When Stress Starts Speaking Louder Than You
Your body will always whisper before it screams. Will you listen?
I turned 40 this year, and like every year, I wrote myself a little “do list” — not resolutions, but intentions for how I wanted to elevate. This was supposed to be my subtle bad bitch makeover: a few tweaks here and there — Botox, therapy, minimalist wardrobe, clean labs, deep connections. The kind of glow-up that doesn’t scream, but hums.
But instead of feeling renewed, 2025 has been low-key dragging me through the mud. A new job that’s more stressful than fulfilling. A political climate that feels like chaos on loop. A cost of living that makes every grocery run or happy hour feel like a math problem. Friends and family who are struggling in their own ways, where no one is entirely okay, everyone is quietly unraveling.
This is not the 40th year I envisioned.
It’s not the version of me I thought I’d be, either. But the truth is — my body started waving red flags long before I noticed. And lately, it’s been screaming one word at me, over and over again:
Stress.
The Body Keeps the Score (And the Receipts)
We often discuss burnout as if it’s simply being tired. But when stress starts living in your body, it’s not just fatigue — it’s inflammation, insomnia, hair loss, brain fog, anxiety, and in some cases… disease.
Your nervous system remembers every “I’m fine.” Every skipped meal, every “I’ll rest after this project,” every time you clenched your jaw to get through one more meeting, one more month, one more mess.
When you live in survival mode long enough, your body forgets how to thrive.
And by the time it catches up to you, the symptoms don’t look like stress anymore. They look like migraines, routine back aches, digestive issues, panic attacks, and a kind of heaviness that no spa day can fix.
The Reality of Not ‘Having It All’ at 40
There’s a quiet grief that comes with realizing you did everything right — worked hard, saved, hit milestones — and still feel unfulfilled. It’s a different kind of exhaustion.
The kind that sits in your bones.
You start to see how “success” was often just a prettier word for overextension. You realize how much you’ve been performing stability when you actually need support. And you start to understand that stress doesn’t always look like chaos — sometimes it’s a steady hum in the background, dull enough to ignore, but constant enough to erode you over time.
I’ve learned that if you don’t slow down voluntarily, your body will eventually decide for you.
So Now What? How I Plan to Get Ahead in 2026
Here are five unconventional ways I’m choosing to get ahead next year — no “new year, new me” energy. Just a softer, wiser one:
Prioritize nervous system regulation over productivity.
Before you chase another goal, learn what calm feels like again. Breathwork, hot girl walks, midday naps — whatever grounds you, do that first.Unsubscribe from struggle.
The world romanticizes resilience. Throw in the towel. Let ease be your new default setting.Do a “stress audit” every month.
Track what’s draining you. Be brutally honest. Then eliminate one thing each cycle — a task, a person, a habit — until your body sighs in relief.Rebuild your joy muscle.
Make joy a discipline, not an afterthought. Schedule girl dinners, dance, TikTok — even five minutes a day counts.Get radically honest with your doctor.
Don’t downplay your symptoms. Advocate for yourself. Request the labs. Ask the questions. Stress can be silent until it’s deadly — don’t wait for the warning signs to turn into a lifetime prescription pill regimen.
Final thoughts.
If you’re reading this and your body feels off — listen. If your sleep’s gone, your patience is thin, your spark feels dim — that’s not just getting older. That’s your body saying, “We can’t keep living like this.”
I hope that my biggest flex going into 2026 isn’t a new salary, a new Porsche, or even a new home — it’s peace.