Author: Frank Forencich

Publication Date: 2021

Summary

This book helped me to feel normal. Stress is a huge, far-reaching problem and there are so many stressors in modern life that it's no wonder we are all struggling.

The reason I read this book now is my somatic movement practice helps me deal with the stressors of life, although it feels like it often comes after the fact. Lately I'm interesting in understanding what I can to reduce stress in the first place.

The Book in 3 sentences

• Stress is an inevitability of living in this modern, rapidly-changing world, it should not be seen as a personal failing but as a systemic, societal issue.
• When we use the palaeolithic era as a benchmark, we can see all the tigers (real and false) that now exist and are reeking havoc on our nervous systems - no wonder we are all so stressed.
• Here are all the ways humans behave under pressure and some ideas for what to do about it

Who Should Read It

You’ll probably enjoy this book if:

• You're stressed
• You like to buck the trend - you're not willing to just comply with what society tells us
• You're interested in and/or understand how big of a problem stress is already and you want to learn more

How the Book Changed Me

I didn't necessarily find anything really new in this book, but it has nevertheless been a profound read and I've found myself talking about it a lot. It is a thorough parcours of our experience of stress and gives a lot of context to what we're all going through right now. I feel more encouraged to implement some of the strategies that I've had on my radar now for a while - especially at the start of a new year!

My top 3 quotes

In other words, stress isn't just a health problem- it's an ecological problem, a social problem, a national security problem, a problem of national culture and character, and a problem for the totality of live on earth. And we ignore it at our peril.

From a big history perspective, our transformation to modernity has been almost instantaneous. If our ancestors traveled forward in time to today's world, they'd be mystified, shocked, and even repelled by the magnitude of the change. In essence, we are refugees from the deep past, trying to make a go of it in a world we can scarcely understand.

There are things we can do: Do less of everything and take more time doing it. Don't be in such a rush to be productive. Drive slower, talk slower, work slower. Ignore the constant pressure to "get more done in less time." Focus on the long qualities of life, the stable and consistent themes that animate the biosphere. Linger. Savor the ordinary moments, even the stressful times. Focus on the long-wave dynamics of seasons, habitat, and the great turnings of the night sky.

My top 3 actions

• Create a "not-to-do list" -- all the things that I give myself permission not to do.
• Be strict with what you expose yourself to. It's easier to slow down when you limit stimulation, choice, ambition. Ignorance really is bliss sometimes.
• We are primed for danger so practice seeing and appreciating the good and friendly

My honest opinion

The style is easy to read and the arguments are almost always easy to follow. There's a lot of information, it never goes very deep into any one thing. I really enjoyed "Humans Under Pressure" - this is an extensive list of what happens to us, which I think helps us to realise just how much of an impact too much stress has.

I was a bit disappointed with the strategies section - there was nothing new here for me, and it all felt a bit too thin - just do this and you'll feel better, oh but also these other 50 things. Given how well he'd set up the problem and re-framed it as a critical societal need to address, this section wasn't quite up to scratch for me.

Book Summary & Notes

Chapter 1 - Thoughts on Stress

• Stress is a relatively new term, only first appearing around the early twentieth century. Now it's seemingly ubiquitous
• Our culture trains us to see stress as an individual problem with individual solutions (more sleep, exercise, mindfulness, rest etc) but this is misguided
• We are also often trying to "get rid of stress", but actually this is not useful. We need some stress, it helps us care about things and drives us to act.
• We need to reframe how we think about stress, and educate ourselves on how to know which stressors (tigers) to respond to, how much and for how long.
• We are too focussed on the wrong tigers- schedules, work, adulting. We know very little about how to deal with the big tigers- death, divorce, poverty, injustice and so on.
• We need to respect stress and get educated on its meaning and place in our lives. We don't need to get rid of it, we need to listen to it.

Chapter 2 - Our Basic Responses to Stress

• Our nervous system is made up of two parts - the flight/fight and rest/digest. We are constantly choosing between them, and how long we spent in each of these and how often they get triggered will have huge consequences for our health.
• The good news is that there are choices - our autonomic nervous system is plastic - meaning it can change depending on how it's used
• Our nervous system is not just something that happens under our skin, it's interconnected with the world and those around us.
• Humans are dependent on one another and the feelings of stress and safety are also shared by the group to which the human belongs
• We can essentially train our nervous system to respond to false tigers and this is quickly going to deplete us. This robs us of our resilience to deal with the real tigers.
• There exists a stress curve- on the left side of the curve is "eustress", or positive stress- the kind that helps us achieve things. There's a limit though, and beyond that things start to deteriorate in a big way.
• The curve teaches us that stress has value, but to watch out for the warning signs (discussed in chapter 4)
• Here's what we're aiming for:
  • Know the Beast - understand that there are real tigers and false ones and start practising telling the difference
  • Be Flexible - be ready to use both Yang (power and control: think schedules, too do lists etc.) and yin (let it be) strategies. We need to pick our battles in order to be resilient when the real tigers come prowling.
  • Be Specific - not all stress is the same (there's physical, cognitive, social, relational, creative, occupational, financial to name a few). To become more resilient, we need to practice dealing with stress, but we need to be specific since not all stress is the same.
  • Continuous adaptation - having said that...we also need to learn how to be adaptable to new situations. The more we specialise, the more comfortable we get and the more vulnerable if/when things change. New and novel situations help us learn how to adapt quickly to changing circumstances.

Chapter 3 - Tigers (Stressors)

The author suggests using the palaeolithic era as the baseline for comparison for all aspects of human life, because this era extends for such a huge proportion of human existence

• Mismatch - We have adapted over a long period of time to being hunter gatherers; comparatively speaking our modern world has developed so quickly that we haven't had a chance to adapt yet. We're basically like wild animals out of our habitat, and like any wild animal, it stresses us out. Our nervous systems are confused about what to respond to because of the way we live - in the modern world there is so much noise, we've lost the rhythm of the day, we're constantly bombarded with stimulation, we live in isolation in concrete cities, and things are changing so rapidly that we cannot get used to anything. No wonder our nervous system is constantly on high alert - i.e. we feel stressed.
• Defensiveness - Humans are believed to be peaceful by nature, but it only takes one to disrupt that - if attacked, humans take on a defensive nature and that multiples throughout generations to our highly-competitive, individualistic nature we have today
• Environmental destruction - On top of all the mismatch and change, our very habitat is about to collapse - one of the biggest stressors of all. In the face of this, we could just give up. But we mustn't. There is important, meaningful work still to be done.
• Separation Anxiety - Research shows a connection between how we attach to our primary caregiver as babies and how we tolerate stress later in life. Secure attachment means we conclude the world is more or less friendly and can then crack on with growing and maturing. Insecure attachment means we conclude the world is not friendly, cannot be trusted and then flight/fight is primed
• Ego - Stress nowadays is seen as a personal thing, it's down to us to take care of it. But maybe it's this focus on the self that is also stressful. Introspection creates a feedback loop that emphasises the individual, pulling us further away from connection with others. Kind of amusing how many "self-" words have been introduced to our vocabulary in recent years.
• Pyramid Scheme - Our society is dominated by a pyramid structure, which places people by rank and status. More traditionally, circles are used to organise, which means equality. These are calming, less stressful and inclusive.
• Information overload - We are drowning under endless amounts of stuff to do. Excessive choice, cognitive overload and temporal poverty is slowly squeezing the life out of all of us. The antidote seems to be figuring out which tigers (decisions/information) really need our attention and for the rest- whatever is good enough will do
• Fear Media - Increasingly more difficult to tell the real tigers from the false ones because corporate media is only interested in selling advertising, which means grabbing the attention of as many eyeballs and ears as possible. They don't even care about telling the truth, only about viewership. Stress sells. The more we consume the less resilient we become, the more skeptical of our world and the more stressed.
• Mind-body split - one of the most destructive stressors. We are denying ourselves vital wisdom by placing more value on cognition than sensation
• Narrative dysfunction - we're bombarded with stories now compared to the campfire days of our ancestors and "many of our guiding narratives have been replaced with synthetic commercial" ones.
• Social ambiguity - We used to live in tribes where we knew everyone and we all had a part to play. Now we are over competitive, over judgemental and communicate mostly through technology. This all makes us stressed because fundamentally we crave to be seen, heard, felt, understood and respected as happened when we belonged to a tribe.

Chapter 4 - Coping Mechanisms

1. Fighting and fleeing - the most commonly known response to stress. Cortisol kicks in and we're ready to go. Trouble is, what or who are we fighting in a world of false tigers?
2. Freezing and hiding - for animals this means literally standing still or playing dead. For humans, it means becoming invisible, blending in, following the rules. Although that seems sensible, it can also be destructive because compliance means nothing changes
3. Contraction - all kinds of drawing in: physically (posture), cognitively, behaviourally, socially, narratively, spiritually. Everything gets narrower and we lose creativity and curiosity.
4. Hoarding - we are rich and we don't know it, we cannot feel it therefore we always want more. We're never satisfied, which creates more stress
5. Depleted willpower- we are not resilient anymore, we make bad decisions because we are more impulsive, we cannot delay gratification
6. Disordered thinking - we have lost all sense of proportion. We make mountains from molehills, we get angry at those around us, we can't see the wood for the trees. We lose the sense of whole.
7. Perfectionism - an attempt to control our messy incomprehensible world, which in turn leads to more stress when it doesn't work. The paradox is that to succeed disconnects us even more from the world (which is inherently messy and incomprehensible)
8. Stress hardening - trying harder, which might work for a time but is ultimately unsustainable
9. Drama - victim mentality, blaming others instead of taking responsibility and digging ourselves out
10. Addiction - a little stress can be good, it actually feels good. So more must be better, right?
11. Pain - we are suffering from chronic anxiety which causes pain because anxiety lowers our pain threshold (hyperalgesia). [Given my interest in somatic education I'm not sure I entirely agree with that.]
12. Lifestyle disease - obesity, heart disease, diabetes, neurological disorders and cancer are all exacerbated by stress
13. Learned helplessness - if we think it's impossible to escape from stress we basically give in

Chapter 5 - Strategies and Antidotes

Primal Remedies

1. What we believe matters (what you focus on grows)
2. Remember there is Intergenerational resilience (as much as intergenerational stress)
3. Regularly experience awe (think crashing waves, night sky, mountains etc.)
4. Seek out experiences that allow us to expand, branch out, grow. This
5. starts with a sense of safety

Somatic Solutions

1. Move (don't exercise)
2. Breathe (wherever, whenever, it's variety that counts)
3. Meditate to deepen the human experience
4. Sleep is important and don't be worried about sticking to the conventional 8hr long pattern. Waking in the middle of the night should be considered normal.

Relational Arts

1. Tend to relationships
2. Practice forgiveness
3. Look for the circle instead of the pyramid, it's slow and inefficient but necessary to develop human connections
4. Focus attention, but not too much. Keep it broad enough to see the difficult things but don't let those drag you down or suck you in.
5. Shift attention back to living systems and nature
6. Ask sensible questions of the media and information you consume
7. Cultivate connectedness with the world, feel part of it not separate.

Practical Methods

1. Make the boulder smaller by prioritising, making your goals clear and ignore everything that's not inline, reduce ambition, practice minimalism, value fewer possessions, make a list of "things I don't have to do"
2. Slow down, find your rhythm
3. Observe language - it can be a great indicator of feeling stressed. Ask for people's stories not what they do for a living

Creative Practices

1. Don't be a victim (blaming, excuses etc.) behave like a creator and find solutions
2. Play - it's our optimal state, and indicates safety to those around us
3. Reframe narratives (stories) and even the idea of stress itself- it can be useful because it shows us our true character

Philosophical Perspectives

1. We are primed for danger so practice seeing and appreciating the good and friendly
2. Remove expectation and judgement
3. Purpose is key (but he doesn't tell us how to find our one sentence why, and how this connects with "simply live life as it presents itself and adapt on the fly")
4. Stop trying to control everything and make peace with the fact that life is full of ambiguity and insecurity
5. Modern science is proving that everything is connected so even in death you stay part of the whole

Chapter 6 - Teaching, Leadership and Activism

• Learn how folks need to be stressed to get the best performance. Assume everyone starts a little stressed so focus on creating safety and go softly
• Focus on getting the autonomic message right (it's not what you say but how you say it)
• Use challenge language rather than threats

Chapter 7 - Practice is Perfect

• Be modest with expectations
• Forgive
• Keep going