What stress is actually doing to your body

Last week I mentioned that anxiety is not a personality trait. This week I want to talk about its close cousin — stress — and why it matters that we take it seriously as a physical experience, not just an emotional one.

When you are stressed, your body releases cortisol. This is useful in short bursts — it sharpens focus, mobilises energy, prepares you to act. The difficulty is that the modern variety of stress rarely comes in short bursts. It comes in long, unrelenting stretches: work pressure, financial worry, caring responsibilities, the general background noise of a world that does not often pause.

When cortisol runs continuously, the effects accumulate. Sleep becomes harder. The immune system is quietly deprioritised. Blood pressure creeps up. The digestive system — which is, incidentally, far more connected to the brain than most people realise — starts to complain.

None of this is dramatic. It rarely announces itself. It just gradually makes everything a little harder than it needs to be.

What hypnosis does, in practical terms, is engage the other branch of the nervous system — the one responsible for rest, recovery, and repair. Not just in the session itself, though clients consistently describe a quality of relaxation they have not felt in years. Over time, with practice, the nervous system learns that it is allowed to shift gear.

I think of it less as treatment and more as retraining. The brain is a learning organ. What it has learned to do, it can learn to do differently.

If the cumulative weight of ongoing stress sounds familiar, you are in good company. It is one of the most common things I work with.

Back next Monday with something that most people mention only in passing — sleep.