He used to casually say, “I’m stressed out.”
Then he would stretch, laugh, crack a joke, and return to
work as if stress were nothing more than background noise, like traffic in
Nairobi or emails piling up on a Monday morning. It was said with bravado, with
the unspoken belief that stress was just the cost of progress. The price you
pay when things are going well.
He was in his late forties. His business was thriving, and
contracts were closing. The future looked promising. To him, stress wasn't a
warning sign; it was evidence that he was in demand.
Until one evening, during a celebration of another
high-profile win, he stood on stage, smiled, and then collapsed. At first,
people laughed, thinking it was theatrical—a joke or an exaggeration. But when
someone rushed forward and checked his pulse—weak and irregular—the mood
changed. The laughter stopped suddenly. By the time medical help arrived, he
was gone.
That wasn’t a man spiraling. He wasn’t visibly broken. He
wasn’t complaining loudly or asking for help. He was doing what many
high-functioning people do exceptionally well: quietly absorbing stress and
calling it strength. And this is where we get stress wrong.
We curse it. We shame it. We talk about it as if it were the
villain of modern life. But stress isn't the enemy. Stress is the messenger.
And like ancient kings who executed messengers for bringing bad news, we kill
the signal instead of listening to the message.
Stress is not malicious. Stress is information. And when
that information has nowhere to go, it doesn’t disappear. It settles. It
embeds. It waits. This is the distinction most of us were never taught:
Stress that is expressed moves. Stress that is suppressed
is stored. Stress that is trapped transforms.
That difference—between movement and storage—is the
difference between pressure that heightens you and pressure that quietly wears
you down.
Over the last few weeks, I’ve had conversations with people
who live in profoundly stressful environments. Not the glamorous kind of stress
we celebrate in boardrooms, but the kind that lives in the nervous system long
after the workday ends.
An emergency nurse. A content reviewer. A caregiver in an
international school. Different worlds. Same biology.
Let me start with Jeremy.
That’s not his real name, but the story is true. Jeremy is a
content reviewer—one of the unseen people tasked with looking at what the rest
of society is protected from seeing. Graphic violence. Abuse. Disturbing
material that most of us see once, recoil from, and try to forget.
Jeremy sees it repeatedly. Daily. As part of his job. People
often say, “But it’s just content.” The nervous system disagrees. Your body
does not differentiate between physical danger and perceived danger. Every
unsettling image triggers the same ancient responses: a racing heart, tense
muscles, a quicker breath. The body prepares to act.
But here’s the problem. Jeremy cannot act. He cannot
intervene. He cannot resolve. He cannot stop what he is witnessing. He must
remain seated, professional, alert—while the next piece of content loads. So
the stress response activates and never fully finishes. There is no running, no
protecting, no resolution, just exposure followed by more exposure. And because
of confidentiality, Jeremy cannot go home and talk about his day. He cannot
unburden himself with friends. The images remain unprocessed, sealed inside.
Over time, something predictable happens—not because he is weak, but because he
is human. Emotional numbness sets in. Sleep becomes shallow—irritability
increases. The world begins to feel more dangerous than it once did. This is
not a failure of resilience. It’s what happens when the stress cycle is
interrupted halfway.
We evolved to face danger like this:
A threat appears → the body activates → action follows → the
threat resolves → the body discharges → the system returns to baseline.
Jeremy gets stuck at activation. And when stress cannot
complete its loop, it does not vanish. It becomes residue.
Mary is an emergency nurse. Her stress exposure, on paper,
is much more intense than Jeremy’s. She witnesses pain, injury, grief, and
death in real time. Sometimes, in overwhelming numbers. But there is a
significant difference. Mary acts. She moves. She decides. She intervenes. She
compresses wounds, administers medication, stabilizes patients, and coordinates
teams. Her stress response activates—and then releases through action.
This is where the idea of agency becomes crucial. Agency
isn’t confidence. It’s not positivity. It’s not even competence. Agency is the
felt sense that “my actions matter in what happens next.” Your nervous
system is always asking one question, whether you realize it or not:
Do I have influence here?
If the answer is yes, stress is seen as a challenge. If the
answer is no, stress is seen as a threat. That one difference determines
whether stress is processed or stored. This is why two people can face the same
danger and react very differently afterward. A firefighter entering a burning
building versus a civilian trapped in the same fire. Same threat. Different
agency.
Mary’s stress cycles occur more frequently, while Jeremy’s
rarely do. This doesn’t mean Mary is immune to burnout. Without proper
recovery, even action-oriented roles can accumulate damage. However, taking
action can delay how quickly stress gets embedded, whereas helplessness speeds
it up.
Then there is Gina.
Gina works at an international school as a caregiver in a
boarding environment. Her stress isn’t explosive; it’s subtle, relentless, and
interpersonal. She emotionally attunes to children who are anxious, distressed,
or struggling. She comforts, guides, and soothes, but she does so without
complete authority over outcomes.
She cares deeply but cannot address the root causes. This
kind of stress is especially corrosive, not because it's dramatic, but because
it is ongoing.
Gina must suppress her own emotions to stay calm and safe
for the children. Professionalism requires composure, even when her nervous
system is activated. Over time, the stress becomes part of fatigue, tension,
sleep issues, and compassion fatigue.
Teachers in the same environment experience something
similar. In the classroom, they have agency—movement, voice, participation, stress
shifts. But later, alone with grading, administrative tasks, and high
expectations, the loop stays open. Emotional processing is postponed. Sunday
night dread appears. Burnout follows quietly.
In international schools, especially, stress embeds because:
- Care
is given more than received
- Boundaries
between work and identity blur
- Success
is ambiguous
- Gratitude
is inconsistent
- Closure
is rare
People remain functional—but not free.
This brings us to a difficult truth: most people do not
break because they “can’t handle stress.” They break because their stress has
nowhere to go. When stress has no outlet, and you cannot act, escape, or
resolve, and must stay composed, the body prepares for action but receives no
completion signal. So where does the stress go? Into muscle tension. Into
shallow breathing. Into disrupted sleep. Into irritability and emotional
numbness. Into immune suppression and cardiovascular strain.
This is why people say, “Nothing terrible happened… but I’m
not okay.” The body remembers an incomplete threat. Talking helps. It restores
meaning and narrative. But without physical or behavioral discharge, talking
alone often doesn’t complete the loop. This is why effective recovery involves
movement, breath, routines, and rituals. The body needs evidence that the
danger has passed.
Here is the grounding insight that ties everything together:
Emergency nurses survive stress because action
completes the loop.
Content reviewers suffer because exposure has no outlet.
Educators and caregivers live in between—acting, but rarely closing.
Without intentional design, stress embeds quietly. And this
is not a resilience problem. It is a system design problem. High-functioning
people often say, “I can handle stress.” But the better question is:
Does your stress have a place to go?
If it doesn’t, it doesn’t matter how disciplined, capable,
or strong you are. Your body will eventually demand resolution. Stress that
moves sharpens you. Stress that settles changes you. Stress that remains
unfinished rewrites your health.
Agency does not remove hardship. It prevents hardship from
becoming trauma. And that, more than grit, more than motivation, more than
willpower—is what keeps people alive long enough to enjoy the lives they are
building.
If this message
stirred something in you, don’t let it fade.
1. Join
my LinkedIn Habit Coaching Newsletter: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/habits-with-coach-edwin-7399067976420966400/
2. Join
my Habit WhatsApp Community at https://whatsapp.com/channel/0029VbAmKkOBvvsWOuBx5g3L
3. Alternatively,
sign up for my 6-month Personal Transformation Coaching Program by
sending me a message on WhatsApp at +254-724328059.
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