You can understand your stress patterns, triggers, and habits and still feel anxious, tense, or burned out. In this episode, we explore why talk therapy and insight alone often aren’t enough to resolve chronic stress.

Your nervous system doesn’t process stress through language. It processes it through sensation, movement, breath, and physiology. When stress responses don’t get the chance to fully complete, the body stays stuck in survival mode.

We break down how stress lives in the body, why high performers struggle to truly relax, and how somatic work helps the nervous system restore safety, regulation, and capacity without forcing release or reliving trauma.

This episode breaks down:

• Why stress and trauma live in the body, not just the story
  
• How incomplete stress responses keep your nervous system stuck in survival mode
  
• Why high performers often feel on edge even when things are going well objectively
  
• The role of somatic work in restoring regulation, safety, and capacity
  
• How working with the body first creates sustainable emotional and nervous system healing

[00:45] Burnout as invisible stress patterns rooted in the nervous system

[02:18] Why high performers fear laziness and can’t fully rest
[03:25] Energetic stress: when stress is useful and performance-driven

[05:35] How chronic stress changes metabolism and energy use
[06:10] Why stress blocks fat loss and recovery
[08:05] Energetic stress vs survival stress explained

[09:27] Mapping the five stress patterns onto the curve
[09:45] Pushers and hyper-regulators in chronic fight-or-flight
[10:45] The pleaser between fight-or-flight and freeze
[11:53] The spiraler: oscillating between over-functioning and shutdown
[13:05] The floater in shutdown and energy conservation

[15:25] Burnout as feedback

Join the Wellthy Life Community - https://www.skool.com/the-wellthy-life-2589/about?ref=662a92e262084593b6d7ade834e29858

Take the Nervous System Pattern Quiz - https://shorturl.at/aHm4Q

Connect on Social - https://instagram.com/dr.deannawrose/

How I support high performers - https://deannawrose.com/programs 

Get email updates - https://deannawrose.com/connect#newsletter

Our next Masterclass is Jan 24, 2026, save your spot here https://deannawrose.com/masterclass

Our next 14 Day OS Reset starts Feb 02, 2026, save your spot herehttps://deannawrose.com/OSReset