Stress is Slowly Killing You. Here's How to Control It
What I learned after discovering I'm genetically wired for maximum stress
Genetics gave me a nervous system wired to be stressed out. Top 1% according to genetic testing. I had to figure this out or it was going to kill me, especially as a founder.
A lot of people misunderstand stress. There’s a concept called “Zebras Don’t Get Heart Attacks” and what that means is that even though they’re under stress from possibly being eaten by a lion or other predator, they’re not dying from heart attacks because that kind of stress is acute - it happens only occasionally. Most of the time, zebras just chill, eat grass, run around. They’re fully relaxed.
The point is that acute stress is fine and even valuable. It gets the blood pumping and can even be exciting. The problem with modern life is that many of us have constant stress without fully relaxing. This is what slowly kills you over time.
Chronic stress isn’t just uncomfortable, it’s destructive. It pumps cortisol into your system, which can wreak havoc: weight gain, high blood pressure, brain fog, weakened immune system.
Note that cortisol is meant to be a good thing: it wakes you up and gets you energized for the day. However, if it’s “on” all day your body thinks you’re in some kind of emergency.
For example, cortisol is not going to let you lose weight because it thinks you’re in a bad situation and is holding on to calories in case you need them for “fight or flight.” So some people are stuck in high stress 24/7 and their nervous system never turns off.
If you’re stressed out you can’t think clearly, solutions seem impossible, you make bad decisions. Stress compounds as well: poor sleep leads to poor diet leads to less exercise leads to more stress.
For me personally, my genetics means my cortisol really never shuts off on it’s own (the receptors never “hear” the cortisol so it keeps flowing - called an NR3C1 mutation). I had difficulty losing weight and sleeping properly, even with exercise and calorie counting.
The point is, some people’s entire day is ruined by a flat tire. Others wouldn’t even mention it. The difference isn’t circumstances, it’s nervous system regulation. Also, if you’re easily triggered, you’re easily manipulated! Trust me, someone could be taking advantage of that right now, especially in business and relationships. You want to fix the problem at the root.
The Solutions
The main insight is that stress tolerance is a skill and can be trained. The goal is learning to calm down on demand.
Eliminate the Stressor
Probably the most obvious, but in some cases, the most difficult thing to do, is simply eliminate the stressor. So before you learn to manage stress, ask yourself: can I just eliminate it? You know who or what I’m talking about: the boss, the “friend”, the neighbor, the social media platform, etc.
Set some rules. What are you no longer going to tolerate? This isn’t about being a jerk. It’s about having boundaries. Nobody respects people without them, and you’ll get steamrolled until you establish some.
Toxic people: Get rid of them. I don’t care if they’re your boss, your in-laws or your best performer in your business. They still need to go. Make a plan to get rid of them or dramatically reduce interactions with them.
News/social media/politics: These are designed to stress you out. Cut way back or eliminate.
Situations you keep tolerating: What would the audience be screaming at you to stop doing if your life was a movie?
Business stress: If your business or staff is stressing you out, you need to get control of your business before it wrecks your life.
Again, very obvious. But many people I talk to about stress are literally still doing the stressful thing, a thing that can usually be stopped pretty easily. Watching the news or doom scrolling on social media, for example.
Control Your Breathing
Almost all stress issues trace back to breathing so this is where you should start. Breath is the only part of your autonomic nervous system you can consciously control. Here’s some simple things you can do right now:
Box breathing: Get control of your breathing with a 4 second in, 4 second hold and 4-8 second exhale (purse your lips on the exhale). Breathe more with your stomach than your chest, near the belly button. Imagine your body as a deflating balloon.
Another method is to breathe in deeply, then do another breath in, and then another breath in until you’re fully “inhaled,” then slowly exhale (pursed lips).
Do these breaths as many times as necessary to calm down mentally (it may be as little as 3-4 breaths or may take several minutes). Experiment with shorter or longer times on the exhale/inhale/hold cycles to whatever makes you feel most relaxed but longer exhales than inhales tend to be more physiologically relaxing.
Any mental or physical tension you notice, simply “breathe the tension in” and exhale it away. Imagine the tension literally leaving your body out of your feet.
Try “humming” on the exhale to calm the vagus nerve, this can be very relaxing.
Relax Your Body
The body and mind are connected. Relax one and the other follows.
If you are sitting or standing, note your posture may be slouched so stretch out, “straighten up” to a more powerful and relaxed state. Your posture tends to reflect your mood and vice versa.
Relax your shoulders and downward towards your lower back.
Relax/unclench your jaw and face (many people are astonished to find they’ve never really relaxed their face!)
Relax your body with a scan starting from your feet and scan slowly upwards through your entire body to your head. Notice how much tension you may carry in your body, especially your shoulders, neck and face. It’s sometimes helpful to tighten the muscles in a tense area and then relax them a few times to get them fully relaxed.
Sometimes, especially in a panic, it’s helpful to distract or shock your system a bit to “snap” it out of a bad place:
Cold water on your face (this activates the parasympathetic or calming part of your nervous system)
Contrast (hot then cold then hot) shower
Long hot shower or bath (add epsom salt to baths)
Brush your teeth, shave or chew some gum
Listen to relaxing music
Watch a movie that relaxes or distracts you
Tetris and similar games have been proven to help distract, even for people with PTSD
Move Your Body
An easy way to “get out of your head” is to simply start moving, even walking:
Long walks are well-known for improving mindset
Cardio is particularly good for mindset and relaxation
Cleaning a room or even a desk is relaxing to many
Try somatic therapy (see this video or search for “TRE” on YouTube)
Clear Your Mind
I spend a lot of time emphasizing mindset, reframing and clearing the mind in my work. It’s very hard to silence the mind, but you can stop believing or simply ignore every thought it generates, which are many times just crazy!
These tactics can take a few weeks to develop but after you learn them, you can call on them anytime which is the real secret. You can go into what President Truman calls the “foxhole in my mind” - the stress free place in your head you can go to on demand. Very powerful!
Here’s some things you can do to clear the mind:
Turn off or silence all devices or other sources of stimulation.
Clear your mind of any thoughts. Just focus on your breathing (the literal sensation in your nose or mouth), dismiss each thought you have and go back to focusing on your breathing.
Keep scanning your body for sources of tension or pain and “release” it.
Don’t judge your inability to stop thinking or ruminating, just gently refocus on your breath when your mind inevitably wanders. It takes a few weeks of regular practice to get better at this.
Scheduled Worry: If you’re having a hard time not thinking about something, schedule a time (or email yourself a reminder) later to allow yourself to worry about it then. This not only gives you permission to stop thinking about it now, but lets your nervous system calm down. When the time comes to process it, many people find the issue is actually much more manageable or many times simply goes away!
Consider reducing or eliminating caffeine. Caffeine intake is massively higher in recent years and many anxiety/stress issues are related to simply too much caffeine (and about 25% of people are slow caffeine metabolizers like myself, so even 1 cup of coffee is in their system for 24+ hours). It spikes cortisol as well.
Listen to “binaural beats,” “bilateral stimulation” (search on Youtube) or other relaxing music.
Reframe Stress
Emotions are automatic. Your interpretation determines how you feel. A reframe is how you analyze negative thoughts and feelings, put them in their proper place and either “reframe” them to something not nearly as bad as you thought (or even learned something from) and/or simply “dismiss” them as something you no longer allow to torment you.
Do these steps in order, each builds on the last:
Brain Dump: Create a note and write down the negative thought as well as anything else you want to say about the situation. Let it all out, do a full brain dump, including any worst case scenarios. Many find just doing this relaxing. This is so you can separate it from “you” and examine it intelligently. Then analyze:
Is this my business? Many issues are actually not your direct responsibility and you shouldn’t burden yourself with them. News, politics, work drama, family/friend drama and “acts of God” typically fall in this category. Remember, you don’t have to have an opinion or even respond to anything. You are not obligated to be involved in other people’s business (especially from people you don’t love or who don’t love you). If you are certain this is your business, go to the next step.
Do I even need to think about this? If this is your business, for example, some trauma or hurt feelings, and you’ve already processed them and learned the lesson (and most of us have), then you can safely dismiss this thought (tell the mind “dismissed!”). If you haven’t learned the lesson or it’s unclear, go to the next step.
Is this true and can I absolutely 100% prove that? Many times, the mind has simply gone haywire again and is putting things in your head. “I’m a terrible person” or “X doesn’t care about me” and similar thoughts are in this category. Think clearly to see if the issue is really true or just your mind making things up without proof. If it’s just your mind, then you can dismiss the issue as your “annoying roommate” (your brain). If not, go to the next step.
Can something good come of this? A lot of success stories came from the seed of a so-called disaster. Usually because it forced you to take action, get out of your comfort zone or re-evaluate your life. For example, if you had a major falling out with someone, are you now free to live a dramatically different, perhaps better life? Did someone anger you? You can use that anger to fuel taking action. Sometimes there is divine intervention, but also divine protection (you not getting what you wanted).
There are more steps to this process but that’s the basic process and it’s super effective if you’re willing to spend 10-15 minutes to solve stress at its root.
Support Your System
One of my biggest a-ha moments is when I realized that yes, many health and nervous system issues like anxiety and depression are a chemical imbalance. That’s true. But then I thought: where do those chemicals come from? It turns out some are made by the body (endogenous) and some are made from things you intake (exogenous). In fact, you sometimes need the exogenous ones to help make the endogenous ones.
So how can we fix the balance? We simply intake enough nutrients and we let the body do its thing by giving it enough sleep, exercise, etc. and the body can fix the rest.
NOTE: Always clear changes with your doctor or health professional.
Sleep: non-negotiable. This is where many of the repairs and energy gets made. If you’re not getting enough sleep then it’s going to be incredibly difficult to fix your nervous system. Do whatever it takes to normalize your sleep.
Exercise: at the bare minimum, get a walk in each day. A walk outside checks off so many boxes: cardio, sunlight, movement, stress reduction, lymph flow, contemplation, etc.
Clean diet: eat real food. Simple as that.
Check your nutrients and supplement: Over-farming and soil depletion have reduced many nutrients from our food so many of us our walking around deficient in many things. Use Cronometer.com to identify your baseline nutrition then create a meal plan that you enjoy and meets most of your daily nutritional needs (then use supplements to fill in the rest).
These are the most common deficiencies many of us have:
Magnesium - take 100-200mg of magnesium citrate in the morning and 200-400mg of magnesium glycinate at bedtime.
Vitamin D - either get 10+ minutes of sunlight on 30% or more of your body per day (or buy a Vitamin D lamp) or supplement starting at 1,000iu/day and working up to 3,000iu/day (but test!). Many have found the supplements don’t work unless you also add sunlight or a lamp
Potassium, Sodium - try an electrolyte drink, added salt and eat more foods high in potassium
Omega 3 - try 250mg-1000mg of high quality fish oil (or Krill or Algal oil if you don’t like fish oil)
Vitamin A, Choline, Vitamin E, Vitamin C and all the B vitamins can be supplemented individually OR try a lower dose multivitamin that contains them all (be cautious - consider taking 1 or ½ a pill instead of 2 of those capsules or skipping a day occasionally)
Vitamin K - try a “Multi K” as most multivitamins do not have enough
Try relaxation supplements: If you’re getting enough nutrients and still having issues, you may want to try some of these well-known relaxation supplements. Start on smaller doses, add one at a time:
Magnesium glycinate (200-400mg)
L-theanine (100-250mg)
Glycine (1-5 grams)
Inositol (100-500mg, some go up to 5g)
PharmaGaba (100-200mg)
Try cortisol lowering supplements: the supplements above help with cortisol but these help lower it directly:
Rhodiola - (100mg) - a personal favorite, helps with energy as well
Ashwagandha (300-500mg) - very effective for high cortisol
Phosphatidylserine (150-300mg) - most effective for high cortisol
Fix your nutrient deficiencies, give it a few weeks for your body to “turn back on” and then layer in the relaxation and cortisol-lowering supplements as required. These were game-changers for me personally, especially magnesium, l-theanine and rhodiola, which is by far my favorite supplement and I still use it regularly.
Summary
Possibly the #1 skill you can develop is increasing your stress threshold. If you can handle anything, you just keep moving toward your goals regardless of what life throws at you.
This isn’t about becoming emotionless or a zombie, it’s about not letting stress run your life. High performers aren’t less stressed, in fact many times they deal with a lot more stress than the average person. They’ve just trained their nervous system to recover faster and be more resilient. That’s how you become unstoppable.
I was dealt a bad hand genetically for stress but using the tactics above has dramatically improved my life. I built Zorga to systemize everything above and much more.