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Some time ago I had a long period of intense stress. It is amazing how much it changes your mind and body. Muscles contract causing all kinds of insuline probl

Some time ago I had a long period of intense stress. It is amazing how much it changes your mind and body. Muscles contract causing all kinds of insuline problems, your hormones become a mess, and all this is raising stress levels more because you don't know what is going on in your body. And then an anxiety disorder is right around the corner. And when everything is ok again your brain produces stress hormones when you hear a sound that would trigger you earlier or just a smell or a color. I think this is the most difficult part to get back to normal: The brain brings you in stress mode for no obvious reason. Then you have to reason about it so the stress goes away and you will slowly reset your brain. But I doubt the paths in the brain will ever go away. It will be like a overgrown path in the end but it is still there.

hef19898 7y ago
The worst thng about that, at least for me, was that I actually liked it. I felt alert, productive, full of energy. Things moved gast and I felt on top of them, it was just great. When things changed, arguably forvthe better, I kind of wanted the previous status back. Took me quite a while to cool down again, yet I still prefer high pressure high speed environments. Funn thing is, my body felt good too. I was healthy as check ups showned. I even managed to trian more than today. Strange period that was indeed...
- photonios 7y ago
  I think there's a difference between high pressure environment and experiencing anxiety and stress. I've done months of work in a high pressure environment where my job and the company itself was on the line and experienced the same as you. For about four months I did nothing but work. I was laser focused, sharp and extremely productive. I was fine. I worked long days, did pretty much nothing else but work and sleep. I've been looking for that kind of focus and productiveness ever since. It's like a drug. In case you're wondering.. The company is still around. We hit our deadline and grew from three people to almost 40 since. Still there.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
- phil21 7y ago
  There is good stress and bad stress, as I'm coming to find out the hard way. I also do very well in environments most would call "high stress" - I ran a medium-sized hosting company for many years, being the guy where the buck stopped if things went wrong. Sure there were days that were pretty terrible, but in the end I controlled the entire stack, the people working on that stack, and even which customers I took on. Yes, the work was incredibly hard, fast paced, and sometimes very stressful. But it was enjoyable because I had personal agency to effect change. We have a service going down daily causing escalations at 2am? I can put a couple guys on it and fix it, with a sane solution we all felt proud of. That sort of thing. In another environment where I in theory had a "nice easy 9-5" with effectively zero external stressors such as customers yelling at me - I was the most stressed out I ever was. The job was entirely internal politics and jockeying for position with all the subterfuge and backstabbing that implies. Effectively being put in charge of outcomes I had practically no real agency over. That latter time period of stress has likely damaged me long-term, and caused many forms of health problems I would not have expected. It is a long road to recovery from something like that, if it's even fully possible.
  - hef19898 7y ago
    Agree on the politics part, the one thing that wears me down the fastest. Hope you recover quickly, it might take I guess so...
  - nemonemo 7y ago
    I'd say the dividing line is how much control you have. If there is short burst of stress for the amount of work you are sure to be capable of, the stress is nothing. The problem is with the duration and the uncertainty. There is also a genetic factor: I remember there was a gene (or a base pair?) that is called "worrier or warrior", and if one has the warrior one, one performs worse without stress than with stress whereas the worrier one is the opposite.
- sjg007 7y ago
  Where there any negative consequences?
  - hef19898 7y ago
    Physically and medically, no, thank god. Personality wise, well, let's say my acquired habbit of pushing for a better solution constantly and focus on efficiency didn't sit well with a lot of people. But it's getting better now, still struggling to be as patient as I, somtimes pretending, am now two years later.
kekebo 7y ago
>But I doubt the paths in the brain will ever go away. It will be like a overgrown path in the end but it is still there. While this aligns with current knowledge of neuroscience, provided the 'healthy' paths overgrow the stress-pathways over time (maybe using methods described in CBT or MBSR for example), theoretically the latter ones should become a non-issue over time. Picture a road being built over a footpath. Notwithstanding building that road requires a lot of conscious effort. But it seems doable, both based on scientific data and anecdotal evidence in myself and people around me.
newsgremlin 7y ago
This is why holiday is so needed. I had a week and a half off work recently and made a conscious effort to just keep myself focused on the holiday and did whatever I felt like at the time, and even though it was fairly active (the drinking bit mainly), I felt like all the small things I kept stressing over didn't matter because I wasn't at home. Having this shift of perception can help you work on ways and identify what is causing stress.
coldcode 7y ago
I am in such a period and have been for months. Stupid company demands we ship something no matter what, even though there is insufficient time to do all the work, and they keep adding more on top of it. I work 7 days a week, no vacations, hardly even a weekend day off much less a vacation. I even lost my temper at work and yelled a lot, something I never do. This is no way to do proper work either. At least what little time I have away from this nightmare I do art which helps somewhat.
- wodenokoto 7y ago
  Not to add another load on your mind, but the long-term issue here is that - assuming this is a crunch that ends - you will still be heavily affected for a long time during normal, non-stress periods. It takes a long pause from stress for you mind and body to stop over-producing stress hormones. I hope you situation changes for the better soon, and when it does, remember to be mindfull of yourself and accept that everything won't go back to normal right away, just because the external stress-factor stops.
  - everdrive 7y ago
    Not OP, but thanks for this advice. I left a similar situation, and relaxation and re-normalization has been slow to arrive.
    - seesaw 7y ago
      I was stressed out for almost five years, due to work and personal tragedies. I was sad and lost my personality. What helped me get back was exercise and meditation. Exercise made me relaxed, and meditation improved my sleep. It was hard, since being depressed means you have no interest to exercise or meditate either.
      - throwaway10928 7y ago
        Consider tricking your brain with chocolate! After a long break, or perhaps if this will be your first experience doing regular exercise, you might not get the rewarding endorphines after exercising the first couple of times. Consider buying a chocolate bar (darker means more chocolate means less sugar and is better for you) and tell yourself that this chocolate bar is for exercise. Now, after coming back from your exercise, drink a big glass of water and eat a piece of chocolate. You want to eventually eat just a small piece of chocolate after each exercise, but be forgiving to yourself when you end up eating half the chocolate bar after your first exercise despite your good intentions :-) Do this for a couple of weeks and suddenly you will find yourself forgetting about the chocolate and you are now "hooked" on the endorphines. Be careful not to let your new addiction make yourself break your body. Fx when running it takes up to half a year before your body gets robust enough for doing long and regular stretches. Most importantly: do what it takes to make it a joyful habit!
graeme 7y ago
>I think this is the most difficult part to get back to normal: The brain brings you in stress mode for no obvious reason. Then you have to reason about it so the stress goes away and you will slowly reset your brain. But I doubt the paths in the brain will ever go away. It will be like a overgrown path in the end but it is still there. I had this. Try square breathing every time you have a stress trigger. It was almost magical in how quickly it stopped things. Basically telling my body “false alarm, stand down. Repeat, stand down and recalibrate” Basically: trigger, hold breath, exhale for 4 seconds, inhale for four seconds, repeat if necessary, focus on breath and counting while doing it. I would say I did this for 2-4mweeks, then didn’t have to anymore. I was well into the “everything is ok s]again” phase when I did this, had done other correctives prior. This was the finishing touch.
- mistermann 7y ago
  > I would say I did this for 2-4mweeks Every time you had a trigger you did this, and symptoms lifted after 2-4 weeks? https://www.healthline.com/health/box-breathing https://www.healthline.com/health/box-breathing
  - graeme 7y ago
    Yup, pretty much exactly that. YMMV of course. For me my triggers were linked to breath anyway. I would have them, and then when I exhaled get tension in my neck and shoulders. Doing the box breathing with an exhale short circuited that. I think it gave my mind a thing to focus on, and helped train my stress response. For sake of completeness, I did do one other thing. I had periodic worries about financial certainty in my business. But as with stress, I was past the point where this was a realistic concern. Problems could arise, but it would never be instant, total destruction of my business. So, I wrote down all the things I was worrying about, how realistic they were, how much harm it would cause, and what my responses would be. I then kept thinking about this for a few days. Did a lot to remove worry. Then the breathing combined well with that. I also found out fodmaps caused me digestive trouble + stress feeling, but the breathing had had its day to day impact before I discovered that.
  - graeme 7y ago
grep_name 7y ago
Could you share any resources that helped you get past this? This is basically what my life is like all the time
- rdco 7y ago
  The meditation app Calm was helpful for me. Meditation has common misconceptions around it, but it's really a tool that helps a person observe their self. That has a calming effect (resets current stress level) and a preventive effect (helps me understand when I'm getting stressed). There's lots of other meditation apps, so shop around as needed.
- want2know 7y ago
  I have a comment in this thread about stress that might help you. About anxiety: talk to a psychologist and keep doing things you like.
- SolaceQuantum 7y ago
  Talk therapy is helpful, since it forces you to address the underlying thought processes behind the stress response in an environment that is outside of said process, with someone who can point you to alternate thoughts and beliefs. In the pure physical response, you can practice breathing exercises or distract the body with another stimulus. A friend of mine who has very high general anxiety uses their phone. Another friend will grab a handful of ice (in a bag to avoid mess) and hold it in their hands until it melts.
sjg007 7y ago
This is kind of what CBT and also exposure therapy is about.. recognizing the pathway and then providing an alternate resolution. At some point you should be able to reduce the stress response to specific triggers to a distant memory. You can certainly treat a phobia and anxiety this way.

hef19898 7y ago

The worst thng about that, at least for me, was that I actually liked it. I felt alert, productive, full of energy. Things moved gast and I felt on top of them, it was just great. When things changed, arguably forvthe better, I kind of wanted the previous status back. Took me quite a while to cool down again, yet I still prefer high pressure high speed environments. Funn thing is, my body felt good too. I was healthy as check ups showned. I even managed to trian more than today. Strange period that was indeed...

photonios 7y ago
I think there's a difference between high pressure environment and experiencing anxiety and stress. I've done months of work in a high pressure environment where my job and the company itself was on the line and experienced the same as you. For about four months I did nothing but work. I was laser focused, sharp and extremely productive. I was fine. I worked long days, did pretty much nothing else but work and sleep. I've been looking for that kind of focus and productiveness ever since. It's like a drug. In case you're wondering.. The company is still around. We hit our deadline and grew from three people to almost 40 since. Still there.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
phil21 7y ago
There is good stress and bad stress, as I'm coming to find out the hard way. I also do very well in environments most would call "high stress" - I ran a medium-sized hosting company for many years, being the guy where the buck stopped if things went wrong. Sure there were days that were pretty terrible, but in the end I controlled the entire stack, the people working on that stack, and even which customers I took on. Yes, the work was incredibly hard, fast paced, and sometimes very stressful. But it was enjoyable because I had personal agency to effect change. We have a service going down daily causing escalations at 2am? I can put a couple guys on it and fix it, with a sane solution we all felt proud of. That sort of thing. In another environment where I in theory had a "nice easy 9-5" with effectively zero external stressors such as customers yelling at me - I was the most stressed out I ever was. The job was entirely internal politics and jockeying for position with all the subterfuge and backstabbing that implies. Effectively being put in charge of outcomes I had practically no real agency over. That latter time period of stress has likely damaged me long-term, and caused many forms of health problems I would not have expected. It is a long road to recovery from something like that, if it's even fully possible.
- hef19898 7y ago
  Agree on the politics part, the one thing that wears me down the fastest. Hope you recover quickly, it might take I guess so...
- nemonemo 7y ago
  I'd say the dividing line is how much control you have. If there is short burst of stress for the amount of work you are sure to be capable of, the stress is nothing. The problem is with the duration and the uncertainty. There is also a genetic factor: I remember there was a gene (or a base pair?) that is called "worrier or warrior", and if one has the warrior one, one performs worse without stress than with stress whereas the worrier one is the opposite.
sjg007 7y ago
Where there any negative consequences?
- hef19898 7y ago
  Physically and medically, no, thank god. Personality wise, well, let's say my acquired habbit of pushing for a better solution constantly and focus on efficiency didn't sit well with a lot of people. But it's getting better now, still struggling to be as patient as I, somtimes pretending, am now two years later.

kekebo 7y ago

>But I doubt the paths in the brain will ever go away. It will be like a overgrown path in the end but it is still there. While this aligns with current knowledge of neuroscience, provided the 'healthy' paths overgrow the stress-pathways over time (maybe using methods described in CBT or MBSR for example), theoretically the latter ones should become a non-issue over time. Picture a road being built over a footpath. Notwithstanding building that road requires a lot of conscious effort. But it seems doable, both based on scientific data and anecdotal evidence in myself and people around me.

newsgremlin 7y ago

This is why holiday is so needed. I had a week and a half off work recently and made a conscious effort to just keep myself focused on the holiday and did whatever I felt like at the time, and even though it was fairly active (the drinking bit mainly), I felt like all the small things I kept stressing over didn't matter because I wasn't at home. Having this shift of perception can help you work on ways and identify what is causing stress.

coldcode 7y ago

I am in such a period and have been for months. Stupid company demands we ship something no matter what, even though there is insufficient time to do all the work, and they keep adding more on top of it. I work 7 days a week, no vacations, hardly even a weekend day off much less a vacation. I even lost my temper at work and yelled a lot, something I never do. This is no way to do proper work either. At least what little time I have away from this nightmare I do art which helps somewhat.

wodenokoto 7y ago
Not to add another load on your mind, but the long-term issue here is that - assuming this is a crunch that ends - you will still be heavily affected for a long time during normal, non-stress periods. It takes a long pause from stress for you mind and body to stop over-producing stress hormones. I hope you situation changes for the better soon, and when it does, remember to be mindfull of yourself and accept that everything won't go back to normal right away, just because the external stress-factor stops.
- everdrive 7y ago
  Not OP, but thanks for this advice. I left a similar situation, and relaxation and re-normalization has been slow to arrive.
  - seesaw 7y ago
    I was stressed out for almost five years, due to work and personal tragedies. I was sad and lost my personality. What helped me get back was exercise and meditation. Exercise made me relaxed, and meditation improved my sleep. It was hard, since being depressed means you have no interest to exercise or meditate either.
    - throwaway10928 7y ago
      Consider tricking your brain with chocolate! After a long break, or perhaps if this will be your first experience doing regular exercise, you might not get the rewarding endorphines after exercising the first couple of times. Consider buying a chocolate bar (darker means more chocolate means less sugar and is better for you) and tell yourself that this chocolate bar is for exercise. Now, after coming back from your exercise, drink a big glass of water and eat a piece of chocolate. You want to eventually eat just a small piece of chocolate after each exercise, but be forgiving to yourself when you end up eating half the chocolate bar after your first exercise despite your good intentions :-) Do this for a couple of weeks and suddenly you will find yourself forgetting about the chocolate and you are now "hooked" on the endorphines. Be careful not to let your new addiction make yourself break your body. Fx when running it takes up to half a year before your body gets robust enough for doing long and regular stretches. Most importantly: do what it takes to make it a joyful habit!

graeme 7y ago

>I think this is the most difficult part to get back to normal: The brain brings you in stress mode for no obvious reason. Then you have to reason about it so the stress goes away and you will slowly reset your brain. But I doubt the paths in the brain will ever go away. It will be like a overgrown path in the end but it is still there. I had this. Try square breathing every time you have a stress trigger. It was almost magical in how quickly it stopped things. Basically telling my body “false alarm, stand down. Repeat, stand down and recalibrate” Basically: trigger, hold breath, exhale for 4 seconds, inhale for four seconds, repeat if necessary, focus on breath and counting while doing it. I would say I did this for 2-4mweeks, then didn’t have to anymore. I was well into the “everything is ok s]again” phase when I did this, had done other correctives prior. This was the finishing touch.

mistermann 7y ago
> I would say I did this for 2-4mweeks Every time you had a trigger you did this, and symptoms lifted after 2-4 weeks? https://www.healthline.com/health/box-breathing https://www.healthline.com/health/box-breathing
- graeme 7y ago
  Yup, pretty much exactly that. YMMV of course. For me my triggers were linked to breath anyway. I would have them, and then when I exhaled get tension in my neck and shoulders. Doing the box breathing with an exhale short circuited that. I think it gave my mind a thing to focus on, and helped train my stress response. For sake of completeness, I did do one other thing. I had periodic worries about financial certainty in my business. But as with stress, I was past the point where this was a realistic concern. Problems could arise, but it would never be instant, total destruction of my business. So, I wrote down all the things I was worrying about, how realistic they were, how much harm it would cause, and what my responses would be. I then kept thinking about this for a few days. Did a lot to remove worry. Then the breathing combined well with that. I also found out fodmaps caused me digestive trouble + stress feeling, but the breathing had had its day to day impact before I discovered that.
- graeme 7y ago

grep_name 7y ago

Could you share any resources that helped you get past this? This is basically what my life is like all the time

rdco 7y ago
The meditation app Calm was helpful for me. Meditation has common misconceptions around it, but it's really a tool that helps a person observe their self. That has a calming effect (resets current stress level) and a preventive effect (helps me understand when I'm getting stressed). There's lots of other meditation apps, so shop around as needed.
want2know 7y ago
I have a comment in this thread about stress that might help you. About anxiety: talk to a psychologist and keep doing things you like.
SolaceQuantum 7y ago
Talk therapy is helpful, since it forces you to address the underlying thought processes behind the stress response in an environment that is outside of said process, with someone who can point you to alternate thoughts and beliefs. In the pure physical response, you can practice breathing exercises or distract the body with another stimulus. A friend of mine who has very high general anxiety uses their phone. Another friend will grab a handful of ice (in a bag to avoid mess) and hold it in their hands until it melts.

sjg007 7y ago

This is kind of what CBT and also exposure therapy is about.. recognizing the pathway and then providing an alternate resolution. At some point you should be able to reduce the stress response to specific triggers to a distant memory. You can certainly treat a phobia and anxiety this way.