Pod Insights Change Wired How to grow stronger and more confident through stress and challenges. Research-backed 4-pillar framework: train it, reframe it, release it. How to grow stronger and more confident through stress and challenges. Research-backed 4-pillar framework: train it, reframe it, release it. Change Wired
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About this episode Stress can hit like a wave, but it doesn’t have to overflow your day. I’m breaking down a 4-pillar stress management framework that goes beyond the usual advice and gives you a practical toolkit you can test in real situations, from work pressure to family stress to that quiet, constant hum of anxiety. We start with the body, because your nervous system is the fastest on-ramp to relief. Then we talk about something that sounds backwards but works: training calm through controlled stress like...
Transcript 0:09 Speaker 00 Hey guys and welcome back to another episode of Change Wired Podcast. My name is Angela Shorina, I'm your host, I'm your guide in personal and collective transformation, your master health, sleep, stress management and executive coach. And just someone who is really passionate about human potential, what we can do with that and how to unlock more of it using science-backed tools, time and people-tested strategies and different methodologies, including designing and organizing our environment and probably these days AI.
0:51 Speaker 00 Today, guys, we are focused on stress management, specifically on a whole range of four pillar stress management framework, a whole range of stress management tools that not mentioned that often. You see, stress is a physiological phenomenon, but it's also a psychological phenomenon. And the way we think about certain situations in life can stress us more than those actual things. And depending on how we think about different stresses in our life, they're going to stress us out more or less. And because of that, we're going to deal with life either more or less effectively.
1:37 Speaker 00 And today, you're going to learn how to combine and use different tools that are in the realm of our biology, how to control your biology for better stress management, how to manage your biology. It's in the psychology part, how to deal with your emotions through.
1:59 Speaker 00 Cultivating a certain kind of internal dialogue. And also, it's about designing our environment and using certain experiences to help us relieve and manage and unload stress a lot better physiologically and psychologically, right? Humans are what it's called bio-psychosocial creatures. And things in all of these areas, biology, psychology, and our environment, you know, social life, affect how stressed we are, how chilled or relaxed we are, and how we deal with different challenges that life throws our way.
2:41 Speaker 00 And so today, it's a stress management toolkit that is more complete than what you usually would get in a workshop or reading certain article. And by the end of this podcast, you're gonna have a whole range of tools. And my assignment for you is gonna be to try out different tools for different situations and see what ultimately works for you. Because what stress researchers all agree on is that there is really good research confirming the effectiveness of the tools that you're gonna learn today, all of the tools. But the toolkit that works the best for you in a very specific situation is gonna be
3:25 Speaker 00 either slightly or a lot different than what works for somebody else. And the best way to figure out what works for you is to actually try it and experiment with that. So let's dig into that. The first is the physical side of stress. To, when you learn to release stress physiologically, you also release a lot of it psychologically and emotionally. Your body is not separate from your psychology, from your nervous system, through your nervous system. And because of that, when you learn how to release stress in your body, you will also be releasing emotional and psychological stress, a lot of it.
4:07 Speaker 00 So what are some key tools that are the most effective for releasing stress physiologically? One of the key tools is breath work, specifically a long exhale, focus, belly breathing. When you inhale. And then slow down your breathing out process.
4:31 Speaker 00 And you do it for three minutes, for five minutes. I usually recommend doing no less than five breath cycles, just really slowing down your breathing. And that's the whole idea is to make your exhales and the rate of your breathing a lot slower. And that would helps to change the state of your nervous system from fight or flight to rest and digest and all the recovery processes getting activated. And you physiologically, again, your cortisol goes down, your blood pressure, blood sugar normalized, you feel psychologically and emotionally better. So all of these things happen when you change the rate of your breathing, because it also changes the rate of your heart rate, and that basically changes everything else.
5:16 Speaker 00 So breathing, that's tool number one. Tool number two is what's called body scan and release. Through nervous system, because of the connection between your psychology, your emotions, and your body through nervous system, when you get stressed psychologically because of, you know, something is happening, you're thinking that it's stressful and you're feeling it. So your body gets tensed in different areas. Exactly what areas, you know, it can be quite individual and going to depend on you. Some people hold it in their upper backs, some people in lower backs, some people in their hips, etc. And so when you learn how to scan your body, you literally close your eyes and you feel into your body
5:59 Speaker 00 and see where you hold tension. Is it again, your shoulders and upper back? Is it your lower back? Is it your chest? Is it your neck? Is it your maybe hips or somewhere in your legs? Where do you feel stress? So when you find it in your body, spend a little bit of time releasing it and relaxing this area. I often recommend breathing into this area. So you breathe in, you combine it with breath work. You breathe in for the count of four, let's say, and breathe out into this area for the count of eight, really trying to relax it. So that is another way to release, really good research-backed way to release a lot
6:41 Speaker 00 of stress physiologically. And by doing so, relax your psychology and change your emotional state as well. And then The other part of helping yourself to deal with stress better, not just physiologically, but also psychologically, internal dialogue and emotions, actually stressing your body through certain practices to make your body feel okay going through stressful experiences and not trying to skip it, not freaking out, but instead staying calm when you feel stress in your body. What I mean by that?
7:24 Speaker 00 Doing things like exercise, especially high intensity intervals. It's a lot of stress on your bodily energy systems, on all of your systems. And that's a stress for your body. Your cortisol actually goes up, your blood pressure goes up, your blood sugar goes up. And it's like all of the things, including your immune system, are activated. Yeah, it's kind of like somebody's chasing you. Your body is upped and ready. But at the same time, because it is a controlled experience, after a while, your body gets used, your mind gets used to not freaking out when your body is under the stress. And that is very helpful when, for example, you're going through a stress at work and your heart starts racing and you know, maybe your cheeks get red
8:09 Speaker 00 and maybe your palms start sweating. But at the same time, you're going to be able to think clearly. And instead of reacting and maybe regretting some responses after, you actually will be able to think through and respond calmly. That's what this kind of experience does to you. Another couple of experiences that do the same work and available to most people, cold exposure, like taking cold shower every day and doing a sauna. Those are also physical experiences that deliver stress in a managed form. So then you can learn how to experience stress in your body physically and still stay calm in your mind. So three practices on the physiological level of stress management. We had your breath work.
8:54 Speaker 00 You have your body scan and release. And then we have physical stress in a managed form, which is some form of high intensity exercise, cold exposure, sauna and similar experiences.
9:11 Speaker 00 The second, the second layer of managing your stress has to do with psychology. And there are a few sort of ways how we tend to put more stress on ourselves psychologically, more than it's there, than it has to be. And in a way that doesn't allow us to be effective in line, in life and dealing with the stress and the same solving, at the same time solving problems. Overload, catastrophizing, feeling overwhelmed with things happening in your life. Whenever that happens on a psychological level, here are a few things, three things that can help you to deal with that a lot better. Number one, fear setting.
9:55 Speaker 00 Whenever you're going through a situation, and I learned this tool from Tim Ferriss, look him up, very fascinating individual. And he popularized this exercise, which is actually used by a lot of psychologists, therapists and different people dealing with anxiety and overthinking things. So fear setting, it's very useful when you start thinking about, worrying about all the bad things that can happen, or you unable to take action because you think about all of the, you know, bad things that can happen, or negative consequences, or things that you're unsure, uncertain about. So what is fear setting? It's asking yourself, what's the worst that could happen if I take this action or that I'm worried about, right?
10:40 Speaker 00 What's the worst case scenario? And then you ask yourself, what's the actual probability of that happening? Besides me catastrophizing and thinking it, of course, is gonna happen. But what's the actual probability based on your experience? And you might even ask your AI agent, like, what's the probability of this scenario actually happening based on your sort of analysis? The third question is, if it did happen, what would I do? Like, how would I get back on my feet? And the fourth question is, what can I do now to reduce the probability of that worst case happening? And when you walk yourself through these four questions, what the worst case scenario, what's the actual probability of that? Or if it happened, what would I do? And what can I do now to prevent it from happening in the first place?
11:25 Speaker 00 Once you walk yourself through the sequence of questions, that again, exercise is called fear setting by Tim Ferriss, you get a lot covered because you realize.
11:36 Speaker 00 A, worst case scenario is not that likely to happen. And even if it did happen, it wouldn't be such a big thing. And you'd be able to get back on your feet and you can do a lot to prevent it. Right. So this is number one. Number two, again, in the same layer of over being feeling overloaded, overwhelmed and catastrophizing. Take stock and delete. And I learned this from Alyssa Apple. She is, she has a PhD. I believe in stress management, mindfulness and just learning how to regulate our emotions and psychology. So she has this exercise in her book, Stress Prescription.
12:22 Speaker 00 Taking stock and deleting whatever overwhelms you, whatever stresses you out, whatever you catastrophize. I think just write down everything that's on your plate. And then look for the things that are unnecessary to carry. Look at the things that you don't have to worry about right now. Look at the things that you can delegate. Look at the things that you can ask for help with. Believe it or not, you don't have to resolve everything right now, today. You can deal with the most important things and put the rest of it either on hold or ask somebody else to deal with it, saying, hey, this is what's on my plate and I can't really effectively deal with everything. Can you help me with that?
13:07 Speaker 00 Right. So that is a very helpful practice. And the third practice in the same layer is worry window. Again, also by Alyssa Apple in the Stress Prescription. And it's all about delegating or not delegating, scheduling specific time, like 20 minutes a day. Usually at the be, not necessarily the beginning, but not right before. But you spend 20 minutes by writing about everything that worries you. And then what it helps you to do is during the day when something worrisome comes up in your mind, something you are anxious about, you're worried about. You can just write it down in the app or in a notebook and.
13:51 Speaker 00 Say to yourself, hey, I'm gonna worry about it and think about that in that window. And that action alone allows you to be calmer, more focused, more centered on the present moment and what you can do now, instead of being, having this scattered attention because you have all these things to worry about. Believe it or not, again, when you dedicate a specific time every day for the things that you worry about, the rest of the day, you're actually gonna be pretty calm and focused. So at this layer of the feeling fearful, overloaded, overwhelmed, catastrophizing,
14:31 Speaker 00 three tools here, setting by Tim Ferriss, take stock and delete by Elisa Apple from Stress Prescription, like you don't have to carry everything that you feel is on your plate, at least not all at the same moment. And then worry window, dedicating a specific time window, like 20 minutes every day, to think about, think through and worry about things.
14:57 Speaker 00 Now, the third layer or the third level of stress management is all about building more psychological and emotional resilience or being able to bounce back from challenging things or deal with challenging things a lot more effectively. A feeling psychologically and emotionally empowered, not overwhelmed by this stuff, and getting stronger and more capable going through challenges, which are usually your growth opportunities. So two things I'd like to mention here. We kind of talked about physical resilience, right? High intensity interval training, sauna, cold exposure.
15:41 Speaker 00 And in this layer, we're talking about reframing, changing how you think about challenges and stressors on your plate. Two tools, I've got this. So this is also from Elisa Apple and the books, The Stress Prescription. And the reframing is all about when you think about... A stressor, a challenging situation that is happening or about to come up in your life. What you do is you stop and you think through and list, make a list of all the hard things that you already overcame in your life. You literally write it all down. Of all the things you thought that you couldn't handle and you did handle.
16:23 Speaker 00 All this stuff that came into your life and you were able to live through it. You are alive today. You went through a lot of hard stuff and I know that with one hundred percent certainty. So how about focusing your brain on that and understanding that in each case, when you're faced with a challenge, it feels impossible and you somehow still do it. And again, looking into your history, not trying to bullshit your brain, is the best way to create the sense of certainty that yes, I've got this, right? And you also remembering that there are people that you can ask for help and there are again all the other resources that you haven't thought about.
17:08 Speaker 00 So you've got this, like no matter what, you've got this and you'll be able to move through just like all the other times you did before. So this is tool number one, I've got this. Tool number two, I get to do this. What I mean by that is very often when we are presented with a work challenge or we are presented with challenges in our, in our personal lives, like we need to take care of our families or we need to do something for our personal self-care. We forget that our, that it's an opportunity to be able to be useful either to other people or to yourself
17:48 Speaker 00 or to have this challenge at work that's gonna grow you and gonna open up so many new opportunities and doors for you. It's a growth opportunity, like you get to do this, you get to be alive. You know, every Friday we go and hike a mountain. I used to be a little bit on a lazier side, like, oh, I have to do this again. And then I realized so by through watching some documentaries and people who Not able to even walk and I'm like, I have all my capacities and I can freaking hike a mountain every single day if I want to. What a beauty it is, right? I get to do that. So that helped, that completely changed my experience and helped me to lean in and get stronger and challenge myself more.
18:33 Speaker 00 While hiking that mountain, feeling really, really good about that. So two tools to build psychological resilience or your ability to bounce back from challenges. And handle them more effectively without them stressing you out, but instead feeling empowered that you can take them on. The first reframe is I've got this, thinking about all the hard things that you overcame, thinking about all the resources and people you can ask for help, right? You've got this, you've gone through stuff like that. And then I get to do this. You don't have to do anything, but you get to do challenging stuff because you are a capable human.
19:12 Speaker 00 So these are two fundamentally transformational tools that will help you to transform your psychology, which will transform your biology and your emotional state. And the stressors will make you stronger without stressing you out all that much. And the last but not least are the environmental and essential tools that help you to unload stress, release stress, so then you can build more capacity, you can be better psychologically and emotionally and physiologically, and be more effective with handling all the stressors or challenges that are coming into your life.
19:58 Speaker 00 Nature has been shown to be one of the most effective stress releasers, the deeper the nature, meaning, let's say, compare a, an urban park, park in the city and a park like completely in the wilderness, right? So the deeper the nature exposure, the better it works, but even things like listening to rain sounds. Birds sounds or putting pictures of nature, beautiful scenery in your office or in your apartment or on your phone even, those things also help. So microdosing and macrodosing nature is helpful. They even prescribe it in some countries for more, I guess, advanced countries. So when it comes to
20:41 Speaker 00 non-traditional methodologies like, you know, New Zealand, Japan, they prescribe going into nature to deal with or prevent burnout, anxiety, overwhelm, stress, worry, etc., right? So nature, number one, including animals and plants of all kinds. Socials, number two, we are bio-psychosocial creatures. The right kind of relationships are very stress-releasing. They help us to stress less and manage stress a lot better. So use that. Whenever you feel things overwhelm you, don't hide inside by yourself. Talk to your people you love and you care about. Go and meet with friends. Go for walks with friends.
21:21 Speaker 00 Do something communal, whether that's volunteering or just do something, go to a community market, right, or maybe do some training together with your local dream community. So the right kind of social connections are very, very stress-releasing and stress. What is it? They basically make your stress a lot less stressful. So don't hide, but get out there and connect with the right people. So nature, socials, and then sensual experiences, like taking a hot bath, like listening to your favorite music, like cooking your favorite food and enjoying it with other people,
22:04 Speaker 00 like maybe, I don't know, enjoying some very, very tasty, your favorite like dessert, very slowly savoring it, or maybe like smelling some essential oils and doing something with your hands, like all of this, you know, sensual experiences, going for massages and that kind of, you know, spa treatments also very, very good for your body and very, very good for your soul. So don't forget that they are very good tools for releasing your stress and making you just a little bit more relaxed and chill and comfortable in life. So, nature, socials.
22:42 Speaker 00 Nature socials and essentials if I were to sum it up. Three tools in this like environmental and experiential part of our stress releasing toolkit. So today, to sum it up, before we sum it up, guys, and I'm going to give you additional trick to get better with stress management. Before we sum it up, please do me the biggest favor that there is. Share this podcast with at least one person who you can discuss it with, practice together, keep each other accountable, perhaps even doing some socials, nurturing or essentials together. Share it with at least one other person.
23:24 Speaker 00 Re-review this podcast so we can reach more people and we all a little bit chilled and a little bit more empowered for the stressors in our lives. Right, so please do that. And let's sum it up. First, before we're going to sum it up, how I recommend practicing it. A, notice what stresses you out. That's going to be your stress trigger. And whenever that trigger happens, depending on the situation, use or prescribe yourself to use one of the tools, right? If it's at work, then probably something with breath work or maybe going for a walk might help or psychologically thinking about about all the resources that you've got to
24:04 Speaker 00 get through this or maybe doing worst case scenario exercise, the fear setting by Tim Ferriss, right? So first, stress of signal or what's what usually stresses you out? And then prescribe yourself one or a couple of tools that you're going to do to help you deal with that better and be more effective with life and then enjoy your life after it passes a lot more and a lot faster. So stress signal plus choose your stress prescription and put it on your calendar as a reminder so you don't forget, maybe even as a daily reminder so you build a habit of using that. And then let's sum up all of the tools that we talked about. Layer one, physical release.
24:48 Speaker 00 It's your breath work, one of the most convenient tools you can use for any sort of stressor, which helps to switch your rest and digest part of nervous system that will help you to relax. Then we have scan and release. Where do you hold your stress physiologically? Release that and then train it. High intensity interval exercise, cold exposure, sauna. So when things physiologically feel stressful, you stay calm in your mind. Kind of like imagine if you were to jump out of the plane, skydiving, but you still can't stay calm in your mind, even for the body, it's quite a stressful experience.
25:29 Speaker 00 Then we have the situation where you feel overwhelmed, overloaded, catastrophizing, worrying too much. We have three axes side, the fear setting by Tim Ferriss, worst case scenario, taking stock and deleting. You don't have to deal with everything at the same time. Worry window, dedicating specific time window to worry about things and think about worrying you things. The next layer is all about building psychological resilience. So you bounce back better, faster. And so psychologically, you feel empowered, not overwhelmed by the experience. So two frameworks, I've got this, enlist all the experiences, hard things that you went through in your life
26:12 Speaker 00 and all the resources that you have in your capacity to deal with what's on your plate. And then I get to do this, right? You are an awesome human that get to go through challenges, to grow, to experience a richer side of life. So these are two reframes to make you more resilient psychologically and emotionally. I've got this and I get to do this. And then the last, but not least, the environment and physiological experiences. Natureing, socializing and all kinds of sensual experiences to help.
26:50 Speaker 00 To relax yourself a little bit more and feel a lot chillier. So then you get more capacity to deal with whatever life gonna put on your plate. I hope this is helpful, guys. I enjoyed doing this podcast. Thank you so much for tuning in and listening. And till next time, stay chill, keep de-stressing and keep growing.
Previous A 3-Step Framework To Make Decisions With No Right Answer: self-distancing, values, planning for the worst case. Next The Simple Hydration Habit That Ends Lower Back Pain. Solving loneliness and business challenges starts with the same practice. Page updated November 9, 2026 · transcript and summary are machine-generated
