Whether it’s weather or something else that’s triggering your stress response — the fight, flight, freeze, or fawn state — it’s important to know how to turn off the cascade of stress hormones and recover your calm. Even when we’re not actually under threat our bodies can react as though they are, and our health and well-being suffers.

When you’re feeling unmoored, askew, roller-coastery, or spiraling, re-anchoring in your center is an essential first step for recovering a sense of clarity and presence. From there it’s possible to respond to challenges with intention and care instead of reactivity.

If you're feel drained, agitated, resentful, regretful, angry, or sad about something that happened or didn't happen, something you said or didn't say, something you did or didn't do, try compassion + forgiveness + gratitude.

Are you feeling overwhelmed, numb, powerless, or on edge in response to the unrelenting episodes of senseless violence, tragedy, and injustice? Some people are able to move through intense emotions and continue on with their lives without difficulty. Others, however, carry the intensity with them, often unconsciously, where it can have deep and destabilizing effects on their health and well-being. If that feels like you, I am writing to share mindsets and practices that might help you cope with and ultimately shift that tendency.

I took this photo on a recent flight, my first in several years. I love how the clouds look like the ocean, or the desert, or a snow-covered landscape. Gazing out and getting absorbed in the vastness of the natural world, even just with my face pressed into a tiny window, seemed to replenish some of what the noisy, cramped, stress-filled airplane was draining out of me.

I have a feeling that right now you're holding some stress and tension in your body. Tight shoulders? Clenched jaw? Furrowed brow? These postures and positions create a vicious circle -- they tell your nervous system that there's something to be stressed out about, perpetuating a state of "high alert." Do you have 30 seconds to spare? Let's take advantage and change the message.

Have you been thinking about your orientation in time and space recently? I have, ever since reading gymnast Simone Biles’s account of getting “the twisties” – a sudden mind/body disconnect and frightening sense of bodily disorientation. While most people don’t have to navigate their bodies flying through the air, I think a lot of us struggle with a version of the twisties; some form of mind/body or time/space disconnect that can get exacerbated by stress.