It’s not you, it’s my allostatic load
I just read about this term about five minutes ago, and it changes everything.
Allostatic load is the accumulated effects of physical, emotional, and situational stress on the body. When our stress exceeds our resilience—when what we are going through is more than what our genetic and contextual ability to cope can manage—we exceed our allostatic load and burnout, disease, and, yes, even death can occur. According to Psychology Today, 50-70% of all physical illnesses are caused at least in part by stress—stress that exceeds the allostatic load.
Managing your stressors and not exceeding your allostatic load is kind of a big deal.
I have a mental image of myself standing at the window—it’s a clear morning and the sun is just rising. I’m holding the day’s first coffee, and the steam is rising from the small white cup as I bring it to my lips for that first bright and bitter sip. All is right with my morning.
Then I look up and see a bubbling and black edge of the world spilling over the horizon just below an indifferent rising sun.
Even though I didn’t really know it, I have been looking out over the horizon of my allostatic load for a while now.
Stress smells like microwave popcorn one second before it burns, sounds like the fuzzy silence after the last song on a vinyl record, tastes like a mouth dry with that inevitable news you hoped would never come.
It’s riddled with empty notebooks and ungraded papers. Internet wormholes and Wordle. Stacks of unread, half-read, and I-forgot-I-read-and-bought-again books. Empty bottles and wilted vegetables. Too many sleepless nights and too many sleepy days.
What can I do to look forward to, rather than dread, the view from my window? How can I clear my horizon?
Let some things go. Just because I have it doesn’t mean I have to use it now. I may have had a plan to write in that notebook, read that book, or complete that project, but if that plan isn’t working now, table it for later. Rather than continuing to feel pressure of “failure” I can enjoy the anticipation of a project.
Put some things down. The phone, the fork, the glass, the credit card. Whatever it is, chances are I don’t really need it (and I already have something like it). Besides, Amazon doesn’t need any more of my money.
Take up some space. Stand akimbo—literally—in the middle of the day and see what happens. Guard the door. Make space in the day and improve its outlook (Outlook)? Don’t plan a wholesale change and then stress about not being able to do it, just stretch out—block the way. 20 minutes around lunchtime to read a book, half an hour before bedtime with tea and a journal, 40 minutes in the morning with Monday’s co-rise community.
While the allostatic load will overload each of us one day, it should be one day, not everyday, and not today.
