Our stress response looks something like this:

1. 👀 We sense a threat
2. 🏃 We have a fight/flight/freeze response‍
3. 😌 Threat over, we’re safe

If that was a million years ago on the Serengeti, we’d either be fighting a predator, running from it or getting eaten by it.

See, the stress response is physical. Our brain releases chemicals like adrenaline and cortisol. Our heart rate, blood pressure, breath rate increase. Our liver pumps us with energy, converting glycogen to glucose. Other systems like our digestive system and reproduction shut down.

That's how it was designed – to keep us alive.

This same response is now triggered by emails, traffic and social media comments. But with no physical outlet, these chemicals and energy just sit in our bodies.

“It’s not like you actually take fight or flight and use that surge of cranked-up energy and awareness in you. Most get cranked up and hold onto it. The body experiences a degree of toxicity just trying to absorb and process it.

You have to let it go. Otherwise, you keep yourself in that state and the system keeps producing chemical reactions to deal with it - inefficient and toxic. It’s not designed to do that.” – Laird Hamilton

So when we do get stressed in an everyday situation, we have to finish the stress response.

My favourite way is to mimic our ancestors... go find a tiger and fight it.

Ha, nah – it's to move.

Run. Walk. Exercise snack. Dance.

(Down-regulation breathing works too)

Release it.

(Our stress response can still be a useful tool. But only if it’s short-lived. Sport, interviews, presentations, and genuine emergencies are good examples where it can be helpful. But we still have to finish the stress response. Sport does this naturally. Most other situations don’t.)

So if you get cranked up, get moving after.