Stress wrecks you
You scream at your kids.
You hate yourself after.
You lie awake at 3am, chest buzzing, thoughts running.
You drag through the day half alive.
You reach for carbs, chips, cigarettes, booze.
Anything to quiet your head for ten minutes.
It wrecks your sleep.
It wrecks your gut.
Your gut is tight while your belly swells.
It makes your skin break out and look ten years older.
It drags your mood into the ground.
Your patience rots.
Nothing is as it should be.
You nitpick on autopilot.
The people who love you stay clear.
The people you love get hurt by collateral damage.
This is not bad energy.
This is not bitchiness.
It’s hormones drowning you.
Cortisol. The primary stress hormone.
It spikes when you sense threat.
Except the attack never ends.
It keeps you at war long after the battle is gone.
It is not bad vibes. It is hormones.
Cortisol is the big one. Your adrenal glands release it when you feel threatened.
Discovered in the 1930s. Measured in blood since the 1950s.
In short bursts, it saves your life.
When it never shuts off, it breaks you down.
Stress chemicals are not abstract.
They loiter in your blood and steer your body.
They wreck your heart.
They push blood pressure up until vessels burst.
They scramble blood sugar control until you get diabetes.
They weaken your defences so every cold and flu hits harder.
They drag you down into depression (McEwen, 2007).
Doctors, healers, yoga teachers, therapists. Everybody works to do the same thing: lower cortisol and balance hormones.
Stress can be relieved.
The question is how fast, and how long does the relief last.
The hormones that rule the body
Cortisol is one of them.
It keeps the body on high alert.
For short bursts, it protects life.
When it stays high too long, it breaks the body down.
Oxytocin. The chemical that makes you feel happy (Heinrichs, 2009).
Your brain releases it when your nervous system feels safe.
When you can hear yourself think.
When everything that needed doing is done, and you get one clear moment of peace.
When nothing feels like it is about to hit.
You do not need to nitpick.
You do not need to scream.
Your stomach starts working again.
Your hands warm up.
Your shoulders drop.
You can laugh with your child.
You can look your husband in the eye and see the man you married.
That is oxytocin working.
Dopamine. The chemical that makes you act (Berridge and Kringelbach, 2015).
You see a penny on the street.
You remember the rhyme, find a penny, pick it up.
You bend, pocket it, and smile.
That lift in your chest is dopamine signalling something good could happen.
Now you are humming "Pennies from Heaven".
It is clearing your in-tray because tomorrow you are on vacation.
It is your child asking: "Mommy, if I am really good, can I get an ice cream."
It is him buying you flowers and dinner because he might get laid.
That is dopamine at work.
The brain releases it when you act and turns it off when you stop believing action matters.
That is when you binge, scroll, snack, drink, and swipe.
Hollow hits to keep you occupied.
Short sparks that burn out.
Dopamine rises when effort meets outcome.
When you lead and make something happen.
That is dopamine working.
Prolactin. The chemical that brings calm (Krüger, 2002).
It rises after deep rest.
It surges after orgasm.
It is why he rolls off you and crashes.
It is not personal. It is chemistry.
It signals the body: enough, recover.
These are not moods.
They are measurable chemicals in the blood.
They shift how the body functions.
From alert to calm.
From strain to ease.
These four flip your body between fight and rest.
Others exist: adrenaline for shock, serotonin for steadiness.
But these four shift the body most.
This is not mysticism.
It is blood work.
It is biology.
It is chemistry.
These are not ideas. They are tests in blood.
They flip your body from war to peace.
What people do about stress now
Years of Landmark work showed me this.
The mind can see the pattern.
It can talk about fear.
It can make sense of it.
But the body keeps reacting.
You cannot think your way out of what the body keeps doing.
That is why I turned to work that starts in the body itself.
Massage
My go-to feel-good treat.
I want it firm.
That pressure through the skin activates sensors that trigger oxytocin and serotonin.
Cortisol in the blood drops by roughly a third after one session.
(Field, 2014)
Breathwork
Slow, steady breathing activates the long nerve* that runs from the brain through the chest into the gut.
This nerve links the heart, lungs, and digestion to the brain.
When breathing slows, the nerve signals the brain that oxygen is steady and the body is not in danger.
The part of the brain that watches for threat, the amygdala, backs off.
The adrenal glands slow production of cortisol.
(Zaccaro et al., 2018)
(*the vagus nerve)
Yoga
Downward dog not to invite play like my puppies at home.
To stretch.
To breathe.
To collect myself again.
Cortisol drops a little.
Oxytocin rises: no threat for now, it’s not the hot kind.
Dopamine climbs: keep going, it’ll be over soon.
I feel calm enough to stay until the end.
It’s chemistry, not enlightenment.
(Uvnäs-Moberg, 2015; Zaccaro et al., 2018)
Trauma work
There are many ways to do it.
Some use gentle shaking.
Some use slow movement.
Some make you roll your eyes.
Some focus on small physical sensations until the body recognises the danger has passed.
(Payne et al., 2015)
Ritual touch and tantric
He booked one for me once.
She massaged my body and breasts.
She rubbed my pussy and clitoris.
I didn’t come, but it was nice.
Oxytocin rose and prolactin followed.
My body rested.
(Levin, 2014)
I still prefer massage and reflexology.
I thanked him for the gift and said: “Don’t even ask to go for a tantric massage.”
Exercise
Repeated movement increases blood flow and oxygen to the brain.
That triggers dopamine and endorphins, which lift mood and reduce cortisol once the effort ends.
(Berridge and Kringelbach, 2015)
Personally, I prefer belly dance.
It arouses and connects me to me.
All of these shift the same chemistry: less cortisol, more oxytocin, dopamine, and prolactin.
None of them are instant.
All take time. Training. Repetition.
Slow relief. Hours. Weeks. Rituals.
Talk can clear the mind.
Only the body can reset itself.
Talk therapy helps thoughts, but stress stores in the body.
That’s why somatic methods exist, and why they are rising in use.
All target the same biology: less cortisol, more oxytocin, dopamine, prolactin.
There are faster ways to shift hormones
They have been here all along.
The biology is ancient mammal biology; confirmed by scientists since the 1930s, 50s, and 60s, and ever since.