Hello, and welcome back to practicing human, the podcast where every day we're getting

a little better at life.

I'm your host, Cory Muscara, and in today's episode we're going to talk about the importance

of taking a break.

More to come on that in a moment, first, let's settle in together with the sound of the bells.

Okay, so before diagnosing yourself with anxiety or depression,

check to first see if you just need a break from the intensity of your life.

The thing is, when we're overwhelmed for prolonged periods of time,

we can actually get stuck in this fight, flight, or freeze response,

which is our system's natural reaction to intense stimuli to get us out of the situation

or to relate to the situation in a way that helps us to survive.

And it's good to have in short bursts and still can be useful in day-to-day life

to get us out of difficult circumstances.

However, when we're in that chronically, it can really mess with our hormones,

the chemicals moving through our body, and also just our felt sense of ourselves

in relationship to our life.

We'll feel chronically unsafe.

We'll feel a lot of extra activation in our system or we'll go in the other direction

and we'll feel a sense of numbness.

And so we're stuck in this fight, flea, flight, or just freeze reaction to our life.

They can lead us feeling like, oh, I have all of this anxiety or I'm depressed

or there's something wrong with me, whatever the assessment might be.

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