Finding Serenity: What Stress Does to Your Body and How to Reset
- Dr. Chelsea Anorma
- Nov 17
- 11 min read
In the weeks leading up to my wedding, I learned what it felt like to carry everything at once. I was a graduate student staring down a thesis defense scheduled just a few weeks after the ceremony (terrible timing!), which meant I was troubleshooting stubborn experiments in the lab during the day and planning every detail of the wedding at night because we couldn’t afford help. Gio and I even practiced our vows in an empty lab at midnight while I set up another round of reactions. I remember wanting to cry from the pressure.
But thankfully, I made it to the other side. Today I juggle even more: two little humans who depend on me, our home, our finances, and a business that’s growing fast. But during that scary time while getting my PhD, I learned through a lot of pain and trial and error that stress is something you can manage. Now I’m able to face the challenges of the day with serenity.
Stress isn't a one-time event. It's a wave that runs through your life, but with the right skills, you can ride the wave to your own personal serenity moment. Serenity doesn’t mean ridding your life of all the stressors, but it does mean being able to find your calm again when the stress comes.
If you're reading this, you probably know the feeling of being under that stress wave. You're the glue holding everything together. Work deadlines, kids' schedules, meal planning, aging parents, household logistics. It all lands on you.
Your body responds to all this exactly the way it was designed to. The exhaustion, the belly fat that won't budge, the cravings for quick energy, the feeling that you're eating but never quite satisfied—these aren't signs that you're broken. They're signs that your body is trying to protect you.
Today, I want to help you understand why your body reacts this way and what you can do to shift it. Because when you understand the stress sequence, you can start to interrupt it.
When Stress Works: Your Body's Brilliant Design
Before we talk about what goes wrong, let's talk about what's supposed to happen. Because your stress response isn't the problem. It's actually amazingly well-designed. It's just being triggered by the wrong things.
Imagine you're walking down the street and you suddenly spot a tiger that's escaped from a zoo. Here's what happens in the seconds that follow:
Visual Processing → Threat Assessment
Your eyes send the image to your brain’s visual cortex, which rapidly processes what you're seeing. That information moves to your amygdala (your brain's threat detection center) which immediately recognizes: Tiger. Danger. Move.
Sympathetic Nervous System Activation
Before you've even consciously decided to run, your sympathetic nervous system (SNS) kicks in. This is your body's rapid response system. Within milliseconds:
Your adrenal glands release epinephrine (adrenaline) and norepinephrine (neurotransmitters that rapidly send messages to the rest of your body)
Your heart rate and blood pressure spike, pumping more blood to your muscles
Your breathing quickens and airways dilate, pulling in more oxygen
Your pupils dilate to sharpen your vision
Blood flow shifts away from digestion and toward your skeletal muscles
Glucose is rapidly released from storage in your liver for immediate energy
Your body is ready to run, so you run!
HPA Axis Activation → Sustained Energy
As you're sprinting to safety, a second system activates to sustain your response. It’s called the HPA axis (hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal axis). Basically, while you’re running from the tiger, your brain and adrenal glands send a series of hormones racing through your body like relay runners, passing on the command to prep your body for a sustained emergency.
Your hypothalamus releases corticotropin-releasing hormone (CRH), which signals your pituitary gland to release adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH). ACTH travels through your bloodstream to your adrenal glands, which then release cortisol.
Cortisol works more slowly than adrenaline, but its effects last longer. It:
Maintains elevated blood glucose by promoting gluconeogenesis (making new glucose from non-carbohydrate sources)
Suppresses non-essential functions like digestion, reproduction, and immune responses
Keeps you alert and focused on the threat
Provides sustained energy for prolonged stress
Together, the SNS and HPA axis give you everything you need to escape danger and survive.
Once you're safe—once the tiger is behind bars and you're catching your breath—your parasympathetic nervous system kicks in. Your heart rate slows. Your breathing deepens. Cortisol levels gradually decline. The wave crests and then falls, just as it should.
This system is brilliant when the threat is real and time-limited.
Unfortunately, our modern world converts this brilliant system into a problem. Your body can't tell the difference between a tiger and an inbox full of unanswered emails. It can't distinguish between running for your life and running late to pick up your kids. The same cascade that saves you from physical danger activates when the threat is psychological, chronic, and everywhere—on your computer, your phone, in your home.
And when the stressor never fully resolves, the wave never fully falls.
When Your Brain Interprets Daily Life as Danger
Now let's talk about what happens when your stress isn't a tiger—it's your life.
The Appraisal: The Thought That Starts the Stress Cascade
It starts with a simple thought, often one you don't even notice. Something like: "I'm the glue holding everything together. If I fall apart, everything does."
This appraisal assigns high stakes to everyday events. A forgotten permission slip becomes a parenting failure. A missed workout becomes evidence you're falling behind. A snappy response to your partner becomes proof you're not doing enough. The meaning you attach to these moments determines whether your body perceives them as manageable or threatening.
Your brain doesn't need to see a tiger. It just needs to interpret the situation as high-stakes.
Sympathetic Surge—Body Reacts First
Just like with the tiger, your body gears up before you've even fully processed the thought. Heart rate rises. Breathing becomes shallow and rapid. Muscles brace. Blood flow shifts away from digestion.
This is the same protective response. Your sympathetic nervous system is doing exactly what it evolved to do—mobilize you in the face of perceived danger. The problem is, the danger isn't resolved by running. It's sitting with you at your desk, lying next to you in bed, following you through your day.
How Chronic Stress Disrupts Your Cortisol Rhythm
Your hypothalamus reads your body's activated state and interprets it as a threat. It triggers the HPA axis, releasing CRH, then ACTH, then cortisol—the same cascade that helped you escape the tiger.
But this time, there's no resolution. The stressor doesn't end. The emails keep coming. The to-do list keeps growing. The mental load doesn't lift.
Cortisol naturally rises and falls throughout the day in a predictable rhythm called the diurnal cortisol curve. It peaks in the morning to help you wake up, then gradually declines into the evening, reaching its lowest point around midnight. But when stress becomes constant, this wave pattern shifts. The morning peak might flatten. Evening levels might stay elevated. Your body stays in a state of alert, and the wave that's supposed to ebb and flow becomes a relentless tide.
This is chronic stress. And it comes with metabolic costs.
The Metabolic Cost of Chronic Stress
Let's talk about what happens when you're living in the stress loop day after day.
Why Stress Drives Belly Fat (Visceral Fat Explained)
Cortisol encourages your body to store fat centrally, around your midsection, where it can be quickly accessed for energy during perceived danger. This is visceral fat, and it's made to be ready to fuel you during an emergency, a protective instinct from your body.
Unfortunately, in our world of non-physical stressors, visceral fat accumulates instead of being used up. As it builds up, visceral fat is associated with a host of chronic conditions, such as fatty liver disease, diabetes, and high cholesterol.
Why Stress Increases Cravings
Stress increases your drive for fast fuel. This means foods high in sugar and fat that can be converted to energy quickly. Your brain's reward system becomes more active, making comfort foods more compelling. You're not lacking willpower. Your body is trying to ensure you have enough energy to survive the "threat."
Why You Feel Tired Even After Eating (Cortisol + Insulin)
Here's where things get frustrating. Cortisol temporarily decreases insulin sensitivity to preserve glucose in your bloodstream for emergency use. Insulin is the hormone that helps move glucose from your blood into your cells, where it can be used for energy.
When insulin sensitivity drops, fuel stays in your bloodstream instead of entering your cells efficiently. The result? You feel tired, foggy, and like you're running on empty—even though you just ate. You eat but don't feel fed.
Why You're Exhausted During the Day but Alert at Night
Under chronic stress, your sympathetic nervous system keeps your system revved for too long. Your morning energy weakens because your cortisol rhythm is flattened. Your evening alertness rises because cortisol levels stay elevated when they should be declining. You're chronically drained, but you can't quite settle down at night.
This is the tired-but-wired cycle so many of our clients describe.
Three Proven Ways to Calm Your Stress Response
The good news is that now that we know how the chronic stress loop works, we can do something about it! Your body is predictable, not broken. And if interpretation can activate this loop, new signals can shift it.
You have more control than you think! The tools below work:
From the bottom up (changing your body's physiology directly),
Through awareness (noticing what's happening in real time), and
From the top down (updating the meaning you assign to events).
Let's walk through them one step at a time!
1. Breathing: The Fastest Way to Calm Your Body
This is the fastest way to interrupt the stress loop.
When you slow your breathing down and extend your exhale you activate the vagus nerve, which runs from your brainstem down through your chest and abdomen. The vagus nerve is the main pathway of your parasympathetic nervous system, which signals safety and rest.
Slowing your breath lowers sympathetic drive and reduces cortisol. It tells your body, in a language it understands, that you're safe.
Try this now:
Inhale slowly through your nose for a count of 4
Exhale slowly through your nose or mouth for a count of 6
Repeat for 5-10 cycles
Use this anytime you notice tension rising: before meetings, at 3 PM when energy dips, before bed, or when you feel that familiar tightness in your chest. It takes 60 seconds and it works!
2. Community Resilience Model (CRM): How to Notice Stress Before It Spikes
The Community Resilience Model teaches you to notice your body's activation before it becomes overwhelming. Think of it as catching the stress climb early, when it's easier to shift.
At the center of this model is the resilient zone—the range where you feel alert but calm, grounded but engaged. When stress pushes you out of this zone, you move into either high activation (tense, jittery, anxious) or low energy (numb, depleted, shut down).
The key is learning to track how your body feels and noticing when you're moving toward the edges of your resilient zone. Then use grounding or resourcing techniques to return to regulation.
Tracking: Notice physical sensations without judging them. Is your jaw clenched? Shoulders tight? Breath shallow? Just observe.
Resourcing: Bring to mind something that helps you feel calm or strong—a memory, a person, a place in nature. Let yourself feel it in your body. Hold that feeling for 15 seconds to remind your body that it can feel calm and happy.
Grounding: Feel your feet on the floor. Press them down gently. Notice the support beneath you. This pulls you back into the present moment and out of the stress spiral.
Try this now:
Pause and scan your body. Where do you feel tension or tightness?
Take three slow breaths, extending the exhale
Think of one thing that makes you feel calm (a favorite place, a person you love, a memory of feeling safe)
Feel your feet on the ground. Press down gently and notice the support
This simple sequence can bring you back to your resilient zone in under a minute. This model has been shown to be very effective in bringing down the stress levels of individuals facing intense challenges, such as nurses with intense schedules or women in substance abuse programs.
3. Cognitive Reframing: Updating the Threat Level
Remember the "glue" sentence? The appraisal that started the whole loop? This is where you shift it. If you can teach your brain that it doesn’t have to label everything as a life-or-death level threat, it can turn down the stress response.
Cognitive reframing doesn't deny reality. It updates the threat level. It asks: Is this important, or is it just loud?
When you notice yourself spiraling, pause and identify the underlying belief. Often, it's something like:
"If I don't do this perfectly, I'm failing."
"I'm responsible for everyone's happiness."
"I can't let anyone down."
Then, gently challenge it:
"Is this actually an emergency, or does it just feel urgent?"
"What would I tell a friend in this situation?"
"Can I do 'good enough' instead of perfect?"
Reframes don't erase stress, but they lower the volume. They help your brain recognize that not every demand is a threat to your survival.
Try this now:
The next time you feel overwhelmed, write down (or just notice) the thought running through your mind. Then ask yourself: What's the most compassionate, realistic way to see this?
You're not denying the challenge. You're just refusing to let it hijack your nervous system.
Daily Practices: Building Your Serenity Toolkit
You don't have to do all three tools at once. Start with one. Progress, not perfection, is the goal!
Morning: 60-second breathing practice before your day begins (4-count inhale, 6-count exhale, 5-10 rounds)
Midday: CRM body scan—pause and notice where you're holding tension, then ground yourself by feeling your feet on the floor
Evening: Cognitive reframe—reflect on one moment today where you over-assigned urgency, and practice a gentler interpretation
These aren't extra tasks to add to your to-do list. They're small choices that lead to big change. And the more you practice, the more automatic they become.
Why Sleep Is Your Stress Reset Button
Stress and sleep are intimately connected. Sleep is the nightly reset for your HPA axis, the system that regulates cortisol. When stress disrupts sleep, it becomes harder to manage stress the next day. And when stress tools help you find calm, sleep deepens naturally.
Next, we'll be diving deeper into sleep, the second foundation in the Health Beyond the Plate series. Because rest isn't a luxury. It's a biological necessity. Stay tuned!
You Don't Have to Go On This Journey Alone
If you're reading this and thinking, "This makes sense, but I need help actually doing it," that's exactly why we're here.
At MediChem, we walk with you one step at a time. We help you identify your unique stress triggers, build practices that fit your real life, and support you as you shift from surviving to thriving.
Ready to take the first step? Book a free one-on-one consultation with us. Let's talk about where you are, where you want to be, and how we can support you on your wellness journey.
Want more? Follow along with our Health Beyond the Plate series. We're breaking down the foundations of sustainable health in a way that's grounded in science and rooted in compassion. Sign up to our newsletter to get the latest blogs and updates delivered straight to you!
This is your time. Your space. Your journey—supported every step of the way.
Dr. Chelsea Anorma, PhD, NASM-CNC
Certified Nutrition Coach and Chemical Biology PhD helping overwhelmed women regain energy and confidence through sustainable, science-backed wellness coaching.
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