The Science of Stress Addiction

What if the reason you feel stuck, anxious, or emotionally drained isn’t just “in your head”—but hardwired deep into your brain and body? In this jaw-dropping episode, we dive into the science-backed truths about chronic stress and trauma that almost no one is talking about. Drawing from Jim Moore’s powerful book Overcome Stress and Thrive Again and insights from his transformative Udemy course, we uncover the shocking ways stress rewires your brain, changes your personality, and silently controls your reactions.

Discover how your body might actually become addicted to stress chemicals, why that anxious loop you can’t escape is more than just overthinking, and the eye-opening truth about how trauma leaves lasting fingerprints on your nervous system. But most importantly—learn the hopeful, science-based path out. Through the power of neuroplasticity, you can break free, rewire your brain, and feel like yourself again.

If you've ever wondered why it’s so hard to calm down, why positive thinking alone doesn’t work, or how yoga, mindfulness, and neuroscience can team up to change your life—this episode is your wake-up call. Watch now and take the first step toward reclaiming your calm, clarity, and confidence.

Discover the Hidden Science Behind Chronic Stress

Welcome back to our deep dive series. This one's really designed for you, the learner, looking to get a solid handle on the science behind stress and, well, trauma, and importantly, how you can actually start taking control. Exactly. We know you want insights that are quick, but also thorough. So, today we're digging into Jim Moore's book, Overcome Stress and Thrive Again, and also pulling from his Udemy course plan on using yoga for stress relief.

Our mission really is to unpack what chronic stress actually does to your brain, to your body, and to share that really empowering message that, you know, change is possible.

It truly is.

So, let's start there. Sources point out something pretty fundamental. Stress, even trauma, it happens, right? It's part of being human. Absolutely.

Our brains are, uh, naturally wired with a stress response system. It's for survival.

But here's the catch Moore talks about. Yes. The repetition. Constantly thinking about those traumatic or stressful events. That's what reinforces the negative pathways. It sort of hardwires them leading to chronic stress, maybe even PTSD potentially. Yes.

High Beta Brainwaves: When Your Brain Is Stuck in Overdrive

And this often manifests as what he calls a high beta brainwave state. Okay, high beta. Let's break that down. If someone's in that state, what does that actually mean? What does it feel like? Well, think of it as your brain being on high alert, constantly scanning for threats, real or perceived. It's very, um, survival oriented. So it limits you.

It definitely limits your emotional range. When you're in high beta, accessing feelings like joy, calm, connection, it becomes much harder. Your brain is basically prioritizing fight-or-flight readiness. Stuck into overdrive. Like you said, reactive. Exactly. Reactive rather than, say, responsive or engaged in a calm way. Okay.

Now, the book also mentions this concept, the loop of negative feelings. How does that work? Sounds like getting stuck. It really is a way of getting stuck. So imagine a negative thought pops into your head, maybe triggered by a memory or a current stressor. That thought then generates a corresponding negative emotion. And critically, this isn't just mental.

The Vicious Feedback Loop of Thoughts, Emotions, and Body Sensations

You feel it in your body, like that knot in your stomach. Precisely. Muscle tension, shallow breathing, that knot. And here's the loop part. Your mind then perceives those bodily sensations and interprets them. Yes. Interprets them as more evidence that the initial negative thought was right, that the situation is bad or dangerous, which just fuels more negative thoughts. Exactly.

Thought leads to feeling. Feeling leads to bodily sensation. Sensation reinforces the thought. It's a self-perpetuating cycle. Wow. And that makes it hard to, you know, feel better or even focus on goals. Absolutely. You're caught in this loop of suffering physiologically and mentally. It drains your energy and focus. So, it's not just in your head.

There's a real physical component locking it in very much so. And this ties into how trauma itself can impact the brain. The sources talk about actual rewiring. Rewiring. That sounds significant. It is. Moore explains that a traumatic event can cause real structural changes, functional changes in the brain.

Trauma Rewires the Brain—But It’s Reversible

He even mentions that, uh, gene expression can shift, essentially priming the body for an ongoing state of emergency. So thinking about the trauma over and over, you're basically practicing that neural circuit, strengthening those connections associated with the negative experience. It can amplify the negative aspects, making them feel more powerful, more pervasive.

That's a pathway towards conditions like PTSD. And this connects back to that high beta state we talked about. Yes, definitely. Chronic negative thinking, replaying trauma, it can make that high beta state the brain's default setting. Almost like it forgets how to operate in calmer states, right? And the book points out something fascinating, maybe a bit unsettling, the body can get sort of addicted.

That's a strong word, but physiologically, yes. When the body is constantly flooded with stress hormones, cortisol, adrenaline from being in that chronic high beta state, the system can become accustomed to it. It starts to feel normal. Normal, but it's actually a state of high stress. Exactly. And the body might even, in a way, crave those chemicals because that state has become its baseline.

Your Body Might Be Addicted to Stress—Here’s Why

This makes shifting out of it feel really difficult. There's a physical inertia. So it's not just willpower. There's a biological pull keeping you there. Mhm. Which leads us to how the brain and body get wired for these responses. The Udemy course plan mentions neurons that fire together wire together. Can you unpack that for us? Sure.

It's a core principle of neuroplasticity actually. Heb's law basically. Yeah. Every time you think a thought or feel an emotion, specific brain cells, neurons, activate together. Okay? If they activate together repeatedly, the connection, the synapse between them gets stronger, more efficient. It's like carving a path in a forest.

The more you use it, the clearer it becomes. So with stress, every time you have that stress response, the trigger, the anxious thought, the racing heart, those specific neurons fire together. Repeat that enough and the pathway becomes incredibly strong, almost automatic. A habit, an emotional habit, even especially emotional habits.

How Emotional Habits Get Burned Into the Brain and Body

Moore points out that traumatic memories, strong emotional patterns can get deeply lodged in the subconscious brain this way. That's why reactions can feel so immediate, so out of your conscious control sometimes. And it's not just the brain, right? The book stresses that the body learns these patterns, too. Absolutely.

It's a whole system response. The constant release of stress chemicals affects everything. Muscle tension becomes chronic. Digestion gets disrupted. Even how you hold your face. Yes. Habitual facial expressions reflecting anxiety or tension. These patterns become so ingrained, so familiar that Moore says we might mistake them for just who we are instead of learned stress responses. Exactly.

And he makes a really interesting point about the body's nervous plexuses like the heart center, the solar plexus. These dense nerve networks, they seem to have their own kind of memory, a body memory, you could call it that. They can become conditioned to churn out stress chemicals almost independently based on past experiences.

Stress Can Live in Your Nerves—Not Just Your Mind

It's like the body itself is anticipating the stress. Okay, so let's recap for a second. We've got this high beta state, kind like being stuck on high alert, limiting our positive feelings. Mh. And then there's this loop of negative feelings where our thoughts and our body sensations just keep feeding each other, keeping us trapped, right? Mind and body reinforcing the stress pattern.

It sounds like we can get really deeply wired for stress and negativity. That's the scientific reality of it. Yes. Understanding that, seeing how these patterns get established in the brain and body, that's the crucial first step. It helps us see it's not a personal failing, it's a physiological process. But and this is the really important but from these sources this wiring isn't permanent. It's not a life sentence.

Exactly. That is the core message of hope here. It comes down to neuroplasticity. The brain's ability to change. Its natural ability to change, to form new connections, reorganize existing ones all throughout life. It happens in response to learning, new experiences. Even just intentional focus, thinking differently, feeling differently.

Yes, You Can Rewire Your Brain—Starting Now

Moore really emphasizes this, doesn't he? He does. He stresses that while changing deep patterns takes consistent effort, the brain is designed to adapt, the potential for rewiring is always, always there. So for you, the learner listening right now, what we've laid out is how stress and trauma can genuinely shape your brain, your body, leading to these tough states like high beta or getting caught in that negative loop.

But the key takeaway grounded in science is that this wiring can be changed. It's not fixed. You actually have the power to reshape those patterns. Absolutely. And just think about that for a moment. If these stress patterns were learned, wired through repetition, then new patterns can be learned, too. Precisely. New, healthier, happier patterns can be intentionally created and strengthened through practice.

That's the power of neuroplasticity applied to overcoming stress. So maybe the question to ponder is knowing your brain and body can change, what's one small intentional step you might consider.