Breaking The Stress Reaction Cycle

Stress shapes all our lives to one degree or another. For the most part, we aren’t even aware of being trapped in a cycle of reactivity around stress that weakens our health and worsens our well-being. Learning to manage our reactions or responses to what our minds and bodies perceive to be stressful has a tremendous bearing on our ability to face adversity and cultivate happiness in our lives.

This course comprises three lessons on the realization I’ve had over the past decade that mindfulness can help us break the stress reaction cycle by taking back control of our hardwired reactions and living better in the face of life’s many challenges.

Leçon 1: Adapting To Change

In this lesson, you’ll learn what stress is, and how it plays a fundamental role in your life. Your awareness of how stress shapes your health and well-being is vital if you are to take back control of your hardwired reactions and live better in the face of internal and external stressors in your life.

Leçon 2: The Automatic Stress Reaction

In this lesson, we explore the four stages of the stress reaction cycle: the automatic stress reaction aka hyperarousal; suppression of the initial reaction a.k.a internalization; self-destructive or maladaptive coping mechanisms and the final, most serious link in the chain - total breakdown.

Leçon 3: The Mindful Stress Response

In this lesson on stress reactivity, you’ll learn how mindfulness stops the cycle dead in its tracks. The mindful stress response still works with many of the same brain regions and systems in the body as the automatic stress reaction but with profoundly different results. And it all hinges on bringing awareness to stress reactivity moment by moment. This lesson includes a short grounding meditation to practice initiating the mindful stress response.

Reviews

super quick lesson in mindfulness helped me day before brain surgery! thank you

A new parts of these things, but have it all so coherently put together was amazing! Thank you!

Great short course on stress and being mindful of stress and how to change your response to it.