Dear Diary: Why am I so stressed about stress management?

March 9th, 2026

I know that this is a blog, but it’ s going to read like a journal entry. Now, we all

experience events that are stressful in one form or another in our daily lives. But, in

addition to my own stress, I also vicariously get to experience many of my client’s

stresses. I’m okay with all of that because I have tools, practices, and strategies to self-

regulate emotionally and physically. I try to help my clients identify and develop tools for

themselves because a sustained stress response disrupts healthy hormone, immune,

and nervous system function. This dysfunction will lead to, or aggravate, chronic health

conditions. So, that’s why I am really stressed about stress!

That’s not quite right. Really, I’m agitated (that’s how I react to stress) by typical

discussions regarding “stress management.” My first problem with this is simply the

meaning of management, which refers to how we control or deal with a thing. In

practice, this often amounts to doing something to “take the edge off”, which is needed

at times, but has no long-term benefit. My second issue is that most discussions are

broad surveys, presenting lists of possible activities to lower stress. Don’t get me

wrong, I personally use and promote many of the methods, but intent, context, and

consistency of practice are often overlooked. These are the factors that change our

internal terrain and increase our resilience to stressful events, but they do not get

adequate attention.

As I am rereading what I have so far, I think I can summarize things a bit. What really

bothers me is that conversations around stress focus on calming ourselves when we

feel stressed. That’s way too late for any meaningful impact on our health, although

calming ourselves may be beneficial to the immediate mental and emotional health of

those around us. Nonetheless, the perspective is a very western-medicine way of

thinking. When you have symptoms, you do (or take) something in response. Ugh!

That way of thinking doesn’t do anything to help us become healthy and happy. So, I

want to reframe the conversation for anyone who checks in. Our goal isn’t to “manage”

our stress. Our goal is to learn to self-regulate our thoughts and our physiology, our

mind and body. Our goal is to change the internal terrain in which we experience life

events. Our goal is to develop resilience, which I will define as our capacity to tolerate

distress without moving to fight, flight, or freeze. We all have a “threshold” of emotional

activation (involving our body and mind) after which we react with fear, anger,

avoidance, despair, etc. There is nothing much you can do here other than “ride it out”

or “blow off some steam.”

What you can learn to do (with time, patience, and commitment), is lower your baseline

level of arousal. Some of us are generally calm and easy going and have a low baseline, whereas others are high-strung and tense and our baseline arousal is much

higher. Under stress, those on the calm end have more space and time before they

cross their threshold. Those who are “wound a little tighter” have less time and space

and tend to be more emotionally reactive. The important thing is that you can learn to

lower your baseline through self-regulation practices. You can lower your resting

physiological activation and shift how you interpret events, so that you do not react as

intensely. In other words, you become more resilient to distressing situations and

circumstances. In addition, these internal changes reduce the chronic health impacts

that result from stress-related hormonal dysregulation, immune suppression, and

autonomic nervous system imbalance.

To me, this is all exciting stuff. So now the good news…and the bad news. The good

news is that anyone can do this by learning and practicing techniques like breathing,

biofeedback, meditation, mindfulness, and mind-body activities like yoga, tai chi, or

qigong. The bad news is that none of these give quick results, they work best when

adapted to individuals, and finding a good instructor can be difficult.

In future blogs, I’ll be providing some tips and guidance to help you find a practice that

suits you.

Well, thanks for letting me vent about all of this. While it’s not a self-regulatory practice

like those noted above, sometimes it helps me to write things down so they aren’t just

rolling around in my head, endlessly……if you know what I mean?

Good night diary. Take care and be well,

Dr. George