Stress Isn’t Just in Your Head — It’s in Your Body, Your Schedule, and Your Inbox
Stress isn’t just some vague feeling you get when you’ve got too much on your plate. It’s not just in your thoughts, or your “mindset,” or whatever other buzzword people throw around on social media.
Stress lives in your body. It shows up in your schedule. It hijacks your inbox, your sleep, your focus, your energy.
April is Stress Awareness Month, and this year’s theme is #LeadWithLove—which sounds nice, but let’s make sure we know what that actually means. To me, leading with love means slowing down enough to pay attention to what’s going on underneath all that pushing, striving, and pretending you're “fine.”
What Is Stress Really?
For all of my analytical folks, here’s the science-y part:
Stress activates your nervous system, specifically the sympathetic nervous system (a.k.a. your “fight or flight” system). When your brain thinks there’s a threat—real or imagined—it sends signals to get your body ready to act: heart races, muscles tighten, digestion slows down, blood sugar spikes.
All that’s useful if you’re running from a bear. Not so useful if you’re just trying to finish a report before a deadline or respond to 15 Slack messages before lunch.
Now here’s the problem: many of us are stuck in this state all the time. That “off switch”—your parasympathetic nervous system, or the “rest and digest” system—barely gets used.
And when your body stays stuck in stress mode, you don’t just feel anxious. You feel tired, foggy, irritable, wired-but-exhausted, and sometimes even physically sick. That’s not you being "weak" or “too sensitive.” That’s your biology.
Hidden Stressors You Might Be Missing
We like to think stress only shows up during Big Life Stuff: job changes, divorce, health scares. But a lot of stress comes from stuff that flies under the radar. Here are a few that might be draining you more than you realize:
1. Decision Fatigue
From the moment you wake up, you’re making decisions. What to wear. What to eat. Whether to answer that email now or later. Multiply that by a thousand little choices a day, and suddenly your brain’s a pile of mush by 3pm.
2. Hyper-Productivity
Being productive is fine. But if your self-worth is based on how much you get done in a day, we’ve got a problem. If your idea of rest is scrolling while feeling guilty about not doing more, that’s not rest. That’s stress in disguise - you're actually just checking out and dissociating.
3. Digital Overload
Ping. Notification. Calendar reminder. DMs. More tabs open than you can count. Your nervous system can’t tell the difference between “urgent threat” and “new email,” so it reacts to both. Constantly.
Why “Just Relax” Doesn’t Work
You’ve probably been told to “relax more” or “try mindfulness.” Cool, but telling someone to relax when they’re running on cortisol and caffeine is like telling a gazelle being chased by a lion to chill out.
You need real, body-based tools. Because if stress lives in the body, the solution starts there, too.
How to Reduce Body-Based Stress (Without Quitting Your Life)
Let’s be honest—you’re probably not moving to a cabin in the woods or quitting your job to “find yourself.” You need real strategies that actually work in the middle of your regular, overstimulated life.
1. Get to Know Your Body’s Warning Signs
Before stress turns into a full-blown meltdown, it usually shows up in sneaky ways. Tight shoulders. Shallow breathing. Snapping at someone who didn’t deserve it.
Start checking in with your body like you would with your car. Something feels off? Don’t wait for the check engine light.
2. Move in a Way That Feels Good
This isn’t about burning calories or hitting steps. This is about shaking off the stress chemicals your body’s storing. Take a walk. Stretch for five minutes. Dance like a weirdo in your kitchen. Even physically shaking out your arms and legs can release stress through your extremities. Just move.
3. Give Your Brain a Break
Set some tech boundaries. Turn off unnecessary notifications. Use “Do Not Disturb” like your life depends on it—because it kinda does. Does your inbox tab really need to be open all day? It's amazing what limiting tech distractions can do.
4. Breathe Like You Mean It
Yeah, yeah, we all breathe. But when was the last time you were actually intentional about it?
Try this: Breathe in for 4 counts, hold for 4, out for 4, hold for 4. (It’s called box breathing. Works like magic, and Navy Seals use it, which gives it clout.)
5. Sleep Like It’s Your Job
If you’re not sleeping, you’re not recovering. Your nervous system repairs itself during deep sleep. Don’t skip it. Create a routine. Stop scrolling in bed. Get boring about your bedtime.
This Stress Awareness Month, Lead With Love (For Real)
Leading with love isn’t about bubble baths and positive vibes. It’s about noticing what’s not working and choosing something different—even if it’s uncomfortable.
It’s about asking yourself: “What am I doing because I think it's expected?” And then deciding if that’s actually true. We place a whole lot of "shoulds" on ourselves, and oftentimes they create more harm than good.
We maintain these beliefs, set the bar too high, try to do everything - which ultimately leads to disappointment and feelings of failure, and then this reinforces the belief that we're inadequate.
Treat your body like it matters. Because it does. We analytical folks spend a ton of time in our heads and rarely check in with our bodily sensations. There's a lot of useful information there.
So this month, maybe don’t try to fix everything. Maybe just pick one thing to pay attention to. One moment where you pause. One breath that’s slower. One night where you actually go to bed on time.
This is not weakness or a reflection of your capabilities. It’s wisdom. And it’s a hell of a lot more effective than pretending stress doesn’t exist.
