| Do you know what I’m attuned to? Not coming here and listing out all the things that are harmful to your brain, giving you a laundry list of to-do’s and expect that to be helpful in any way.
I empathize deeply with life being heavy. So heavy that even when you care it is still so desperately hard to do.
Which is why I’d like to talk about stress today and offer something that might be legitimately helpful and doable.
Does anyone else kind of hate the list of stress management tools? Meditation, breathwork, journaling, etc? Am I a fan of those things? Absolutely! Do I encourage any and everyone to try and work them into their lives? Hard yes. AND seeing the things that I know will help me but have a hard time fitting into my life, even when I want to do them, adds to my pile of paralyzation from overwhelm.
So how do we help bolster ourselves to make holding stress easier without…adding stress? This is an important question because stress is spiking your blood sugar, promoting visceral fat (this is the kind of fat that’s making everything harder), and quietly contributing to a slow drip of damage to your brain. I’m sorry I had to type that sentence. And I’m sorry, there’s more…
Here's what's actually happening when you're chronically stressed.
Your body doesn't know the difference between a work deadline, a difficult conversation, a scary diagnosis, or an actual tiger chasing you. To your nervous system, stress is stress. And when it perceives a threat, any threat, it releases cortisol.
And cortisol dumps glucose into your bloodstream. Your body is just trying to help you out! It thinks you need energy to run away from that tiger. So it spikes your blood sugar to give you that energy. Silly body.
And that cortisol-driven blood sugar spike keeps you in fat storage mode. Specifically the visceral kind, packed around your organs, driving neuroinflammation, directly linked to Alzheimer's risk. Uuuuuugh, I KNOW!
And the toughest part is that you can eat perfectly, train consistently, sleep well, but unmanaged chronic stress will quietly undermine all of it. Because your body is operating in a state of perceived threat. And a body that doesn't feel safe cannot fully heal, repair, or let go of stored fat.
So what do we do about it?
All the above tools I listed are real and effective, but I want to talk about something that doesn't get nearly enough airtime in the stress management conversation.
Play.
Actual, unstructured, joyful, slightly ridiculous, playful movement for the sake of feeling good.
Here's why this works on a level that structured exercise sometimes doesn't:
Play activates the same neural pathways as childhood play. It triggers dopamine. It reduces cortisol. Any rhythmic movement, dancing, walking, squat-dancing to a song that comes on, activates your cerebellum which is deeply connected to emotional regulation. This is why dancing is so effective for mood and stress. It's not just cardio. It's neurological.
And spontaneous joyful movement (have I mentioned squat-dancing ☺️), or any dancing in your kitchen at 10pm (or while you make breakfast), moving your body in a way that makes you laugh, signals something really important to your nervous system.
It signals safety, even if life is falling apart all around you. Which I’m sure none of us know anything about. 😬
"I am safe enough to play" is the opposite of fight or flight. And your body responds accordingly. Cortisol drops. Blood sugar stabilizes. The system exhales. YOU exhale.
This is why squat dancing is not a joke. It's not just a fun reel. It is literally a cortisol management strategy with a better side effect profile than almost anything else I could recommend.
So here's what I want you to try this week. Not a meditation app. Not a journaling prompt. Not a structured breathing protocol (not to say that those aren’t great!).
I want you to move your body in a way that makes you feel something other than productive. Just some good ol’ fashioned, unproductive, silly-goose movement... heavy on the silly-goose.
Put on a song that makes you want to move and just move. In your kitchen. In your car. In your office (Tonya from HR won’t even know if you take your headphones with you into the bathroom). Do the squats but make them weird. Dance while you do them. Be ridiculous.
And then notice how your body feels afterward.
Because that feeling is your cortisol dropping, your nervous system shifting gears, your blood sugar stabilizing, and your brain getting a dose of dopamine it was desperately craving.
That's not just silly, this is metabolic strategy.
And it's free, takes three minutes and it is available to you literally right now.
Your body needs you to find moments of joy inside all of this mess. Not when things calm down, but right now, in the middle of it. I really wish someone told me this years ago.
Play is not a reward for when the hard stuff is over. It's medicine for while you're in it.
I’m rooting for you all.
Sending much love and some booty-shaking squats your way,
Rach |
