<p>For a long time, I released stress by moving for a long time.</p><p>Long walks.Long hikes.Long bike rides.</p><p>Not fast. Not intense. Just long enough for my nervous system to settle into a rhythm and let whatever needed to move, move. I never thought of it as regulation back then. It was just what felt good. What worked.</p><p>And then, not so slowly I couldn’t do that.</p><p>Foot problems. Back problems. Endometriosis. Surgery. Recovery. Vertigo. Unpredictability.</p><p>It wasn’t one thing. It was a pileup. And somewhere along the way, the main way I knew how to get energy out of my body didn’t work.</p><p>I didn’t just lose exercise. I lost a pressure valve.</p><p>When energy has nowhere to go</p><p>Stress doesn’t politely stay in the brain.</p><p>It shows up in the body whether we invite it or not. And when I couldn’t move the way I used to, the stress didn’t disappear. It just stayed. It pooled. It poked. It pressed.</p><p>I didn’t always notice it right away. Sometimes it showed up as irritability. Sometimes exhaustion. Sometimes sadness that didn’t seem to belong. Sometimes it was just a sense of being weighed down by something I couldn’t name.</p><p><strong>The hardest part was not knowing when my body would cooperate.</strong></p><p>💡 Check out the Substack post that goes into this topic in more detail: <a target="_blank" href="https://mybodycan.substack.com">https://mybodycan.substack.com</a></p> <br/><br/>This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit <a href="https://mybodycan.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&#38;utm_campaign=CTA_1">mybodycan.substack.com</a>