How Does Nature Manage Stress?

How Does Nature Manage Stress?


If stress is having a negative effect on your life, and the lives of those you care about, you are not alone. 

According to the American Institute of Stress: 55% of Americans are stressed during the day. Stress causes 57% of US respondents to feel paralyzed. 63% of US workers are ready to quit their job to avoid work-related stress. Chronic stress is commonplace at work with 94% of workers reporting feeling stress at work. 

We experience inappropriate levels of stress because our current culture — what I’m calling the Conventional Paradigm — drives us to do too much, to want too much, to push too hard for too long. Most of us have become entrapped by these cultural pressures, sometimes unknowingly, and we no longer live our lives in alignment with our own values, our own priorities.  

A certain amount of stress for short periods of time can be good. The same AIS article describes how some stress is good for performance, and that there is also good stress associated with positive experiences. And we are all familiar with the very short term fight-or-flight stress that helps us to jump out of the way of an oncoming car. 

But uncontrolled chronic stress not only harms our health, it causes us to make decisions and behave in ways that are harmful to our relationships and degrade our sense of self.  When we are chronically stressed we are not our best selves.

Our friends in Nature don’t experience chronic stress. When a zebra is chased by a leopard, its stress hormones kick in so that it can react quickly and run away to save itself.  But when that threat is gone, the zebra relaxes. What might we learn from a zebra — or an oyster or kelp for that matter — about how to manage the stress in our lives?  

If you’re curious, I invite you to join our next online workshop: How to Be Less Stressed by Thinking Like Nature. 

This workshop is Thursday June 22, so register soon to hold your spot!