Coping with stress and anxiety in 2025

We all know the feeling; stressed, rushed, tense, heart rate up… it’s become such a ‘normal’ part of everyday life.

But it isn’t supposed to be.

An elevated nervous system and that triggering of our fight-flight response is only really supposed to happen when we’re in danger. It developed to protect us from sabre toothed tigers and bears.

We still need this response now, it activates if we are under attack or a car is hurtling towards us, but, in the modern world, this activation is happening far too regularly and un-necessarily.

Think of it like a smoke alarm

We need it to go off when the house is on fire. But recently, our smoke alarms have been going off every time we use the toaster. The aim here isn’t to unplug it (that would be really dangerous!) but to let it know when it’s ok, it’s just a bit of toast.

In today's world our systems are especially elevated. The stress and amount to do when we have children or are trying to cope with high pressure jobs and do everything perfectly increases and so our systems ramp up to deal with it.

Do you notice how wired your body is when you’re rushing to get everyone out of the house in the mornings? Or when you feel you only have 15 minutes to get the entire house cleaned, all your emails responded to and the dinner on the go? We are living in a state of permanently triggered adrenaline. Coping with stress and anxiety can feel nearly impossible.

Not only is this not good for our bodies, but it’s sucking all the enjoyment out of the experience of everyday life. We really need to start signalling to our smoke alarms that it’s fine, it’s safe, there’s no fire.

So how do we do this…

1.       Slow down – notice when you’re rushing round the house at 500 mph and choose to walk slower. Signal to your body it isn’t out-running a lion, it is just putting the washing on.

2.       Breathe properly – 2 key points here: a breath from the chest is a panicked one, we need to breathe from our stomachs. Put a hand on your tummy and feel it rise as you inhale. The second is to ensure our ‘out’ breath is longer than our ‘in’ breath. This signal to our bodies that it can calm, it doesn’t need to ramp up.

3.       Release any tension – scan down your body for a moment and relieve anything which is tense; unclench that jaw, drop those shoulders and relax those bum cheeks!

4.       Release emotion – the release of tears triggers our parasympathetic nervous system which calms the body. Studies now show that tears actually contain cortisol (our stress hormone) and so they are literally expelling stress from your body.

5.       Have some fun! – this is so important. Our bodies will find it very difficult to feel stressed if we are having fun and playing. So, enjoy yourself.

6.       Watch your caffeine and sugar intake – both these can trigger our adrenaline responses. Try switching to decaf or pairing sugar with fats to avoid those spiking sugar highs and then crashing lows.

Putting these into practice is going to teach our bodies over time when and when not to trigger our fight-flight responses.

Everyday life is hard; there’s a lot to do. But there is no bear.

There is no bear.