Part of improving chronic stress is to start to sense and feel it. Close your eyes and start to sense and feel.

I’ll never forget the day. It is completely bright in my mind like it happened a minute ago. I woke up. It was spring. A perfect, melty March day. You could hear the snow dripping off of the building. The sun was shining in through the windows of my small apartment. There were little dusty floaties in the air of the sunbeams.

Your soma - body, mind and spirit - reacts beautifully to stress. The problem is, it doesn't hold up well when we don't come down from the stressor. It adapts for a time, but wasn't designed to handle it long-term.

There are physical effects of stress in the body that go along with fight or flight. In our multi-part series on stress during the holidays, learn first what happens to the body when stress starts.