Stress and Your Health

“In these uncertain times.” This has got to be the most over-used catch phrase in these…er…uncertain times.  Are you stressed? I know I am. I don’t have to list the reasons; we all know them. In a recent Unlocking Us podcast episode, Brene Brown spoke with Dr. Emily Nagoski and Dr. Amelia Nagoski, authors of Burnout.  I learned that when we experience stress, we need to “unlock the stress cycle” (in other words, proactively rid our body of stress) or it can stay in our body, lead to burnout, and make us sick.  I found myself weeping (a regular occurrence these days) at the truth of this. As some of you may know, I’ve gone through breast cancer. My official diagnosis came the week of my 46th birthday, only a few months after finishing graduate school for speech-language pathology. Grad school had been THE HARDEST thing I had ever done, and I’ve always wondered if there was a link between the stress and my illness.

I am happy to say I am healthy and cancer free. I want to stay that way and I want you to stay healthy, too. There will always be stress and we all have our own unique set of stressors. For people who stutter, the very act of communication may be a stressor.  Examples include speaking in a feared situation, worrying about what other people might think if they stutter, or even a full day of using fluency strategies.

Over the next few posts, I’m going to share some tips I learned on ways we can unlock the cycle on our stress so we can prevent it from making us sick.

If you or someone you know stutters and you’d like to learn more about my online speech therapy services, contact me at jen@boldspeechtherapy.com