DSTRESS Podcast

Episode 2 - Stress, Simplified

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What if stress isn’t a flaw to fix but a system to understand? We pull back the curtain on how the brain and body react to change, challenge and threat, and why modern life keeps that switch stuck on. Through candid stories of overwhelm, anxiety and recovery, we show how scattered symptoms—gut trouble, sleeplessness, irritability, avoidance—are often one problem with many faces: an overloaded nervous system trying to protect you.<br><br>We trade buzzwords for clear language and introduce CCTs: change, challenge and threat. This simple frame helps you spot both external pressures—money worries, noise, light shifts, endless choices—and internal drivers like illness, fatigue and tension. Instead of prescribing quick fixes, we walk through the mechanics: how chemistry shapes thoughts, how thoughts shape behaviour, and how capacity shrinks under load. You’ll hear why dense self-help often fails when you need it most, and how a child-friendly model works better when energy is low.<br><br>From the illusion of choice (hundreds of channels, aisles of shampoo) to the silent toll of constant notifications and rising costs, we map the everyday patterns that push your system past its processing limits. Then we pivot to practical steps: pacing changes at a rate your brain can handle, using early warning signs to intervene, and building a personal map of CCTs that respects your history and wiring. No jargon. No shame. Just tools that fit real lives.<br><br>If the term fight or flight has never quite clicked, we offer a plain explanation and point you to reliable sources for a deeper dive. The goal isn’t to eliminate stress; it’s to keep it in a workable window so you can think clearly and act with choice. If this conversation helps you see your signals with fresh eyes, share it with someone who needs compassion and clarity today. Subscribe for more straight-talking mental health, leave a review to support the show, and tell us the one small change you’ll try this week.

SPEAKER_02:

Stress is the biggest killer in the world.

SPEAKER_01:

Welcome to De-Stress with Dee and Kaz. Both our crowning achievements were not ending our lives. So we're talking about mental health.

SPEAKER_02:

Too many of us are suffering silently. So go grab yourself a cupper.

SPEAKER_01:

And let's get real and raw because you are worth so much more. Hi! Welcome to this week's episode. I'm Dee. And I'm Kaz. We're going to talk about the reality of stress in a conversation that should make sense to everybody.

SPEAKER_02:

So, to begin with, how did you discover stress was your biggest problem and that it was actually killing you?

SPEAKER_01:

I was 100% overwhelmed in every aspect of my life, physically, emotionally, and behaviourally. And when I had to look at each of the symptoms I was experiencing, for example, skin, digestive system, fatigue, etc., and things like lack of confidence, low self-esteem, irritability, lack of sleep. Absolutely everything that there exists in terms of feeling overwhelmed and unhealthy. And then the behavioural stuff, you know, fear of going out, anxiety, depression, suicide. The thought, the main thought of suicide being the biggest one.

SPEAKER_02:

I understand. I've been there too.

SPEAKER_01:

I realised that looking into each of them on an individual basis, that there was this thing called stress, and I'd never really taken any notice of it before, that was like a vein running through every symptom I was experiencing. And I had this overwhelming sense of light bulb moment, eureka, I think they call it. That this thing called stress is everywhere. Under everything that I'm experiencing, every symptom is this thing called stress. And I just had this moment of surely if I manage this thing called stress, deal with it, get rid of it, I'll start to feel better. Because it's underlying every single symptom I've got as a common denominator. And I just couldn't get the thought out of my mind that there's this thing out there called stress that I've never really I've heard the word, I'd heard of the word, but nobody used it back then.

SPEAKER_02:

But you didn't fully understand I didn't even know about it.

SPEAKER_01:

I didn't know that it was even a a physiological issue because it wasn't used as a term in the 90s, the late 80s. People didn't have issues with stress.

SPEAKER_02:

Well, they never actually spoke about it.

SPEAKER_01:

Never, ever, really. And so when I realized this in my desperation to survive, I learned that this is the thing I've got to deal with. So then I started to learn what stress was.

SPEAKER_02:

And understand it. Because most people these days don't understand the word stress, and their first port of call is to go to the GPs and then they're put on medication for maybe insomnia or antidepressants.

SPEAKER_01:

Good point. And yes, and that's what's going on consistently. And it doesn't have to be like that because stress is not a medical problem. Stress is a perfectly natural response that we all experience under situations that create change, challenge, or threat.

SPEAKER_02:

And when we say threat, or when Dee explains threat, we're not talking about the kind of threat that you might feel in the street if someone pulled out a knife.

SPEAKER_01:

Dee, can you explain Yeah, threat is literally where your body, you're you're out of control, you don't have a sense of control. And it's not even about just the word threat, it's that just overwhelming, you know, severe excessive challenge. And if you have too many of those excessive challenges, too many changes at a rate and pace your brain cannot process and deal with efficiently, then your body goes into threat response. It feels like you're being chased by a tiger. And that's the the general example that's used in the world that you know we're being chased by man-eating tigers. But that's because our brains don't know and cannot differentiate between not being able to pay the mortgage and not having enough petrol in the car or the state of play in the supermarkets when you look at the prices rising. Yeah, don't we? We're all feeling out. Yeah, that can create threat in itself because not on its own, in its own merit, but if you've got lots of other changes and challenges going on as well, the more stress hormones we have in our body, the the more the the deeper the concentration, the more the brain is going to respond as if there is a threat. So changes, challenges, and threats are the language Your CCTs. Oh, yes, the language that we use as CCTs is the term that I developed because I didn't even really, to be honest with you, back in the day, I'd never heard of the word trigger either. I didn't really understand anything about the word, but today it's a very overused word.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, it's used quite flippantly now, trigger. Trigger and trauma.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, all the time because of the nature of having so much information. Um, but the the bottom line is it's just simply our bodies responding to a change, challenge, or threat. And it's all about the language. Again, it goes back to thinking and the language, which is another of the areas that I learned sitting away from the mic there. Thank you for that point. Oh little bit of a doggy going on there. That's that's Ralphie. Welcome to Ralph. Yeah, we we hope you don't have to meet him too much because uh he's a lovely thing. But anyway, let's not get into Ralph, it's another story. So, yes, so reality of stress.

SPEAKER_02:

It's a whole episode up by itself, my dog.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, so um the reality of stress is actually without shadow of a doubt, no more than your body experiencing change, challenge, and threat at a rate and pace your brain cannot process efficiently. And that's where the problems begin. So in episode one, you were aware of mine and Kaz's cases where our brains were changed, challenged, and threatened at a rate and pace our bodies couldn't process. It makes perfect sense why we would have had the overwhelming sense of dread and disaster, which caused us to feel like we couldn't live anymore.

SPEAKER_02:

And until I met Dee, um I actually felt really alone in this world. And for you that's listening, I don't want you to feel like you're alone anymore.

SPEAKER_01:

Nobody needs to be alone when it comes to this. There is so much information out there, but honestly, if it was all successful and everybody was getting what they needed from it, there wouldn't be so many problems, and the the the the issue of stress, depression and anxiety wouldn't be rising, and it is, and it's purely because we're not dealing with the reality of stress or understanding it.

SPEAKER_02:

So all the thousands of books that are out there that talk about stress and coping mechanisms don't seem to be working. Why is that, D, do you think?

SPEAKER_01:

Well, I honestly believe that the content of these books is brilliant and the people writing these books are very educated and very int intelligent and right in what they're saying, but they're not making sense to the common man in terms of what's actually going on in the mechanics of things like our responses to our physical stresses and the way we think, how we process our thoughts, and log and store and file our thoughts, and what happens in the with the fact that we're so tense and physically wound up. It's the anatomy and physiology and the mechanics of it that needs to be explained in such a way that you cannot deny it, and we need another language almost, a simple language almost that a ten-year-old child could understand to be able to see what we're doing when we're thinking, acting, and feeling in ways we don't want to.

SPEAKER_02:

Basically, it is such an easy language to follow. It's common sense.

SPEAKER_01:

It's like that because I was so ill, I had so few resources that I could only do it so so simply, it had to be so simple for it to work in my own brain. That's why I devised and designed the the whole system basically of what it was that I not just taught you, but taught myself and and have been teaching for a long time.

SPEAKER_02:

That's exactly how I felt when I came to see you, because my resources and my energy levels were so low that if you'd given me anything complicated, then my my energy levels was zilch. Zero.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. And and to learn anything under those circumstances is almost an impossibility. So coming back to all those books that are out there, they you know, they they actually make perfect sense to people who haven't got lots of stress in their system. If you've got lots of stress, it's really hard to process. So you have to minimize it and simplify it to almost that point of it being childlike. And yeah, we're laughing at each other now because it is about being childlike.

SPEAKER_02:

Well, I did actually find when um before I met you when I, you know, purchased some of these books, that m my brain was so overwhelmed that the actual words on the pages were almost jumping out, and it was stressing me out even more. So, you know, to have the common sense, the basic way to be taught that everybody is capable of using with your method.

SPEAKER_01:

And and all I've done is created She's a legend, is what she's done. What she is. What I've created is a system that is fail-safe if you apply it at the rate and pace your brain can handle, not the rate and pace at which the books suggest. Yeah. It's what you can handle, but you have to learn what you can handle, which is where what I do comes into play. And everybody, everybody's different. Absolutely. It's called individual differences. So what you see as stressful could be very different to what I see and the next person sees, and that's because of what's already in your brain that you've logged and stored and filed as stressful in the past. That's what makes everything difficult about stress because it's not the same thing to everybody, it's the same actual response in the body, but the reasons that it is produced is different in every brain. So when you know, when I work with people, I ex I show them, I show them pictures. I actually literally explain the mechanics of what they've got in their brain and why they're stressed by it, as opposed to the next person who wouldn't be stressed by it. So everything that's out there, that they're fantastic, best-selling books, and they're brilliant, they're written by the most amazing people with the most wonderful stories, and yet they're still missing that piece of the puzzle that gets people to actually understand the mechanics of what's going on, and that's what I've done, and that's what I've taught you and everybody else over the years.

SPEAKER_02:

And I can't wait for her to share it with you.

SPEAKER_01:

I love it. I absolutely love what I do, and I just know that my biggest issue in life today is seeing people that I really care about or even don't even know, watch them on telly, see them in the street. You can see them suffering, and you just know if only you understood what you're doing and how you're keeping that situation going by not understanding and feeding something that you don't need to feed, but they don't understand because they don't un they don't really they really don't grasp the mechanics of what's going on, and that's that's what I truly feel very proud of is having been able to break down the process of our thoughts, for example, how we log and store them, where they are in the brain, what we can do to change them and adapt them, and actually intervene on the mind and body connection process, because we can, we can all get in there and we can all adapt and adjust, or think.

SPEAKER_02:

And that's how I felt, and the best way I could describe it, describe it when I came to see UD was that I felt like a volcano, and if you can feel it sort of rumbling, getting hotter inside, and then all of a sudden it just explodes.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, but understanding why it's there in the first place, how it got there, when it got there, what you've done to create a bigger explosion, and you're not aware of that all the time.

SPEAKER_02:

When you actually start to understand what you're doing, I didn't understand it, I didn't recognise the grumbling as um warning signs.

SPEAKER_01:

My body actually protecting me, and the fact that you were doing it, nothing else was doing it. Just me. It doesn't matter what was going on outside, that what the process inside your brain was actually causing that eruption to happen. Nothing on the outside is responsible for that process inside you. It's the way you think about it that's the issue, and how I was dealing with it. Yeah, and and that's the issue with all these books and everything else that's out there, and people trying to manage their stresses, they don't understand the mechanics. It's simple. The mechanics of what's actually going on. It's a bit like driving a car. Most people just get in a car and they turn the ignition on, they've learned how to drive, and they're off. Uh if the car breaks down, that's it. You have to call somebody else in to come and help you because you haven't learned the mechanics. Yeah, this is a bit like saying you are the car and you're expecting doctors, friends, family, medications, supplements to to manage the problem. And to drive your problem. And really, you've got what it takes if you just understood the mechanics. And it's not difficult because I designed it around a 10-year-old brain. So I work for you, Kaz.

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SPEAKER_01:

So just a little recap CCTs. Stress is a perfectly natural response that every single human being has to any change, challenge, or threat that they experience. And that can be from an internal perspective or an external perspective. So viruses, colds, food poisoning, anything that causes disruption within the body, organs, not what's going to say organ failure, but not necessarily organ failure, but any organs that are not working in their normal, balanced way will create a response in the stress system. And externally, stress is all of those things that we know from things that we see, we hear, we are aware of, circumstantial changes, financial changes, environmental changes, everything on an external basis, including the likes of things like light and dark, loudness and quietness, anything that goes from very quiet to very loud, from very dark to very light, can cause a stress response. So, overall, in the scheme of things in life, generally on an everyday basis, we're very unaware, unconscious of all of this activity going on within us. And that's where the problems of stress are very difficult today for us because the world is not the world our brains and bodies were designed to live in. And as a result of the change since, let's say, since the internet came along. Now, everybody knows about this, it's all encompassing and wonderful and lovely initially, but the changes that it creates and the difficulties it causes become a reason.

SPEAKER_02:

Quadrupled our stress levels.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, that's that's really quite a low estimation. By a million really, yeah. Um, and so stress being a perfectly natural response to anything that changes, challenges, and threatens us. Actually, when you think about it, it's quite understandable why we would have so much of it because there are so many changes in every area of all of our lives, and the the vast majority come from the fact that it's everything's so convenient today, there's too much choice today, there's too many contradictions today, and all of that creates the stress response, which inevitably is a challenge to every human brain. Shall we do this? Shall we do that? Shall we go there? Shall we have this? There's so many things.

SPEAKER_02:

I've got a great example for that. When I was growing up, we had one TV channel, um, and you literally watched it, and that was it. You didn't have a choice. Whereas now I seem to spend 40 minutes to an hour surfing, going from one TV channel to another with so much choice. I spent nearly the whole time I could be watching a lovely film trying to find something that I want to watch because there's too much choice.

SPEAKER_01:

Caz perfect example. You couldn't have a more perfect example, and again, go shopping in our day, or in my day in the 60s as a child, uh there would be one choice. Now there's 100 choices, and it's not that that's a terrible thing in itself, but what it is is just uh overwhelming activity in your brain because of the making the decision of what you're gonna have. It's you have no idea how much of your stress response is being activated, and it doesn't sound like it's a problem, but you add all of the changes that are in the world today with all the challenges that are in the world today, and it doesn't take much to work out how much more threat you would feel. And it's not that the threat is real, it's that the chemistry in your body as a result of all the change and challenge gets to a point where it's quite high, and it will give the message to your brain that it's something to either then fear or be worried about or be avoidant of.

SPEAKER_02:

Here's a great example, and it probably sounds really silly growing up. We had one shampoo. Um now, when I go to buy shampoo for myself or the kids, I'm already thinking, but does that do for their colour hair? Does that do for damaged hair? And not getting into a panic, but I'm putting myself under pressure.

SPEAKER_01:

Washing up liquid. Yeah. Was it surf?

SPEAKER_02:

It was Vozine.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, was the one. So, yeah, so basically, stress is a perfectly natural response to anything that changes, challenges, and threatens us on a daily basis. And when you work it out, there's every reason for your brain and body to be chucking out stress hormones all day, every day, unless you know what not to be challenged by, what not to feel threatened by. And that's what obviously we need to learn to be able to just in uh differentiate with what needs what challenges us and what threatens us. And nine times out of ten, it isn't the thing, it's the fact that you have that chemistry in your body that feels a certain way, and your brain automatically responds as if it's a threat or a danger. And it's not.

SPEAKER_02:

My brain's automatically thinking, you know, are we greedy? Because we get so much choice now compared to how we what we used to have. It's not greed, that's the incorrect word, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01:

Do you know what I think overwhelmed with I think when you say that it makes me think of the um food industry, for example, with all the choices that are out there, it's greed on their part because they're providing us with far more choice because they just want far more money from us. Yeah. So it's a right word in many respects. So yeah, so going back to the stress thing being perfectly natural response to anything that changes, challenges, and threatens us, we use the term CCTs. And CCTs is not about um what's the CCT cameras? It is CCTV. A lot of people think of CCTVs, don't they? But CCTs, in terms of describing an overwhelming feeling of um too much stress, is an easy way to describe your body and brain and not coping. You know, you've got too many CCTs. In the world of trauma, for example, the word trigger is used to define exactly what CCT is representative of of what we talk about. So that gives you a little idea of how we can change our language to not feel again when you use the word trigger, you automatically have a negative thought about the word trigger.

SPEAKER_02:

I was just about to say that. I'm, you know, still to this day, um when I think of the word trigger, whether it's a negative that my brain goes to or a positive, because again, it's starting to be used quite a lot, a bit like the word stress, it's quite flippant. Oh, this triggers you, that triggers you, and and again misunderstood, misunderstood, overused.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, correct. So we have changed that term in what we are about into CCTs because it's exactly what it is, says what it is on the tin. You've been changed, challenged, or threatened by something that would be exactly that changing you, challenging you, or threatening you.

SPEAKER_02:

It's not talking about threatening about someone coming up to you with an with a knife or anything like that. We're talking about our thought process and our mindset.

SPEAKER_01:

Uh from uh from yeah, exactly. The trigger the triggering, the threatening side of things is not always about a man eating tiger coming after you. It can be money, it can be you haven't got enough money to pay your bills, you will get that threat response from that because you'd be fearing that your home is going to be taken away from you. So, yes, it's a good observation for you to bring up and and explain to some people because CCTs is a far better thing on your brain when you are trying to work with stress than using the word trigger for the reason we've just explained that the word trigger is an automatic negative threatening word, it's indicating that there's something going on that's unpleasant, difficult, painful. Not that you should not use the word can trigger you off. Too good, you're too good, soul sister. So, okay, so challenge, change, challenge, and threat is what stress is about, and there are millions of books and words, um, books and therapists out there talking about stress and what it is, and yes, everybody knows it's change, change, and threat. And let's just get this bit covered while we're at this stage. Everybody knows, not everybody, some people don't, but there is a thing called fight or flight, which is what most people is their go-to reference to the stress response. It's not all about fight or flight, but if you don't understand the basic working model of the nervous system, you wouldn't understand what fight or flight is, but you actually do have to know that. But with what we do it's very important, we've made it very simple to understand the basic anatomy of the stress response so that it's digestible and manageable and easy to not understand yourself, but you can display explain it to somebody else. That's not what we're about on this season of this show, but and it's necessary to mention fight or flight, because that's the thing that most people sort of uh associate with the reaction of panic or fear or anxiety, and it's it's necessary to understand. So for those of you who want to know about fight or flight or feel that you would like to understand it a bit more, it's not difficult. All you've got to do is go on social media of some form, and there will be lots and lots and lots of people describing fight or flight for you, and choose somebody in the medical profession, and that way there'll be no confusion for you. So that's a perfect way to understand fight or flight. And on that note, maybe that's just enough this week to give you a taster of the fact that it's a perfectly natural response, is this thing called stress that happens to every one of you when you're faced with change, a challenge, or threat. It only becomes a problem when you have too much of it too often, which is what we all feel like living in this world today. 24 7. Yeah. Thanks for joining us.

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D

Host
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caz

Co-host