Identifying my body’s signals when it needs a pause or care

If a smoke alarm went off in your house, you wouldn’t ignore it. If your car’s horn started blaring nonstop, you’d rush to check it. If a siren warned of a tornado in your neighborhood, you’d immediately seek shelter.

The body also has alarms, but we tend to ignore them. Changes in mood, recurring pain, fatigue that doesn’t go away, digestive problems, or constant arguments are ways of saying “stop.” The problem is that, from a young age, many of us learned to silence those signals. We heard phrases like “don’t be so sensitive,” “don’t cry,” “toughen up.” And so, we stopped paying attention to what we feel.

How the stress alarm works

Stress is not just feeling nervous. It is a defense mechanism involving the brain, the hormonal system, and the immune system. When we perceive a threat, the HPA axis (hypothalamus–pituitary–adrenals) is activated:

• The hypothalamus releases a substance called CRH.

• The pituitary responds by secreting ACTH.

• The adrenals, stimulated by ACTH, produce cortisol.

Adrenaline speeds up the heart and mobilizes energy. Cortisol helps sustain that reaction, raising blood sugar and adjusting immunity.

• In the short term: this protects us, letting us run, defend ourselves, or respond quickly.

• In the long term: if the system never shuts off, it wears us down. It raises blood pressure, weakens bones, slows healing, and lowers defenses.

Hans Selye, a pioneer in this field, used the metaphor of a rubber band or spring. It can stretch and return to its shape. But if it stays stretched all the time, it deforms and eventually breaks.

Emotional signals

The first alarms are often emotional. The body asks for a pause when you notice:

• deeper sadness or growing anxiety,

• irritability and unusual bad temper,

• thoughts spinning in circles nonstop,

• difficulty concentrating or remembering simple things,

• loss of interest in activities you once enjoyed (like a book you’d been waiting to read, a creative project, or a hobby).

There may also be the sense of being overwhelmed, as if nothing is enough. Dr. Gerda Maissel compares it to a plank on a seesaw: at first you try to balance the weight of problems, but eventually everything tips over at once.

Relationship signals

Stress also shows up in how we relate to others. When overloaded:

• arguments happen more often,

• patience runs thin,

• we withdraw or avoid contact,

• our gestures and tones carry tension even if we don’t realize it.

Often it’s those around us who notice first: “you seem different,” “you sound irritable.” They reflect what’s happening inside.

Physical signals

The body speaks clearly. Common signals include:

• headaches, neck and back tension, jaw clenching,

• digestive issues like heartburn, indigestion, or constipation,

• frequent colds,

• wounds that heal more slowly,

• disrupted sleep: sleeping a lot but waking up exhausted, or not being able to rest at all.

The immune system also shows the toll. Many people get sick right after finishing a demanding period, like students after exams or new graduates who catch a cold as soon as they finish university. It’s the body “letting go” after staying on alert too long.

Real-life stories

Alan, a 47-year-old engineer, was diagnosed with esophageal cancer. He never smoked or drank, but lived under what he called “good stress”: eleven-hour days, seven days a week. He loved saying yes to everything, always busy, always in a rush. That constant pace distracted him from deeper emotional issues: a marriage without intimacy and frustrations he never addressed. For him, endless work was positive; yet that chronic pressure contributed to his illness. Only after his diagnosis did he learn to say “no,” realizing that slowing down was a way to preserve his life.

Gabrielle, age 58, was diagnosed with scleroderma. All her life she had been the one in control, the one who took care of everything. When the disease appeared, she felt out of control and profoundly vulnerable. She admitted she had read that many people who develop scleroderma are those who have always had to be in charge, unable to let go. Her body forced her to stop and to accept she couldn’t carry everything on her shoulders.

What science shows

Research clearly demonstrates how chronic stress affects health:

• Alzheimer’s caregivers show weakened defenses. Their NK cells, which attack viruses and malignant cells, function poorly. Even years after their loved one’s death, their immune levels remain low.

• Their response to vaccines is also reduced: while 80% of healthy people develop flu immunity, only 20% of caregivers do.

• Wound healing slows down. On average, their wounds took nine days longer to close than those of non-stressed people.

• University students healed more slowly from a small wound during exams than during vacation.

Constantly elevated cortisol suppresses the inflammation needed to repair tissues. Instead of defending itself, the body gets stuck.

Universal stress triggers

Studies have identified three conditions that almost always set off the alarm:

• Uncertainty: not knowing what will happen.

• Lack of information: not having clarity about a situation.

• Loss of control: feeling powerless to influence events.

These factors are everywhere in modern life: job changes, economic crises, family illness. The body reacts to all of them as if they were immediate threats.

Emotional competence: the missing key

Psychologist Ross Buck explained that emotions operate on three levels:

• Emotion I: physiological reactions (heart rate, hormones, immunity).

• Emotion II: what we show others (gestures, tone of voice, posture).

• Emotion III: what we consciously feel.

As children, many of us were taught to repress emotions, damaging our ability to manage these three levels. We grew up without emotional competence: unable to fully feel and express our needs, to tell apart what belongs to the present from what comes from the past, or to recognize our real needs instead of silencing them to please others.

Without this competence, the body expresses what the mind ignores. Illness, fatigue, and pain become the language of what we cannot say.

How to respond in time

Stress cannot be eliminated, but it can be regulated. Recognizing the signals is the first step. And responding doesn’t require big changes or long vacations:

• Take short breaks throughout the day.

• Turn off your phone for a few minutes.

• Breathe deeply for three to five counts, then exhale the same.

• Move your body: climb stairs, stretch, walk.

• Draw, color, or dance to a single song.

• Keep regular sleep routines.

• Talk to someone you trust about what you feel.

These small actions lower the alarm’s intensity and let the body recover.

Listening to inner alarms

The body warns us in many ways: through emotions, through relationships that strain, through physical symptoms that repeat. Ignoring them is like silencing a smoke alarm and staying inside the house. Listening to them, instead, is an act of self-care. It means giving the body the pause and attention it needs to move forward with greater health and balance.