Susan Britton explains how stress accumulates in your nervous system. When you're regulated, minor problems feel manageable. But repeated demands raise cortisol and adrenaline, pushing you into a dysregulated state where small stressors become overwhelming.
So I'm sure everybody on the call has been in a situation where something happens, some level of uncertainty might hit, and it might really just be a no big thing. Like, you know, no big thing, I'll figure out what to do with it. And that's probably because you're in a regulated state, the parasympathetic nervous system is operating, and you just think, I can figure out what to do. However, have you ever been in a situation where the same thing happened that didn't throw you off now is throwing you off? And part of the reason for that, that is now throwing you off, is because there has probably been some sort of growing, growing, growing overload of things that you are handling. The proverbial straw that breaks the camel's back. And when that happens, now the neurochemistry within our body is amped up. You've got the cortisol, adrenaline, and that sort of thing. And that is now shifting us back into the red zone. And so what normally would not have been a problem has now become a problem for us in our minds.
Susan’s ICF Educator Award | The Heart Behind the Impact Katy Montgomery, PCC
