Living in Fight-or-Flight Without Realizing It
She didn’t feel anxious in the way people talk about anxiety.
Most days, she was functioning.
Everything just felt urgent, even when nothing actually was.
Mornings started with tension already in her chest.
By midafternoon, her patience was gone and her body felt wired but heavy.
At night, sleep came late or not at all, even though she was exhausted.
Nothing dramatic had happened.
Work was busy but manageable.
Her relationships were stable.
Still, her body acted like something was wrong.
She told me she felt constantly alert, like she couldn’t fully relax even during quiet moments.
Small interruptions felt overwhelming.
Rest didn’t seem to restore anything anymore.
What she didn’t realize was that her nervous system had been living in fight-or-flight for so long that it felt normal.
In perimenopause and menopause, hormonal shifts change how the body handles stress.
Estrogen and progesterone no longer buffer cortisol the same way they once did.
As a result, the stress response stays switched on longer after everyday demands.
Over time, the body stops returning to baseline.
High alert becomes the default setting.
Calm starts to feel unfamiliar.
Her system was overworked.
Once we stopped framing her symptoms as emotional weakness or personal failure, things shifted.
Instead of trying to relax harder, she focused on signaling safety to her body.
That meant fewer extremes and more consistency.
Regular meals stabilized her blood sugar.
Gentle movement replaced punishing workouts.
Evenings became quieter and more predictable.
Most importantly, she learned to notice when her body was bracing instead of judging herself for it.
Living in fight-or-flight doesn’t always look like panic.
Sometimes it looks like irritability, fatigue, cravings, or emotional numbness.
Often, it looks like getting through the day while feeling disconnected from yourself.
What helped wasn’t doing more.
Support came from doing things differently.
For her, that meant nourishment instead of restriction.
It meant calming rituals at night instead of scrolling or pushing through.
It meant learning how hormones and the nervous system interact during menopause.
Food as medicine mattered.
So did restoring mineral balance and prioritizing protein.
Gentle nervous system support made room for her body to finally exhale.
The goal wasn’t to eliminate stress.
The goal was to stop living like every moment required survival mode.
When the body feels safe again, clarity returns.
Energy becomes more accessible.
Calm stops feeling out of reach.