Stress Response System {EP 94}

Robyn: I don't think I've talked about the stress response system on the podcast yet, I definitely talked about it a lot in The Club and in Being With. And as I was crafting, you know, a podcast schedule for the rest of the year. I was like, Oh, I don't think I've talked about the stress response system. And that is- that's a big one. So if we're going to talk about the stress response system, we have to give a little nod to- now just a little not a huge nod to Dr. Bruce Perry. Dr. Bruce Perry is where I learned the language stress response system. And it isn't language that's just unique to his work. But that is where I was first introduced to the concept of the stress response system. Dr. Perry is just a global leader and researching the impact of- of- of trauma and helping to create actionable solutions, right? More than just researching it. He is, you know, a leader. And so what do we do about it? How do we address it? And also, how do we prevent it? So if you're not familiar with Dr. Perry's work, highly recommend checking it out. His most recent book was co-authored with Oprah Winfrey, which might sound a little odd. But it's actually amazing, because what it did is take, y'all, this really important topic of early childhood trauma, and toxic stress, and adverse childhood experiences and brought it to the bigger, mainstream population with his collaboration with Oprah Winfrey. The book is super readable. So definitely go check it out if you haven't already. It's called What Happened to You.

Robyn: To get started with the stress response system, let's first define what a stress even is. In the book What Happened to You, Dr. Perry, define stress as a demand on one or more of our body’s many physiological sympt- systems. That's it a demand on one or more of our bodies, many physiological systems. So notice in that definition, there isn't, you know, stress is bad or stress is good or you know, stress can be all of those things. Stress isn't inherently bad, but it can become damaging, and we'll look at how and why. So stressors- What's a stressor? Well, I mean, life is full of stressors. Being hungry puts, you know, stress on the body. Exercising, puts stress on the body, right? Attachment ruptures, falling out of synchrony and connection and attunements causes stress. Right? So there's so many different kinds of stress. And again, these things are not bad, right like hunger for example. Hunger is a super important sensation to experience right? We need to know that it's time to refuel our bodies. Exercise can be really good for us. If it- the stress of exercising, happens in a manner in which it promotes growth instead of, you know, har- harmful. Attachment ruptures, same thing, attachment ruptures aren't inherently bad. In fact, the rupture repair experience is crucial for secure attachment. Attachment ruptures aren't bad, but they do cause stress. And the stress helps us see like, hey, something's going on here that we need to tend to. Right? 

Robyn: Stress in and of itself isn't bad. It is a moment or a lot of moments of kind of causing this shift out of balance in our nervous system, it leads to some discomfort or distress. But again, that's not bad comfort or distress is information to us that says, hey, something's wrong, and we need to tend to it. Stress is just a thing that's going to happen in life. It's not avoidable. So we don't want to try to avoid it. But I also think it's nice to notice how stress is really important, like stress can- stress is a really crucial part of- of growth, and just a really important part of being human. So stress in and of itself is not bad. But obviously some is. So what's the difference? Like what makes some stress bad, not just bad in the moment, but- but damaging to the developing brain? And what Dr. Perry's research tells us is that what distinguishes pattern- what distinguishes stress from whether it's experienced as a positive experience, or like a negative destructive experience, is the pattern of that stress. How is the stress experienced? What's the pattern that the stress is experienced in? 

Robyn: And so he says that when a stress is experienced in a manner that is predictable, reliable, and controllable, then the stress can stimulate growth without injury. It's when this pattern of the stress becomes unpredictable, extreme, or prolonged, that's Dr. Perry’s words, that's when stress becomes damaging, or destructive. So when we experience a stressor, again, whether it's something that's predictable, reliable, controllable, or unpredictable, extreme, or prolonged, when we experience stress, what happens next is our stress response system. Now, the physiological underpinnings of our stress response system goes- it's just really not necessary for us to understand. It's a complex interplay of chemicals, and hormones, and behaviors, right? Think about what happens in fight or flight, right? That's a response to stress. Right? So our cortisol and adrenals. And, you know, we've- we get energy in our arms and our legs. That's a response to stress, not all of our stress responses is fight or flight. That's just one example. So stress response is simply like, what happens next? Like what did our body do in reaction to that stress? And how is that underneath- how is that related to our kids’ behaviors?

Robyn: I think to really understand how it's related to our kids behaviors, we have to understand how the stress response system is, like developed and nurtured in those first earliest months- months of life. And how those experiences and those first couple of months of life do impact our now 7, 12, 18 year old and ourselves, right? How do we respond when we're confronted or faced with some sort of stressor? And it can be a small stressor like- like, for example, the stress of the fact that this is the third time I've recorded this podcast because something has gone wrong the first two times. That was- those are stressors, right? How does my body react, respond to those stressors? It could be a stressor as simple as, like, man, I was really looking forward to that leftover pizza for dinner and when I go to eat it, I discover somebody else has already eaten it. That's a stress. Right? And I know y'all are living with people who have very sensitive, vulnerable stress response systems. And you're seeing that because of behavior that you would call, just like low frustration tolerance, kind of constant, freaking out, can't handle, just can't handle anything. Can't handle being told no, which we talked about a couple of weeks ago. All of that all of those behaviors are about having a really fragile, or vulnerable, or sensitized stress response system. So we grow and strengthen our stress response system, pretty similar to how we would grow or strengthen like any muscle. So I've run a couple half marathons in my life. And in order to be able to run 13.1 miles without getting hurt, I needed to prepare for that. I needed to intentionally stress my body during a training cycle, so that when I was confronted with the stress of running the race, I could manage and be okay, right. And so a training cycle is about creating an experience of predictable, reliable, and controllable stress. Right? And there has to be enough stress in that straining- training cycle that I'm growing, my muscles, I'm growing, you know, I'm growing the strength in my legs, I'm growing my cardiovascular system, right? So when I would, you know, start a half marathon training cycle, I would look at, well, what am I currently capable of, let's start there. And every week, let's add a little bit more every week, that long run got a little bit longer. And then some weeks we pull back, right and decrease the- you decrease the longer runs. And so every- every week, it could- putting more stress on my body with the intention of growing it, but not too much stress, that I got hurt. And ultimately, race day came, and I was able to complete a half marathon without getting hurt. 

Robyn: Now, the other options are not training, right? And just showing up for 13.1 miles, which I know some people do, I would never be able to do that. That would be way too much stress on my body, on my bones, on my muscles, on my cardiovascular system. Everything. It’d just way too much stress I'm certainly get hurt. And without question, would be completely miserable. Because the stress of running 13.1 miles without a good training cycle leading up to it would be considered extreme and prolonged right? And then I would get hurt. The other option is to not stress my body enough, right? And if I was like, Oh, I'd like to run a half marathon in a couple months, every day from now until then I will run one mile. That's a lot of running. And then on race day, I'll go run 13.1 miles, right? That- that- I didn't stress my body enough, right? The one mile every day just wasn't enough stress. And so there was no- there was no growth. And no growth in my ability to tolerate feeling uncomfortable, right? That's another important muscle to grow, right? The ability to tolerate feeling uncomfortable. So quote unquote, good stress, stress that helps, you know leads itself to resiliency and the stress response system as stress is predictable, reliable, and controllable. Whereas unpredictab- unpredictable, extreme or prolonged stress leads to a overactive and reactive stress response system. So that's a stress response system that's making a lot of mountains out of teeny tiny little mole hills, right? Like teeny, tiny little stressors, or causing huge, enormous watchdog brain or big possum brain responses. Right? Certainly, an impaired stress response system is impairing regulation. And it's leaving a nervous system, kind of in the default setting of Danger, Danger, like believing everything is dangerous. There is no felt safety. And we've talked so much on the podcast about how impaired regulation and that- that felt safety default being kind of stuck in Danger, Danger, how that impacts behavior. 

Robyn: So the stress response system is largely developed in those earliest months of life. In utero and again, those- those early early months of life where the developing infant really needs to have predictable, reliable, and controllable experiences of stress, right? That means, you know, feeling hungry, maybe not getting fed just quite as quickly as they'd like, right? But so a little bit of stress but not too much. Or the inevitable attachment disruptions that happen when parenting a teeny tiny baby, right? That babies need predictable, reliable, and controllable experiences of stress, followed up by repair and co-regulation, to really grow and strengthen that stress response system. Dr. Perry has a quote that I think is so important, I'm just gonna read the quote to you that really hits home, the impact of trauma, toxic stress, adversity and those earliest months of life. So in the book, What Happened to You, he writes, “the experiences of the first two months of life have a disproportionately important impact on long term health and development. This has to do with the remarkably rapid growth of the brain early in life, and the organization of those all important core regulatory networks”. I think that when we're really in the trenches of hard, hard, hard parenting, it can feel very confusing how experiences in the first two months of our child's life or of ours, could be so impactful. But what we learned, right, in the memory series last month, that without question, babies experiences matter. And they're encoded into their memory networks, and contribute to the strength and resilience of the stress response system. It's laying our, again, our core regulatory networks, it's setting the foundation for being somebody who feels safe in the world versus somebody who's doesn't feel very safe in the world. These early, early, early life experiences really, really matter. So I'd encourage you to just pause here for a moment. And just think back to- maybe you're thinking about your child think back to their first two months of life and in utero. Maybe you're thinking about yourself in this moment, think back to what you know about your first two months in the world, and the experiences you had, and how they laid the foundation for the resilience of your stress response system. And that having unpredictable, extreme, and prolonged experiences of trauma, toxic stress, adverse childhood experiences, leads to a over sensitized stress response system. 

Robyn: So real briefly, I do want to touch on what even is trauma? What's trauma, what's toxic stress, what's adverse childhood experiences? This is a- really a whole separate podcast episode. So just very briefly, I want to say that Dr. Porges, who is the theorist of the polyvagal theory, Dr. Porges says that trauma is something that disrupts our capacity to feel safe. That's it. Like that's his big broad definition is- it's just something that disrupts our capacity to feel safe. So obviously, trauma can be things like abuse, and neglect, abandonment, orphanage care, right, like not having regular caregivers, losing caregivers. Trauma can be medical trauma, it can be growing up in a pandemic, it can be loss, it could be divorce, it could be- there's so many different things that- there's so many different experiences that could be experienced by somebody's nervous system, as in fact trauma. And then Perry says toxic stress is stress, it's extreme, unpredictable and prolonged. 

Robyn: Alright, so, I also want to take just a moment to give a little bit of attention to the trauma of not being seen and known. Especially repeatedly. All of us have experiences of not being seen and known and actually in the developing infants, right, and attachment, having experiences and not being seen and known are painful but important. The repair that comes after not being seen and known is really important in the development of secure attachment. But having experiences of not being seen and known are crucial to the infants developing their own sense of self as separate from their caregiver, right? Like, I'm my own person, I'm not inmeshed with my caregiver, we're not the same person. And that happens because of misattunement, that happens because of not being seen and known. So I don't want to give the impression that people need to be seen and known 100% of the time, otherwise, they're experiencing trauma. Nope, that's not it at all. When I talk about the trauma of not being seen and known, I'm talking about repeatedly. Like being in the world, as somebody who is regularly not seen and not known. And this, of course, can happen in excite experiences of abuse and neglect and kind of things that are maybe a little bit easier for us to identify. But the trauma of not being seen and known often happens for individuals who hold marginalized identities, right? Whether that be race, religion, gender identity, sexual orientation, being differently abled, or- or neurodiversity. And that's, that is certainly not an all inclusive list of marginalized identities. But being in the world, in a body that is- that identifies as being a marginalized identity lends itself to repeated experiences of not being seen and known. And it's really, really important to- to recognize that as- as what it is as a trauma. 

Robyn: I actually want to read one more quote from Dr. Perry's book that I've found really impactful in my- in my own work. And he says, “If you don't recognize the built in biases in yourself and the structural biases in your systems biases regarding race, gender, or sexual orientation, for example, you can't truly be trauma informed. Marginalized people excluded, minimized, shamed, are traumatized peoples because humans are fundamentally relational creatures. To be excluded or dehumanized in an organization, community, society, or even family, that creates experiences of prolonged, uncontrollable stress that causes a sensitization to the developing stress response system. Marginalization is a fundamental trauma.” Now, again, talking about trauma, toxic stress, what is trauma, that's a very, very big discussion. But it felt important to just put this little piece in here as we're talking about the developing stress response system, because it is trauma that causes a disruption in the development of our stress response system and leads to the potential for nervous system vulnerabilities. So, how do we know what impact that there has been on the stress response system? Again, whether you're thinking about your child, or your own, or your partners are so somebody you know, like, how do we know if there's been an impact on their developing stress response system? Well, if you're listening to this podcast, you are probably in relationship with somebody who has been- has a sensitized stress response system. Are you- is this person, make a lot of mountains out of molehills, right? Big, big, big reactions to what we could objectively look at as problems that aren't quite that big. I think it's really important not to judge people's stress response and not label it as like an overreaction. But because I believe their reaction always matches what their inner experiences. So I don't call that an overreaction. But I think we can accurately label things as a bit of a mismatch, right? The size of the stress versus the size of the stress response don't always match. Right? And again, I'm sure you can think of examples of what's happened in your day already today with your child where it seemed as though the size of their stress response didn't quite match the size of the actual stressor. Right? Like are you finding yourself feeling really whiplashed like, oh, my gosh, what just happened? Right? Does your kid have poor frustration tolerance? And when things are hard, you know, when the- when the sensation of frustration arises does that get responded to with things like anger, or aggression, or I mean, even poor impulse control is potentially about having a sensitized stress response system. Not always, but it can be. Regardless of why the stress response system has become sensitized, right? Whether that be from trauma, or toxic stress, or adverse experiences, or being neurodivergent in a world that isn't responsive to that neurodivergence, or maybe we just have no idea what is led to this sensitized stress response system, right? The path out- the way of building increasing resilience in that stress response system, so it is less vulnerable is always the same. It's always about co-regulation, connection, presence, lots and lots and lots of felt safety. 

Robyn: Now, what that looks like practically is going to really vary based on your circumstances and your child's circumstances and their history. What were their circumstances that led to those, you know, vulnerability in the nervous system? What some kids experiences safe, other kids don't what some kids need to feel safe. That's not what- you know, different kids need. So the actual interventions of you know, how do we provide the care regulation, connection and felt safety that this child needs are really, really, really going to vary? 

Robyn: And this is exactly what we spent all our time talking about in The Club. So a lot of times, we're talking about things like how do we provide our kids with the scaffolding that they need in order to build their resilience and their stress response system so that they're titrating, they're getting experiences that are titrating, the amount of stress that they're getting, and sometimes that can be frustrating, it can feel like man, my- my 10 year old should be able to navigate this amount of stress. My 15 year old should be able to manage this amount of stress. But the reality is, is that they just can't. So how do we titrate their stress experiences? How do we provide them with with the scaffolding, with the structure, with the co-regulation, with the boundaries that they need in order for their stress response system to not get be continually flooded. Continually flooding a sensitized stress response system isn't going to strengthen it, it is going to just continue to like weaken, and erode- erode it. 

Robyn: The other thing we can look at as what are ways that we can strengthen the foundation of the brain. The core regulatory networks, in a way, if we can strengthen the foundation of the brain, we often increase resilience and that stress response system. So I did a series back in late 2021, I think. I don't remember the dates of it. But I will find those episodes, and I'll make sure they get linked up in the show notes so that you could find them easily. But I did a whole series on Strengthening the Foundation of The Brain. That again, really leaned into Dr. Perry's work and his- his research that shows us that rhythmic, repetitive, relational, somatosensory experiences can help to strengthen that foundation of the brain. So I'll send you- [laughter] or, I'll put in the show notes, the links to those podcast episodes. And then we did a whole three months series in The Club, on how to strengthen the foundation of the brain. And so we really had the opportunity to dive in and look at, you know, how do we- how do we actually take this theory? Right? What does that- what does rhythmic, repetitive, relational somatosensory experiences mean? And what do I do when my kid won't cooperate with any of them, right? Like all of this sounds good in theory, until we invite our kids into connection with us, and they reject all of it, right? So that's one of the things we get to do in The Club is take all of this, kind of theory, and make it make sense in real life. 

Robyn: Our stress response system obviously then plays a huge role in our kids' behaviors, and how we perceive those behaviors. And understanding that underneath these behaviors that you are overwhelmed by, rightfully overwhelmed by, right? Lying, stealing, aggression, shutting down, refusing to go to school, oppositional behavior, all these behaviors are exceptionally stressful to you. Understanding how our stress response system plays a role in those behaviors, does give us the opportunity to change, then, how we kind of perceive those behaviors. I know that that in and of itself doesn't change how hard those behaviors are for you. But, you know, I kind of have to fall back on my saying that changing how we see people changes people. So understanding what's underneath the behavior and allowing that to shift our perception of our child and our behavior actually is an intervention. I know it doesn't feel like one. But I promise, promise, promise- it isn't just an intervention, I actually think it might be the most important intervention, right? If we can shift our labels of our children away from words like dramatic, manipulative, overreacting, spoiled, or even bratty. Like, if we can shift that language to, my child has an extremely sensitized stress response system. And the tiniest amount of stress, the tiniest amount of frustration, the tiniest amount of things aren't going perfectly the way they want them to go, causes an enormous stress response. And in somebody who has a strong stress response system, little stressors are navigated and regulated through. But for people with a very vulnerable, sensitized stress response system, little stressors just bring on huge, full blown, watchdog, and possum brain responses. 

Robyn: So what I want you to do is, think about these behaviors that are so stressful, and they're so stressful, I know it, but think about them through the lens of the sensitized stress response system. And see if even just that little bit of a reframe helps yo-u helps your stress response system. I know, I know, we're not we haven't solved any behavioral problems here today. But sometimes, the thing that we want to focus on is ourselves. And what I have found is when we can really see what's underneath these behaviors, we oftentimes feel better. And that is- that matters. And that's, that's meaningful. As always, if you need more help, more help them with this podcast, than give you- can give you if you want the opportunity to actually be connected with me and my team, and also with the hundreds of other parents who are walking this, you know, journey every single day, and have better ideas than I do a lot of the times, consider checking out what we offer over in The Club. It's a membership community, it's a virtual experience, it has a forum, it has live events, it has on- a huge on-demand video library. And so there is a lot of education that comes in The Club. But what really is impactful about The Club is the fact that we get to take the education, and then make it make sense for our families, right? Talk about what you learned in the classes and, and brainstorm with each other. And, you know, get- you know, me and my team to- and you know, for many of the families in The Club, especially the real active ones, I really get to know these families and can really, you know, help make all of this theory make more sense, and be more useful in your specific family. So just know that that resource is out there, if it feels like, oh, this is all really great information, but I'm just not sure how to apply it. That's exactly what The Club is for. And then the other thing that club is for is that it provides us as the grownups with the connection and co-regulation that we need so that our stress response system can strengthen. That our stress response system can be less sensitized, less vulnerable. So we're making fewer mountains out of molehills. We stay in our own owl brain when we're parenting our kids, and can show up and be the parent that we want to be for these kids. 

Robyn: Alrighty, again, thank you so much. I'm crossing my fingers that this version of the podcast this third time I recorded this episode actually worked. So if you're hearing this, you can have a big sigh of relief for me that the third time's a charm, and it finally worked. So thanks for being here with me. Thanks for your commitment to yourself. Thanks for your commitment to your kids. And I'm going to see you back here next week.