The language of stress
Inertia — Nº198
Stress isn’t something to be numbed or pressed into a groove, hoping it’ll detach itself from you. It’s a message from your body to do it a favour and look after it for a moment. The more you do that, the stronger it gets, and over time, the better it can absorb stress from any situation for you.
Beneath the skin, stress speaks in whispers you often miss. It threads through your days in unexpected ways—a cold that lingers too long, nights when sleep slips through your fingers like sand, breath that falls through a trapped door on its way out. You may have expressed to someone that anger or aggression was the precursor to your stress—but it can often be the reverse. Sometimes anger isn’t the spark that lights the fire, but the smoke rising from flames already burning below.
The mind has a way of making mountains from molehills when we sit too long with our thoughts. I’ve watched my worries grow like sunset shadows stretching longer and darker with every passing minute.
If you feel tense, movement is the answer. It isn’t just an escape—it’s a release. Your muscles may sing with tension because they’re asking for a dance, not a debate. The more you think about a situation, the more room it will take up in your head. And the larger it gets, the more likely you will spiral into overthinking or rumination. It’s like placing weights into your backpack—you think it’s weight training, but all you’re getting is back pain.
Since I started getting acupuncture, I noticed how they read my pulse like a poem written in pressure and rhythm. Under their fingers, stress reveals itself in Morse code, with dots and dashes of tension that I’m learning to translate. It’s a language anyone can learn to speak if they give it the time of day. Press two fingers against your wrist while you read this (or afterwards) and feel your body’s honest autobiography. When the beat grows heavy with worry, let it be your drummer, keeping time as you navigate all you are going through.
Understanding your pulse means it’s time to move and do something different. The problem isn’t always in solving—sometimes it’s in dissolving. Stretch until your body remembers how to soften. Walk until your thoughts fall into a metronome with your breath. Shake loose the day’s accumulated tension like a tree shedding rain and taking only what’s practical. Let simple movements become ritual, a ceremony of release.
Thinking only about what’s giving you stress is like standing in one spot and expecting the world to swivel beneath your feet in obedience, whereas moving away from it for a time is a valuable lesson in many things. If stress lives in the walls of your home, even brief escapes can be sacred. I learned that in our lockdown. Use the separation to gather yourself and practice your perfect breathing pattern deeply into spaces that anxiety has made shallow. Build a toolkit of small rituals - a breathing pattern that places you into a space of safety, a stretch that opens spaces, or a gesture that grounds you in the present. Use these as talismans ready to protect you when needed.
Stress, like water, may carve new lines through the stones of your character and reshape you, given time. But unlike water, we can choose our course. Each time you hear your body’s signals, treat it. You’re not only managing stress but teaching your nervous system to dance with difficulty. It isn’t about perfection; it’s about practice. To flow instead of freeze, to move instead of mull, to breathe instead of break.
In time, this practice becomes its own kind of strength—not the kind that resists pressure, but the kind that knows how to bend without breaking and glide around obstacles instead of fighting them. Your body speaks in the language of sensation. It’s up to you to learn to listen to it.