is stuck in time. It doesn’t know that it’s safe even if the deadline passes. That’s why you unconsciously recreate the stress cycle as an adult: Using stress – a negative state – to try to reach positive outcomes like security or recognition.
This used to be my experience. I was always doing something. And what I did had to feel productive to me, otherwise I’d feel uneasy.
And people around me couldn’t understand this. For them, the solution was easy. Just relax! This would make me even more frustrated and threatened. Relaxing isn’t available if we don’t feel safe.
Remember that energized high from the stress hormones I mentioned earlier?
It actually reinforces these deep-seated beliefs. Each time you get that productivity boost from stress, it validates your inner child’s conviction that you need stress to succeed.
It’s a perfect storm: Your emotional programming and your body’s chemistry working together to keep you stuck in this cycle.
At this point, you might be thinking: “But stress gives me a short productivity boost, so isn’t it at least good for me in small doses, like a natural espresso shot?”
Not necessarily. In reality, there are very few situations where we actually need our stress response.
Think about it: While that stress-fueled energy boost might feel useful in the moment, it’s actually working against you in the long run.
When you’re constantly exposing yourself to stress hormones, your brain eventually starts to work against you:
- Your memory gets foggy
- Decision-making becomes harder
- Problem-solving feels much more challenging than it needs to be.
Chronic stress cuts you off from what matters most – your connections with others and yourself.
And I’m not just talking about snapping at someone close to you. It goes deeper than that, because in a stressed state, it’s likely you start seeing people around you as a threat. Another common reaction is to start judging yourself and beating yourself up. This is because you are disconnected, you don’t have access to empathy.
Beyond Stress Management: How Awareness Breaks the Cycle
How do you break this cycle?
You know what? It starts with something so simple yet so powerful: Awareness.
I know it might sound basic, but hear me out – just with awareness, you’ve solved half of the problem.
Right now, your inner child has been running this show behind the scenes, while those stress hormones mask the real toll it’s taking on you.
Start with noticing your reaction to stress. What do you do when you get triggered? What thoughts start running? How do you speak?
When I’m stressed, I start doing everything at a faster pace, and if I don’t catch myself, I do this until I collapse. My thoughts become very catastrophic and black and white, and all my focus goes on the external environment and my problem”.
My body reacts with tensing my shoulders, my neck, my jaw. I might get digestive issues, and my posture becomes forward leaning. As if I’m trying to physically get somewhere.
When you know how you react, you can start practicing catching yourself when you’re triggered.
In that moment, make the conscious decision to pause. You might even do it right now, as you’re listening to this
- Then place a hand on your heart, and take 3 deep breaths. This brings you back into the body.
- From this place, ask yourself: “What am I experiencing right now?‘ Notice the sensations in your body — is it tension, a lump in your stomach or restlessness?. If your mind starts racing or you feel anxious, simply observe that too.
Even a 10-second pause can make a difference
- If you want to go deeper, ask yourself: “What do I truly need in this moment?” Don’t worry if the answer doesn’t come immediately — just stay with the question.
Maybe you need to go out and walk around the block or drink some water. Maybe you need to ask for help, or just acknowledge to yourself that you’re tired and overwhelmed. Maybe you just need to take a deep breath before you continue doing whatever you were doing.
Here’s what happens when you do this:
- You step into observer mode, calming your reactive mind. From this place, you can observe your experience rather than being caught in it.
- You connect your immediate experience and your deeper needs. This helps you understand the patterns driving your dependence on stress. What you’ll find is that the only reason why you are in stress is that you are trying to fulfill a need. Over time, you will find more loving ways to fulfil the need.
There are many amazing body techniques for managing stress — like yoga, breathwork, or spending time in nature. These are all very helpful tools for building resilience and connection and I practice them myself.
And, to truly break the cycle, it’s helpful to address the root cause.
This means understanding what your inner child believes it’s gaining from stress — and showing that part of you a new way to feel safe and worthy.
When you practice awareness, you’ll start noticing patterns you haven’t seen before. You’ll discover how often you default to stress and begin creating a life where you’re no longer defined by it.
This is where real change begins.
Let me know how this practice works for you — I’d love to hear your insights!
Remember, your worth is pre-designed. You don’t need to earn it.