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Rewiring Your Response: Neuroscience Solutions to Break the Stress Loop

• Garry

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Have you ever noticed how stress sneaks up on you? One day you're fine, and the next you're snapping at loved ones, lying awake replaying conversations, and feeling your shoulders tensed up around your ears even as you try to relax. What's actually happening inside your brain during these moments?

When stress takes hold, it triggers a cascade of neurological events – cortisol floods your system, your amygdala stays locked in fight-or-flight mode, your hippocampus (memory center) literally shrinks, and your prefrontal cortex (the logical decision-maker) goes offline. Instead of clarity, you live in reactivity. Instead of choice, you live in survival.

Our typical responses to stress – numbing with alcohol, comfort eating, endless scrolling, or simply pushing through – aren't solutions but traps that strengthen the stress loop. The drink that "takes the edge off" today actually inflames your amygdala, making you more reactive tomorrow. But neuroscience offers real solutions that can rewire your brain's response to stress.

The physiological sigh (two short inhales, one long exhale) signals safety to your vagus nerve. Thirty seconds of cold exposure flips your body into parasympathetic mode, making you less reactive throughout the day. Stress time travel – imagining yourself a week ahead looking back at today – recruits your prefrontal cortex and reframes crises as temporary. Dopamine anchoring, microburst journaling, movement snacks, laughter resets, and connection boosts provide multiple pathways to break free from stress cycles.

You don't need to implement all eight hacks at once. Pick just one, practice it daily, and notice the shift. Your brain will calm faster, your body will feel lighter, you'll stop snapping at loved ones, and you'll move from survival mode to focused clarity. Stress may be sneaky, but with these neuroscience-backed strategies, now so are you. Which hack will you try first to transform your relationship with stress?

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Speaker 1:

Welcome to another edition of GW Unspoken, where we discuss stuff we don't typically talk about but probably should, and we're here with our social, emotional well-being episodes and we're up to episode five talking about some realized stuff you can use. Hopefully it's stress hacks from neuroscience that you haven't tried yet and people who've been listening for a while. I want to thank you for, I guess you know, joining this podcast in this movement, but it's you know by now that I've got a real passion behind neuroscience. It's the capital of your ship, its everything. It allows us to do what we do every single day. It helps us decide. It keeps us from danger. It also, unfortunately, is sometimes hard for us to regulate our emotions because our brain is in charge.

Speaker 1:

So I'm hoping you knew some of these tricks today and these hacks, because we all face stress. You know it creeps in quietly and then one day you notice that you're not yourself anymore. I don't know if you've felt this, but suddenly you're forgetful or you can't focus. I feel like that's worse with age. You snap at your kids or your partner and you sort of lie awake at night replaying the conversations, whether it's a blame game or whether it's you just sitting back going. What the hell just happened, know, your body feels tight, wide and heavy all at once. Have you ever lied down in bed and actually lying there and you realize that you've actually got your shoulders up around your ears because you're just holding like stress? Try it. Go to bed tonight and think about it. As you're lying there, are you actually sinking into your mattress and relaxing or do you feel like actually your body's tight because that's stress?

Speaker 1:

You know what happens when stress doesn't leave, when your brain and body get stuck in a loop. What happens then? There's a lot that happens and unfortunately it's all around the brain. It's all around what happens to your actions from there. So this is what is actually happening inside you Stress flips on the HPA axis, your stress circuit. Cortisol floods your system. The amygdala you know your alarm bell. It actually stays switched on in fight, flight or freeze. It's actually on the whole time.

Speaker 1:

And the hippocampus, your memory center, the one that you need for every single day at work or school if you're still at school it shrinks so you're cooked. And that prefrontal cortex, your calm, logical, decision-making brain, it actually goes offline. So, instead of you having clarity, you live in reactivity. Instead of having choice. You actually live in survival and I want you to really think about that. Instead of clarity, you live in reactivity and instead of choice, you live in survival. And when stress becomes constant, you stop recovering. You feel like you're running even when you're standing still. And so what do we do? We try to numb it, we ignore it, we push through. That's what I try to do. Let's just ignore it and push through. It'll be fine, right?

Speaker 1:

Some people grab another drink, some people go for the dopamine and eat comfort food. For a lot of us now these days we scroll endlessly to distract ourselves a big distraction right to try and calm our amygdala. But these aren't solutions. They're actually traps and, believe me, I know they are traps Because ignoring stress actually buries it deeper. Alcohol actually numbs you today but spikes your anxiety tomorrow and in fact it actually has your reactive system higher from the last time you drank. So when people reach for a drink and go, I feel so much better now because I need to take the edge off and stop the stress. It actually inflames that amygdala center higher. So next time you do stress, your window on tolerance is actually smaller and, like I said, food brings that dopamine hit and then a crash leaves you soon worse, feeling like crap, all right, pushing through without pause. It burns you out and I've definitely felt that before. So these hacks don't heal the stress loop. They actually strengthen it, right.

Speaker 1:

So so what's the real hacks that work? What are some things that we can try out there that you know if you're listening to this and go, well, you know I scroll because I just want to numb my feelings and I just want to get away from everything. Or have a drink at the end of a work shift just to say I feel good and I'll take the edge off. Or, like me, I'll just ignore it and tomorrow will be better. What's some things that you can actually use that your brain will take on board and maybe continue to heal? Here's some really good news. Your brain is actually plastic. It can be rewired and neuroscience gives us these hacks, these quick resets that calm your system right now and it retrains it over time. So let me show you a few. Let me let you know a few here. We've tried before working in a neuroscience company before.

Speaker 1:

How's this one? The physiological sigh Two short inhales and one long exhale. It's going to sound weird. Maybe don't do that in front of your work colleagues, you know, in the middle of a conversation. But it actually works. And it works because it's the fastest way to bring your nervous system back to balance. It inflates tiny air sacs in your lungs, then signals your vagus nerve boy, you're safe. And so what changes if you practice it daily? Emotional center that amygdala. It actually calms quicker your prefrontal cortex switches back on and you snap less, you recover faster and you feel steadier in those tense moments. So instead of blowing up, believing that someone said something and you take it the wrong way, it actually has you feel steadier and switches on that thinking brain of hang on. Is this actually what I'm interpreting from this person right now?

Speaker 1:

Here's hack number two cold exposure, 30 seconds in a cold shower. Yeah, we all don't want to do that. We understand that. It's still just the other side of winter. But you know, splash icy cold water on your face. We've talked about cold therapy before and people say well, I'm not going to afford an ice bath. I know I won't do that because it's too tough for me. But what if you could just have a quick 30 seconds boost in a cold shower? And this is what works Cold flips your body into that parasympathetic mode. It slows your heart and it spokes that neuropinephrine All right, tough word to say A chemical that sharpens focus without the panic.

Speaker 1:

So what changes if you practice it daily? Your nervous system becomes less reactive, traffic jams won't send you over the edge, your work emails won't hijack your mood all day and you start building resilience. And I know what you're thinking. I know you're probably thinking out there and a lot of people are thinking I'm not going to do that. I can't do a cold shower, I don't like them. I actually love my hot shower. I get it. I understand, but if nothing changes, nothing changes. So what if 30 seconds a day out of your life can change your moods and maybe the relationship you have with your partner, maybe your work colleagues, maybe your friends at school? What if 30 seconds out of a 24-hour day is worth that uncomfortable feeling of being in a cold shower, because it makes you less reactive and it stops you having negative thoughts that hijack your mood all day?

Speaker 1:

All right, here's number three. How about a stress time travel? So imagine yourself one week ahead, looking back at today. That's a bit weird, right? We teleported ahead and you're looking back today. But this is why it works. The stress traps you in the amygdala, that emotional center. So future thinking recruits your prefrontal cortex, the calm problem solver, and it refrains crisis as hey, this is only temporary, I'm in the future, you're eventually going to get to me.

Speaker 1:

And what changes. If you do this practically daily, or this practice daily, your brain builds stronger links between logic and emotion, and that means the day you might have had where your meeting ruined your whole day will have less sting. Your perspective actually widens. You stop looping on the small stresses that are agitating you and frustrating you every single day. How about hack four? How about some dopamine anchoring?

Speaker 1:

So what if you pair stress with reward? Do the hard thing and then celebrate it. We've talked about this before with the percentile rule of 80-20, and 80% of our day is the easy, small task, 20% is a really tough task. So what do we do? Typically, we would go through all the easy tasks first, get to the hard things that probably make the most difference in our work life or our life, and we go oh, it's too late now, but I'll leave that till tomorrow. It becomes harder, all right. So what if we actually just did the hard thing first and celebrate it, and this is why it works. Stress drains don't mean motivation actually takes it away. So reward right after stress actually trains your brain to expand joy after the challenge. All right, I'm not saying go for a run and come back and have a massive thick shake with lots of chocolate choked into it. I'm just saying have a reward that makes you celebrate you going through the hard times and if you practice that daily, you'll stop avoiding tough tasks. You'll stop it. The reward center will light up with effort and hard things won't feel that heavy. They'll actually feel doable and you won't keep putting them off and you'll feel more productive and your self-esteem will go through the roof because you'll feel like a winner.

Speaker 1:

Here's hack five. There's a few of them, so I hope some of these can resonate. Or you can try some of these Microburst journaling. These are Hack 5, there's a few of them, so I hope some of these can resonate. Or you can try some of these Microburst journaling. These are good ones. I like this one.

Speaker 1:

So write three things what happened, what I feel, what I can control. That's a big one. What can I actually control? And why does it work? Because labeling emotions lowers that amygdala reactivity. It gives your hippocampus a clear story, instead of endless remuneration of this is going to happen again and if you do that daily, you'll stop spinning in circles. You'll name stress early. You can actually name it, detain it. We've talked about that before actually physically out loud, saying I'm feeling stressed right now because of this. It'll help you redirect your focus. You'll feel lighter in your own mind and again you can go back and maybe join the other hack of the dopamine anchoring and say, hey, this is just a thing at the past, or the stress timetable. This is happening right now, but I know in the future I'm going to get through this. All right, how about this one? How about hack six, some movement snacks that must be interesting. All right, squats, I walk around the block. A quick stretch. Why does it work? Because movement flushes cortisol. It releases that lovely BDNF, the fertilizer for your neurons. It actually gets the flow going. All right.

Speaker 1:

Anthony Robbins always talked about all the dimensions of health. He said number one is physical. Health is the most important because it gets your blood, with the right blood, flowing through your brain. Okay, all right. So what changes if you do that? You know daily it. Your hippocampus grows stronger, you have a focus that sharpens your body, recovers from stress faster and you'll feel less wired and tired. And that's really important, isn't it? Especially in today's date, or if you're constantly under scrutiny with a boss or a family member or whatever it's. It's going to stop you having stress and recover faster.

Speaker 1:

Here's another one laughter reset. Watch a funny clip. Call a friend who makes your belly laugh. You know, get around funny people. You know, obviously making sure that's the right kind of funny. But laughter floods you with endorphins. It lowers cortisol, it reminds your brain, hey, actually all is well, life's actually okay. And then what changes if you do that daily? Well, your baseline stress hormones lowers, you feel lighter, you feel more energetic, you feel more connected. Laughter is amazing. It makes you feel like, hey, let's get this weight off our body and our chest that we can still enjoy life.

Speaker 1:

Here's one more. Here's number eight connection boost. So send a kind text. It's like gratefulness Hug someone you love, pat your dog. It works because connection releases oxytocin, that fuel hormone, the natural antidote to stress. I loved doing this in classes while I was teaching. A lot of group work, a lot of talk to your partner, have conversations, feedback to the class because they release a natural hormone in their body. It calms their system, it lowers blood pressure, it builds trust signals in the brain and if you do that daily, you actually feel safer, you feel less alone and your brain will anchor in belonging instead of isolation, and isolation is one of the biggest killers right now.

Speaker 1:

So, overall, here's my challenge to you Pick one, don't pick all eight. Pick one hack, do it daily, stick with it Overall. Here's my challenge to you Pick one, don't pick all eight. Pick one hack, do it daily, stick with it. Notice the shift, just see if that works. Because here's the truth Stress will always be there. It will. It's life, but you don't have to live and be stuck in that loop over and over again. With practice, your brain will feel calmer, faster, your body will feel lighter, You'll stop snapping at the people you love, you'll probably sleep deeper, which will be good for your overall health. You'll think clearer, which will help in your everyday relationships and work or school, and you'll spend more time in the calm focus instead of drowning in survival mode. So here's the three general prompts I'd love you guys to do Again what you write down gets measured and gets improved.

Speaker 1:

So, number one what hack feels most doable for you right now out of those eight? Which one right now would work? Is it stuff? This? I'm doing my 30 second shower cold now, is it? I'm going to add a couple of squats every single time. Every hour, I'm going to do five squats. Can you do that?

Speaker 1:

What signs tell me that you're stuck in a stress loop? Write them down. What are the signs that tell you that you're stuck in that stress loop? Either emotional signs or physical signs. Write them down. What are the signs that tell you that you're stuck in that stress loop? Either emotional signs or physical signs. Write them down. Write them on paper. Label it statement. And number three what daily reminder can you set to break the loop this week? You're in it, you feel it. Oh, here comes the stress loop again. My life sucks. What are some things you can actually do to break that loop this cycle, this week? So look, stress may be sneaky, but now so are you. And thank you again for joining us on this episode of GW Unspoken. I hope something's resonated with you and I really hope you can use some of these hacks as you just move forward through this stressful life, but making sure it's better for you and those people around you.