What feels like 15 years ago, in May 2020, Paul was deployed to Afghanistan and I started reading the book Come As You Are by Emily Nagoski. I have a vivid memory of listening to the audiobook while I packed Get To Work Book orders in my garage after my kids went to bed. During one chapter, Nagoski talked about “stress loops.” I stood completely still as her words clicked for me. That chapter of her book changed my life.

I have thought about stress loops every single day for the past six years and have talked about them almost as often. (If you’ve followed my work, you’ve heard me; I have a saved Instagram story that’s been up for ages.) But since “saved Instagram story” isn’t the best record, today I want to share more about what stress loops are, how I work to close them and what they mean for me and my family.

Come As You Are is a book about sex. It was good. I’m glad I read it. My main takeaway though was about managing stress. Nagoski writes about how we all have big and small stressors in our lives and how, since the beginning of time, we have gone through stressful situations. She gives an example from tens of thousands of years ago: Imagine an early human is out hunting or gathering. They come across a major predator and have to run for their life. They escape and go get others from their community to help hunt the animal. After days of hunting, the group gets the predator and brings it back to feed their families. There a big celebration where the meat is eaten.

In that story, the stressful situation ended when the predator was killed and there was no longer a risk to the community. But Nagoski goes on to write that the stress loop wasn’t yet closed.

It wasn’t until the hunters returned and the group gathered together to cook and eat the animal that they could finally rest. Getting the animal ended the stressor. Sitting down for a meal closed the stress loop. They needed the closure to tell their adrenaline-filled bodies and brains “You’re okay. You’re safe now.”

While generally less life-threatening, 20,000 years later we continue to go through stressful situations. And just like it was for the early humans, it’s not necessarily the “ending” of the stressful situation that makes us feel better. It’s the rituals we preform after the stressful situation that reset our bodies and brains. It is only after we take the time to close the stress loop that we can move on to the next thing.