Cry, Dance, Scream
How I move stress through my body instead of letting it fester
It’s a beautiful Thursday in August when the anxiety hits.
That sense of impending doom lurking over me. Normal for this time in my menstrual cycle. I know this. And yet, it swipes the rug from under my feet.
Knocks me to the ground. The air leaves my body. I can’t breathe.
Each month it comes. I try to figure out how to deal with it. How to lessen the blow. Most of the time-I can’t.
I am the victim in my own film. Hiding, petrified, in a cupboard. Holding my breath. There is a killer in my house.
My skin is crawling. Adrenalin is pumping through my veins.
I want to cry. Run. Scream. But I can’t.
That’s what it’s like. A feeling that will last for days. Usually.
But not this time. This time I’m ready. This time I’m doing things differently.
I get in the car and drive
With the music blasting, I start to sing at the top of my lungs. Screaming almost.
A few minutes later, the knot in my solar plexus begins to release. I pull the car over into a lay-by.
The tears come. And I cry. I cry. I cry.
Finally, a wave releases down the back of my neck and through my spine.
My shoulders drop. My body calms. I can breathe again.
Arriving home, I am not the same person who left. I’m lighter. Calmer. The anxiety has gone.
There is no sense of impending doom. Only peace.
I have completed the cycle
Completing the cycle is a term Emily Nagoski uses in her book Burnout.
She says dealing with your stress is a separate process from dealing with the things that cause your stress.
To deal with your stress, you have to complete the cycle.
There is a difference between a stressor and stress
Stressors are what activate the stress response in our body. The stuff that causes us to lose our shit in the first place.
The constant notifications. Rude colleagues. Traffic jams.
Stress, on the other hand, is the body’s response to the stressors. Think fight or flight.
When the brain feels threatened, it makes a split-second decision. Battle? Or run?
Either way, the body prepares. Adrenalin floods our veins. Blood pumps. Heart races. That’s stress.
I’ll say this again because it’s so important:
A stressor causes the physiological response. Stress is the physiological response.
That means when we talk about “stress management”, we are usually focusing on the stressor.
Turning off notifications. Reporting a colleague. Taking a different route.
But just because we’ve dealt with the stressor doesn’t mean we’ve dealt with the stress.
We haven’t helped the stress move through the body. And if we don’t complete the cycle, it stays stuck.
Stress is not necessarily bad
As Dr Hans Selye,’The Father of Stress’, says,
Stress is not even necessarily bad for you; it is also the spice of life, for any emotion, any activity causes stress.
But of course your system must be prepared to take it.
The same stress that makes one person sick may be an invigorating experience for another.
We need stress. It’s how we grow. Mature. Evolve.
But when our body is always switched on, that’s when we burn out.
The stress response is supposed to be short-term. Fast. Survival-mode. Then off again.
But when we don’t complete the cycle? The switch stays on.
Emotions are like tunnels
Stress—fight or flight mode—comes down to one thing. Emotion.
Fight equals anger. Flight equals fear.
Emotions are the root of stress. They’re automatic. Chemical. Instant. And if we let them move through us, they’ll resolve on their own.
As Nagoski says, emotions are tunnels. If you go all the way through them, you will get to the light at the end.
So what’s the issue, then?
The issue is we get stuck in the stress response.
We scroll social media even when it makes us anxious. We go to the meeting even though we want to cry. We feel really fucking angry and someone tells us to calm down.
So we smile. We are polite. We are nice girls. We don’t get angry, right?
We push the emotion down. Numb it. Ignore it. And we get stuck in the tunnel.
And the truth is, we all get stuck at some point or another.
Every bloody one of us.
How to complete the cycle
There is no right way. Everyone is different. What works for you now might not work next month.
So have a toolbox. Here are my 5 main tools. Well, 6 if you include writing.
Exercise: Nagoski says it’s the most efficient strategy. She’s right. It works.
Crying: In the shower. In the car. With a weepy film. There’s nothing like it.
Breathing: When we’re in fight or flight, we hold our breath. Deep breathing tells the brain we’re safe. A sigh equals a signal that we’ve completed the cycle.
Nature: You’re away from the stressor. You’re walking (exercise). You’re breathing. There’s sun. The world softens.
Music: Singing. Playing piano. Dancing like an idiot. This one gets me through everything.
Knowing when you’ve completed the cycle
Your body will tell you.
It’s a physiological shift.
For me, I let out a big sigh and literally say that’s better. My shoulders drop. My chest opens. I feel lighter.
Sometimes, I feel a wave release down the back of my neck, through my spine. Like the hairs have been standing up and now they can lie down.
Like an orgasm. It’s undeniable.
Lola knows how to do this better than most humans
Lola is my seven-year-old Rotterman—Rottweiler/Doberman. She’s a bit of a scaredy-cat. Despite how mean she looks to other people.
When we meet another dog, her hackles raise. Her body is in stress response.
But even when the other dog is gone, her hackles are still up.
So she shakes. She shudders. She completes the stress cycle. Her nervous system resets.
We could learn a lot from her.
Final thoughts
Stressors aren’t bad. Stress isn’t bad.
But we must process it. We must complete the cycle.
Because otherwise, we stay stuck in the tunnel. Trapped in the stress response.
Sometimes, a single cry or walk is enough. Other times, you need layers.
Tears. Walks. Music. More tears.
Like ogres and onions, stress has layers. And it’s only by peeling them back that we get to the light.
But if we keep working on it and if we trust the process, we will find our way out.