In an ideal world, pressure would be like that guest who visits occasionally — intrusive for a moment, but gone by dinner. Instead, it moved in, claimed the best chair in the house, and convinced us it belongs there. Many people no longer even question its presence. They wear it like furniture. Stress has stopped being the visitor and has become the housemate.
Hans Selye, the pioneer of stress research, once said that the only people free of stress are no longer alive. Stress is not optional. To be human is to carry it. At the right dose, it keeps us sharp and alive to what matters. It helps you meet deadlines, stay focused in meetings, or respond in emergencies. The problem comes when what was designed as a temporary surge becomes a permanent state. The spark that once protected you becomes the fire that consumes you.
A stone-age brain in a digital age
The nervous system you live with today was built on the savanna, where survival meant reacting instantly to threats. When danger appeared, your heart rate spiked, muscles coiled, and adrenaline flooded the body. The system still works perfectly — but now it responds to things it was never built for: the late-night email, the relentless stream of notifications, the political news cycle, the mounting demands of work.
Your body cannot distinguish between a lion and your inbox. Both flip the same switch.
Living in this loop, people become stuck in a permanent state of fight-or-flight. Concentration shrinks. Sleep collapses. Even moments of joy feel flat. Quietly, health erodes. Hypertension, heart strain, digestive trouble, and burnout — none arrive suddenly. They accumulate, drip by drip, until the system buckles.
And yet, exhaustion has become a badge of honour. Busyness is a proxy for importance. People compare who carries more as if it were a contest. The silent truth is that this is not resilience. It is erosion.
The stress barometer
How do you determine when your load shifts from normal pressure to something corrosive? Think of the stress barometer as an internal weather check. Not a diagnosis. Not a chart. Just a mirror. Questions like:
- Does each day feel like a treadmill that never slows?
- Do you feel guilty when you stop?
- Has joy been replaced with numbness?
- Do your relationships feel more brittle?
- Do you feel isolated in carrying what you carry?
Saying “yes” to several does not mean you are broken. It means the clouds have gathered, and the storm has stopped passing. The first step is not fixing — it is noticing.
The many disguises of overload
Load rarely announces itself with sirens. It hides in headaches, sleeplessness, irritability, or the endless scroll at night. It shows up in increased drinking, eating, or staying later at work. It pretends to be “just being busy,” but it is the body saying, Enough.
Where release fits
This is where symbolic practices of release matter. Not as therapy. Not as performance training. But as private, contained moments where what has been carried silently can finally be set down.
The power lies in the pause itself — the moment where stimulus and reaction are no longer fused. In that pause, you get to choose again. Not simply to survive, but to realign with what matters.
Choosing differently
Stress is not the enemy. It is a messenger. It tells you when boundaries have been crossed, when rest is overdue, when life is out of sync with what matters. If ignored, it corrodes. If listened to, it guides.
The paradox is that the very force we fear — stress — can also be the teacher. It shows us our limits, our needs, and our humanity. When you have somewhere safe you discover not just how to cope, but how to carry only what is truly yours to carry.