How we Deal Stress in life

When it comes to stress, the autonomic nervous system is the master controller.

Think of your autonomic nervous system as the autopilot system for your body.

It manages all the things you do not consciously think about, like breathing, heart rate, digestion, and most importantly, your internal sense of safety.

If your body’s autopilot thinks you are in danger, it will not focus on healing, repair, or maintenance.

Because if your system believes you are in a war zone, survival will always come first.

Before we go deeper into that, let us understand the natural states your nervous system moves through.

Let us start with what I call the green zone.

Imagine you wake up in the morning and everything is going smoothly. The water is just right, not too hot, not too cold. You go to the kitchen and everything you need is available. You make your breakfast, get ready, and leave for work. On the way, nothing stressful happens. You reach the office, see someone, and casually say, “Hi, good morning.”

This is the green zone.

In this state, your body feels safe enough. You feel calm, connected, and present. Your heart rate is steady. Your breathing is normal. Your digestion works well. Your immune system functions better. Your body can focus on repair, recovery, and healthy functioning.

This is the state where healing happens best.

Now let us move to the next state, the sympathetic state, which you can think of as the Amber zone.

This is your fight or flight mode.

For example, imagine you are at work and suddenly your boss shouts at you. Or a colleague becomes aggressive. Immediately, your body senses danger. Stress hormones like adrenaline and cortisol are released. Your heart beats faster. Your muscles tense up. Your body starts preparing to protect you.

At that moment, your system is not thinking about digestion, repair, or long term healing.

It is thinking, “How do I survive this?”

So blood flow gets redirected more toward the muscles and away from internal processes like digestion and restoration. Because your body knows that when you are running from danger, healing is not the priority.

If the stress passes and your system feels safe again, your body gradually settles. You come back into the green zone. Then the repair processes come back online.

There is also a third state, which is the shutdown or freeze state think of it as red zone

This is what happens when the threat feels too big.

If someone shouts at you and your body believes you can defend yourself or get away, it may go into fight or flight.

But if the threat feels overwhelming, and your body senses that fighting is not possible and escaping is not possible, it may move into shutdown.

This is like your body going into battery saving mode.

Everything slows down. Your energy drops. You may feel numb, disconnected, heavy, blank, or unable to respond. Your system pulls back in order to conserve energy and survive.

So when we say a nervous system is regulated, it does not mean a person is calm all the time.

That is not real life.

A regulated nervous system can move through these states naturally. It can become activated when needed, calm down when the threat has passed, and return back to balance.

That flexibility is what matters.

Because all human beings move out of the green zone sometimes.

The real question is this:

How quickly can your system come back?

For some people, it comes back in minutes. For some, it takes hours. For others, it can take days, weeks, or even years.

That is where dysregulation comes in.

When your nervous system is dysregulated, it struggles to return to safety.

It gets stuck in survival for much longer than necessary.

And that is why two people can go through a similar stressful event, but one person recovers quickly while another stays activated or shut down for a long time.

That is what we will get into next.

Dr Dhivya Pratheepa