12 things I wish I knew in my 20s & 30s, to help avoid chronic stress symptoms in my 40s

As I’m nearing my 50s, I realize now that if I had just listened to her in my 30s, my 40s would have been completely different.

As I sat there in the thin blue gown, my feet rested on the cold metal tray. The paper covering the bench crumpled and split beneath me as I shifted slightly trying to get a little bit more comfortable. Just as I started drifting off, the door opened quickly bringing me back to reality as my doctor walked in. She pulled up my electronic chart where she had just received the results from my heart monitor test and blood work. We were trying to figure out the slew of strange symptoms that I felt like I was too young to be experiencing. Complete & utter exhaustion, heart palpitations, swollen ankles, irritability, unexplained weight gain, stomach issues, shortness of breath, just to name a few. Most symptoms on their own are easily written off but I was in my 30s not my 70s for crying out loud! 

I remember the discussion like it was yesterday. As she swiveled towards me on her rotating stool, hands crossed in her lap, she tilted her head trying to comfort me and said “Your cortisol levels are off the charts”. Oh great, here we go again, I had heard it before, telling me yet another time I had high cortisol. It was a storyline I was very familiar with. I had been experiencing high stress since my early 20s, and if I am honest since I was 13. It was nothing new for me to hear that I had to start to reduce my stress, but this time was different. She had never looked this concerned before. Of course I disagreed with her. Sure my job was stressful, but my life wasn’t. I was a 30 something executive in a fortune 500 technology company. I had a highly stressful job, consistently dealing with stressful situations, but I didn’t feel like I was ALWAYS stressed. I had disposable income, traveled all the time, went out with friends often and had a great network…  I had stressful times, but at that stage in life don’t we all? 

This time she pushed back on me. She told me that my hormones don’t lie, and that they were screaming! The results were telling me that I was living in a chronic state of stress. My body had been living at such a consistent & extreme level that it couldn’t turn off the stress hormones and had essentially reset, adjusting to a new level of feeling normal. It was so constant that I was no longer recognizing the typical stress symptoms. My body was hiding the ways you normally feel when you are experiencing stress triggers. Internally I was just stuffing it all down and it was silently wreaking havoc on my health. I thought I was great at handling everything. It was something I continually got recognized for in manager surveys and merit reviews. It was something that made me part of who I was as a leader, but in reality my body was crying for help and it wasn’t staying quiet any longer.  My body was still experiencing all the physiological impacts of chronic stress, but in my day to day life, I was no longer recognizing them. Now, over 15 years later and after A LOT of unlearning work, I know what she was describing is a factor of allostatic load.

Once again I nodded and promised I would change things and thanked her as she left the room.  As soon as I heard my heel hit the tile as I walked off the elevator, before I even entered the lobby, I heard the chime granting me access to the forecast meeting I was already 10 minutes late joining. I jumped right back into my day to day stress and that was that. The vicious cycle started again, doomed to repeat itself, this new detail exacerbating the stress even more than before. 

I continued to ride this rollercoaster well into my late 30s until on my 40th birthday when I made the decision that something had to change. I had finally hit the breaking point, completely burned out, living out of alignment, overcommitted, priorities misaligned to what I said I wanted, frustrated all the time, angry most of the time, a very short fuse being triggered and overall miserable UNTIL I finally took control back and  learned how to actually handle stress. 

Just like millions of others, I had spent my 20s and 30s chasing career success built on someone else’s definition of what was important. When it all came to a head, this time I was sitting in a neurologist's office and as I listened to him try to prescribe me epilepsy medication because he couldn’t figure out what was causing my symptoms. I realized this had gone too far. I was NOT having seizures but he was saying it was silent migraines and was shooting in the dark at what might help. It was then I realized that if I don’t take control of it now, I would be destined to spend my later years chasing health. It was in that moment it was evident that my tendency to “just push through” was causing more issues than I realized. If I continued on that same path, what would the point of the title, salary, the hefty retirement plan be if my body was suffering so much I couldn’t even enjoy it? 

Acute, or situational stress is inevitable, but stress should never be a constant state. if you don’t make the time to address it now, your stress won’t just reset itself “when you have time to focus on it”. You have to make the choice to address it, now. Not all stress is created equal, there are 3 types of stress. Addressing acute stress in the short term is important, but preventing chronic stress in the long term can save your life.

Reducing your stress isn't as hard or as expensive as the retail segment wants you to believe it is. You can reduce your stress levels in seconds if you have the right tools. Here are 12 things I wish I had known in my 30s so I wasn’t trying to remedy high stress in my 40s:

1. Allostatic load is a real thing and it will absolutely have long term health impacts if you don’t address chronic stress. I wish I had understood these impacts far sooner than I did. “Pushing through” just to “get it all done” had far reaching effects that I never expected. 
2. Priorities, priorities, priorities! Aligning with YOUR priorities and saying no to what does not fit them is a huge step in addressing stress. Being very well centered around your priorities is a great north star for what to take on and what to delegate or decline. No is a full sentence. Reschedule or just completely cancel plans that don’t fit your priorities. Stop Overcommitting and set & enforce strong boundaries! 
3. Your thoughts are your first line of defense around how to deal with stress triggers. Focusing on a growth mindset of how we can vs why we can’t will help you as you move through challenging situations. 
4. Move. Get the wiggles out, dance, get outside, walk, shake, twirl, whatever suits your fancy. Movement can help you shake off the intense feeling of the initial stress trigger, sitting at your desk fuming, won’t help at all. Move through the stressor so you can address the actual situation.
5. Hire things out, delegate, prioritize. Release control, especially over things you can’t control. Stop doing a mental checklist of EVERYTHING you still have to get gone, everything you f’d up, everything that got missed. Figure out what has to be done and delegate what you can. But when you delegate, make sure to release how it gets done, as long as it does get done and aligns with your desired outcome.
6. Less caffeine, sugar, and alcohol. More pausing, sleep, rest & relaxing. Take a look at what you are putting into your body. If you are running on caffeine and a prayer, your cortisol is definitely being impacted. When you are in chronic stress, burning off steam with “just a few drinks” will have an opposite effect than you want. Me-time doesn’t have to mean a massage (although I highly recommend it if you can) it can be as easy as walking outside for 5 minutes, sitting in a park to get a breath alone, or even as simple as closing your eyes in your car for 5 minutes before you head into your meeting. Also check out the side effects of any prescriptions or over the counter medications you are taking. The side effects may be a big contributor to your mood and stress.
7. Just CHILL literally, take a breath, better yet take a 7 count breath. There are so many breathing methods to reduce stress available, choose the one that fits you well and keep it in your back pocket for a meeting or prepping for a situation that can be triggering. The best part, it’s free, you can do it anywhere and no one has to know you are doing it! 
8. Your circle matters, A LOT! When you are surrounded by negative points of view all the time it will impact your stress levels. The people you surround yourself with can either be stressors or stress relievers, it's important to know the difference so you can prep yourself before you engage. This WILL also include coworkers and your boss! 
9. Be present. Look for beauty and what you can be grateful for in the moment. Stop worrying about the past or thinking about the future. Take time off, and actually disconnect. It is not a privilege, it is a necessity. If it is a real vacation or even if it is just a few minutes for yourself, you MUST give yourself space to be present.
10. Laugh. Really laugh, laugh out loud, hard.  Laughing releases endorphins and in turn reduces cortisol. So find something or someone that will really make you laugh and allow yourself the gift to let it all out! 
11. Calming your mind is not as hard as you think. For me, back then, meditation was a pipe dream. Every time I tried to meditate my mind would race with the list 1000 items long. That is how I figured out calming your mind doesn’t have to just be meditating. It can be listening to music. It could be snuggling a puppy (or any pet, my favorite is puppies), daydreaming, or even just counting sheep. Just don’t start to make lists! If you need help check out some guided meditation programs or apps like calm or headspace.  
12. Turn off the news, seriously. Media overload is a real thing! Watching the news is a serious fight or flight trigger for many people. There is an old adage in journalism “if it bleeds it leads”, and that is great for sensational headlines but that is adding undue pressure on you in an already heightened state of stress. Stop getting sucked into gossip, in person, online or on television. We have a whole module in our BELIEVE BLUEPRINT program that talks about this specifically!

I fell prey to the seduction of the stress cycle for many years, so many people do. That's why so many let it go for so long. I wish I had better tools in my 20s and 30s, because the impact doesn’t show up at first, but if the signs are ignored they can really be a pickle to address later. Hopefully these tips help save you a bit of heartache, literally! These are all things I wish I knew at the time, and over the past 10 years we have spent countless hours, seminars and masterminds finding the right tools to help us understand what the underlying causes for the stressors were in the first place. Uncovering the reasons you repeat your patterns that cause your stress is where true change can happen. One of the most impactful tools we learned was our own energy resourcing and human design. We built our programs around helping people get access to the proven tools that took us 10 years to learn. 

Need more help in how to actually do these things, that’s where we come in. Our programs help you align with your real priorities, stop over committing to things you don’t want to do, enforce boundaries, reduce stress, enhance energy and improve communication. If this article resonated with your you can find out more at www.believeblueprint.com or follow us on instagram @believeblueprint

Katie & Lynn

Founders of the Believe Blueprint LLC