Trouble turning off your brain at night? Busy all the time? Feeling tired and overwhelmed? Find out why this could mean you’re addicted to stress.

Stress is a fact of life. We all experience it at some point: work, life changes, unpredictable events (I don’t know, maybe… a global pandemic?).

But the word “stress” has become so common lately that it has almost lost its meaning. Everybody is stressed out and anxious. All the time. 

We spend our days rushing from one place to another, committing to insane deadlines, overbooking ourselves, checking social media every few minutes.

Our senses are constantly being bombarded from all directions and the brain can only take so much. No wonder we’re stressed.

The Problem with Being Busy

We live in a culture in which being busy and stressed out has become a sign of status – almost like a badge of honor – whereas leisure has become synonymous with laziness.

And the most dangerous thing of all? Busyness has become heavily connected to self-worth. We value our place in society in relation to how many things we do.

Here’s what being busy looks like:

• Problems to turn off your brain at night
• Trouble sleeping
• Trouble focusing 
• Your attention keeps switching from task to task
• You’re easily distracted
• Worry and racing thoughts
• Feeling anxious when disconnected from your phone
• Feeling like there aren’t enough hours in a day
• Trouble switching off on vacation 
• Feeling guilty if you’re not “doing anything”
• Getting easily bored
• Feeling constantly tired

These are tell-tale signs of a busy brain. Under these conditions, the mind becomes a very overwhelming place.

It’s not only about status and our twisted cultural values. Staying busy is also a way to avoid self-reflection and numb painful feelings. We have become unable to sit through difficult emotions – even though that’s the only path to healing.

In a 2014 study, scientists found that many participants “preferred to administer electric shocks to themselves instead of being left alone with their thoughts.”

Having a busy mind is a sure path to stress and anxiety, which can lead to chronic stress or even burnout, wreaking havoc on our physical, mental, and emotional health.

As philosopher Blaise Pascal once said: “All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone.”

Next time you catch yourself saying ”I’m too busy”, try this simple but highly effective exercise: change the script to “It’s not my priority”. 

For example: 

✖️ “I’m too busy to meditate”
✔️ “Meditating is not my priority”

✖️ “I don’t have time to go to the gym” 
✔️ “Going to the gym is not my priority”.

It hits differently, doesn’t it? 

We are the stories we tell ourselves. By changing the narrative, you can reframe your thoughts, become more aware of how you’re living, and set your priorities straight.

What is Stress?

According to the US National Institute of Mental Health, stress is “the physical or mental response to an external cause, such as having a lot of homework or having an illness.”

Stress is, in fact, an evolutionary response to defend against dangers. 

When we experience a stressful event, the body is flooded with hormones that allow us to avoid or confront that threat (what we know as fight-or-flight).

Thousands of years ago, when the human brain developed, danger was a lion ready to charge at you. So stress was great. You needed a system to make you run away as fast as you could (or fight the lion, if that’s your thing). And when the threat was gone (when the lion was out of sight), your body would go back to its normal state of balance.

That is what a normal stress response looks like: it has a beginning (a stressor), a middle (fight or flight), and an end (back to balance).

Stress, then, is an adaptive response to our environment and it helps us survive. (In case you’re wondering, structurally and functionally, we still have the same brain as our stone age ancestors. Darn it.)

Why then, is there so much negative talk about stress? And why do we talk about stress addiction?

Consequences of Stress

Before we dive into the science of why you may be addicted to stress, let’s look at the consequences of stress on body and mind:

To deal with these uncomfortable sensations, most people reach for their quick fixes (things to keep them busy and distracted, like work, social media, or alcohol), which is like shooting yourself in the foot, because all this does is reinforce the feelings you’re trying to numb.

For example: you have a crazy busy day at work, so you have some wine when you get home to take the edge off. Alcohol messes up your sleep cycles, so you don’t rest very well that night, and wake up feeling tired and cranky, which makes you even more stressed, which makes you wanna drink even more wine when you get home.

Why you are Addicted to Stress

A person is addicted to stress when they have a “pattern of seeking out situations or behaving in ways that increase stress, even when [they’re] distressed, aware of the potential consequences, and want to stop.” When we feel stressed, the brain releases cortisol and adrenaline so we can fight or flee the scene. As explained above, this helps us survive.

Things begin to go south when that response is not shut off, and cortisol and adrenaline remain in our bodies for prologued periods of time. 

The brain evolved to deal with specific, short-term stressors, like dealing with a traffic jam or meeting a tight deadline at work. But we are not prepared to deal with chronic stressors. We simply don’t have the neural and body mechanisms to handle them while maintaining health.

This is where the problem lies. In today’s world, we are exposed to stressors 24/7, which means the body can never return to balance because no sooner have you dealt with one stressor than you’re exposed to another. So the stress response is constantly active.

It’s like getting a never-ending drip of stress hormones. Not only is this very detrimental to your mental and physical health, but it also gets you hooked. 

The body adapts and becomes addicted to the consistent release of adrenaline and cortisol. You may not realize this until you start feeling bored, anxious, or restless when “there’s nothing going on” or things are quiet.

Stress becomes the body’s comfort zone, and things like peace and stability can feel incredibly uncomfortable. When that happens, your brain will unconsciously look for something to get its dose of cortisol, even if it’s bad for you.

Addiction to stress can also come as a consequence of childhood experiences. If you grew up in an environment where stress levels were high all the time, as an adult, you will unconsciously seek stressful situations, because that’s what has become “normal” and “safe” for your brain. 

How to Reduce Stress

The curious thing about all this is that the stress response is triggered whether a danger is real or perceived. In fact, our main stressors today are in our minds: worry, anxiety, fear about the future, ruminating about the past, etc.

One thing is to deal with a stressor and another is to deal with stress itself.

The stressor can go away but the stress can continue, like when you remember a fight you had with your partner, think of upcoming deadlines, or have imaginary arguments in your head. All these trigger a stress response without the stressor being really present.

The opposite is also true: you can reduce your stress levels even when the stressors are present by changing the way you relate to them and calming down your body.

Here are effective tools to reduce stress in your life and relate to your everyday stressors in a healthier, more grounded way:

• Mindfulness – Mounting evidence suggests that mindfulness helps you better regulate your emotions, reduce anxiety, calm the mind and body, and reduce activity in the part of the brain that activates the stress response.
• Meditation: Even a few minutes of meditation a day can help restore your calm and inner peace, and bring about changes in your mental, physical and emotional health.
• Breathing exercises – Breathwork can immediately calm you down, improve your mood, and reduce symptoms of anxiety, both mental and physical.
• Exercise – Working out releases stress, and helps you relax and rest better. This can be anything from CrossFit to dancing or Yoga. 
• Spend quality time with loved ones – The feelings of connection we experience when we interact with people (and pets!) we love are great to relieve stress and produce feelings of happiness.