Do you consider yourself stressed?

Most people I work with say no, or "not really". Yet their bodies tell a slightly different story 😬

We have a very specific image of stress: the heart racing, the palms sweating, the knot in our stomach. But that's acute stress, the kind we recognise easily. Chronic stress is far more subtle. It builds so gradually that you stop noticing it. You get used to it (like the story of the frog being slowly boiled alive) and it becomes your new normal.

Your body, though, doesn't adapt. It can't. So it keeps sending signals.

Back pain in the morning that eases once you get moving. A general achiness you put down to age or not stretching enough. Injuries that keep cropping up on movements you've done for years. Getting ill every time you take a few days off.

We tend to treat each of these things in isolation. But often, they're all part of the same picture.

It all comes down to one thing: chronic stress keeps your nervous system in a low-level state of alert.

When our nervous system is in a state of vigilance, it doesn't want to allocate energy to things like our immune system. Which makes sense, because if we think there's a serious threat coming our way, why would we rest and recover?

As a result, in a state of chronic stress: your immune system is suppressed, inflammation increases, muscle recovery slows down, sleep quality drops...

And here's something that might surprise you: intense exercise, as brilliant as it is, activates the same "action" mode in your nervous system. It's a stimulant, not a recovery tool. If you're already running on high, adding more intensity without any genuine downtime is like pressing the accelerator all day and never touching the brakes.

What actually helps is learning to deliberately activate the other mode: the rest and recovery side of your nervous system. Slow breathing, gentle movement, conscious stretching.

I know it's HARD. It feels pointless. But it's what you need, and I know exactly how to make it more palatable to hyperactive people like you 🧡

If this resonates, I'd like you to try a small thing this week: for the next 7 days, jot down every ache, tension, or minor health niggle, even the ones that seem insignificant. At the end of the week, look at the list as a whole. Does the pattern tell you something?

Let me know how it goes.

Clem