Kirsten’s Perspective

is a monthly reflection on making health feel clearer, calmer, and more human. Drawing on years of experience alongside physicians and patients, this series helps translate complex medical information into understandable, actionable insight – with compassion, context, and respect for where each person is starting.

Thriving Under Pressure and Other Things We Tell Ourselves

You know that person who says they “thrive under pressure”?

Yeah. We need to talk about that.

Because most of the time, that’s not thriving. That’s just being really, really good at running on stress. Which is a completely different thing that we have collectively decided to call a personality trait so we don’t have to look at it too closely.

It usually sounds like: I’m Type A. Or I don’t sit still well. Or the classic — I just don’t know how to slow down.

Said like it’s as fixed as eye color. Like it’s the same as preferring your coffee black or being a morning person.

It is not.

Stress is not a personality trait. It’s a physiological state. And a lot of very capable, very high-functioning people are living in that state full-time and calling it normal. And then wondering why, on paper they’re crushing it, but in their body… they’re absolutely not.

 

These are the people who get everything done. The ones holding everything together for everyone else. They answer the emails. They manage the schedules. They’re taking care of kids, jobs, homes, aging parents, relationships — sometimes all before 9 am. They work out. They try to eat well. They take the supplements.

From the outside? They look freaking great.

From the inside? Running on fumes and caffeine and sheer stubbornness.

But they don’t say that part out loud, because they’re the one who handles things. So, they keep going.

Coffee. Adrenaline. A questionable amount of sleep. Repeat.

I say they but I obviously mean we.

I am exceptionally good at stress. Highly efficient, very productive, can handle a lot, don’t complain (much). Hand me a full plate and I will figure out how to carry it. For a long time, I genuinely thought that was my superpower.

Here’s what I know now: being good at stress and being healthy are not in the same zip code.

 

Two years ago, my dad died.

I’m an only child, and my mom was devastated. So, I did what I always do — I held it together and kept moving. And it wasn’t sudden, which would have almost been easier.

He had a fall, then a slow brain bleed, then surgery at 84 that actually went incredibly well. We were hopeful. Things were looking up. And then somewhere in the hospital or rehab — we still don’t know exactly where — he got MRSA.

His heart stopped one night. We didn’t have a DNR. They shocked him twice. Broke all his ribs bringing him back.

And then over the next few days, we watched his body start to shut down. We had to make the decision to let him go. We held his hands as he left us.

I have never felt pain like that in my life.

And my body felt every bit of it.

Every autoimmune issue I’d worked for years to get under control came roaring back. I gained 40 pounds. I developed large thyroid nodules. I got really, genuinely sick.

Not because I was doing anything wrong. Because of stress.

Grief-level, life-upending, nervous-system-torching stress.

 

Here’s the thing most people don’t understand about stress: your body doesn’t know the difference between a tiger and your inbox.

It really doesn’t. You’re stuck in traffic. Your boss schedules a surprise performance review. You’re behind someone going 35 in a 50. You make the mistake of opening the news on a Tuesday.

Your body responds the same way to all of it — cortisol up, blood sugar affected, inflammation increased, digestion deprioritized, sleep disrupted. The whole cascade.

And before you say well not all stress is bad — you’re right, it’s not. Exercise is technically stress. Cold plunges are stress. Hiking is stress. Those things create short bursts of cortisol followed by recovery, and your body gets stronger for it.

That is very different from the slow, relentless cortisol drip most of us are swimming in.

Grief. Financial pressure. Bad sleep. Constant notifications. Relationship tension. A nervous system that hasn’t fully come down in years. Same hormone, completely different outcome.

So you end up tired but wired. Waking up at 3 am thinking about things you cannot solve at 3 am. Inflamed. Puffy. Off. You go get labs done and everything comes back “normal.”

Cool. So now you’re exhausted AND confused.

 

I’ve spent the better part of a decade sitting alongside patients — watching what chronic stress does to real people’s bodies over time. Watching the ones who do everything “right” still feel terrible, because we kept chasing the next supplement or test while their nervous system had submitted its two weeks and stopped showing up.

You cannot out-supplement a body that never gets to stop running.

You cannot heal in the same state that made you sick.

And I know, I know — the actual solution is deeply unsexy. It’s not a new protocol or a fancy device or a lab panel we haven’t tried yet.

It’s going to bed earlier. Eating consistently. Getting outside in the morning. Walking. Breathing. Saying no to things. Not scheduling your life like a hostage negotiation with your own calendar.

Boring. Foundational. Works every time.

 

Here’s the part that matters:

You are not a “stress person.”

You are a person whose body adapted to a high-stress environment — because that’s what bodies do, they adapt. They’re incredible that way.

But adaptation goes both ways. What it learned, it can unlearn. Slowly, imperfectly, but reliably.

Most people don’t need a more aggressive plan. They need someone to look at what they’re actually carrying and say — of course you feel like this. And then help them put a little of it down.

Not all of it. Just some.

Your body will get your attention eventually. It always does. The question is just whether you wait until it locks you out, changes the WIFI password, and doesn’t respond to texts. Ask me how I know.

If you’re in the middle of it right now, I get it more than I wish I did.

You know where to find me. That conversation — the real one, not the “I’m fine” one — is the whole reason I show up. On my best days and my worst ones.