People tend to have 'favourites' from among this list.

If we take me as an example, I'm more likely to switch into a 'flight' or 'freeze' mode than to pick a fight as a way of expressing my stress.

My son Kim, now 19, recently wrote the note below, at my request.

We'd been talking about how he had felt during the tumultous years of teenage searching and rebellion.

His summary seems to suggest that he was primarily in FREEZE mode, where the goal wasn't really to succeed, but to stay safe, which at the time had meant for him "staying alone and not changing."

What else does a stress mode prompt us to do? Here are some prominent features:

• 'Button down the hatches'. When we're stressed, we're much more likely to narrow our focus, keep our heads down (both physically and figuratively), and just try to plough on with how we've been going and hope for the best.
  
  
• Keep our troubles to ourselves. Women are more likely than men to talk about what is bothering them, but even they will often keep the more vulnerable, sensitive topics protected and wrapped in silence.
  
  
• Speed up excessively or drastically slow down. These are driven by the physiological responses preparing you to fight/flee or freeze. Since most of our daily stress is not related to physical threats, these responses are often not relevant to what we're trying to handle and therefore unhelpful.

Exploring reversing these gives us strong clues to what can help to reverse the stress. Let's see what that looks like next.

You would naturally do these when not stressed. DOING THEM DELIBERATELY at moments when you are feeling stressed gives you access to the fuller range of your normal faculties, which stress tends to restrict.

• Sit back and get a larger view. Even something as simple as expanding your posture, allowing yourself to sit back, is enough to give your body a prompt to move towards a calmer pace, which allows you to think more clearly and creatively.
  
  
• In discussion we trust. Getting in touch with someone we trust, and asking for their assistance in figuring out something we've been finding difficult is profoundly supportive of your flourishing.
  
  
• Slow and steady wins the race. A lot of the time, even when we are feeling stressed, there isn't a race. There is us trying to move towards a state that is more enjoyable than how we felt a minute ago.

Reversing the stress can take you into the territory of 'eustress' where your energy is powered up and focused. Rather than cancelling the stress, we can put it into 'reverse gear' and direct the energy charge the stress was carrying to serve us instead of tying us up in knots.

If something is causing you stress on a regular basis, consider whether 'Something's Gotta Give', as the film title has it.

The stress response in humans is designed to help us handle extreme situations: being attacked by a predator, falling off a cliff, etc.

It is not well-suited to help us with the everyday situations we face routinely (if you're reading this hanging off the edge of a cliff, kudos to you!).

Here's a prompt to determine now that you will USE YOUR STRESS as a friend, signposting you to what needs to change in your life/work. This might be a "minor" adjustment, such as a change of perspective, all the way to "major" turn-arounds if that's what feels right to you.

P.S. This blog post is an example of me practising what I preach. I sat down to write this post after feeling perplexed and stressed myself, and looking at image search results for 'stress'. Using that pent-up energy in a productive way proved massively de-stressing! :)