Commusings: Taming the Coyote by Jeff Krasno

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Dear Commune Community,

Last week, I went for a hike in Fryman Canyon. I often do this to clear my head prior to a podcast interview. And then my mom called. I was pining for some peace but I have a new rule: When anyone in my family calls, I pick up – even if my time is limited. So, I answered and my dear old mom began prattling on with stories about her life.

I kept walking. She kept talking. 

The narrow hiking trail snakes alongside a steep grade of chaparral. As I looped toward home, I heard a rustling in the bramble. And then, quite suddenly, a coyote bounded out of a thicket and landed in the middle of the trail some 10 yards in front of me. He fixed his eyes on me intently.
 
Startled, I stopped in my tracks.

I hung up the phone. My heart began pounding. I felt a surge of adrenaline course through my veins. My lungs pumped. My eyes focused. Underneath the crust of consciousness, my adrenals were secreting cortisol that, in turn, messaged my liver to release glucose to power my muscles in order to flee (and, in this circumstance, not fight). 

But I didn’t take flight, I just stood my ground. The coyote paused momentarily and, realizing I wouldn’t be lunch, slinked down the hill and out of sight. Within a minute or two, my heart and breath rate returned to normal. And, with a little pep in my step, I scampered home.

My rendezvous with Mr. Coyote represents an acute, short-term type of stress. Acute stress can either be thrilling (like riding Thunder Mountain) or disturbing (like narrowly avoiding a nasty accident). It's the body's immediate, involuntary response to a perceived threat, challenge, or scare – the classic “fight or flight” response. This type of stress is typically resolved quickly and doesn't have time to gnaw at you and do the extensive damage associated with long-term stress. In many cases, as I will explain, acute stress is actually beneficial. 

Chronic stress, on the other hand, is a state of ongoing psychological or physiological arousal. This condition occurs when the body experiences stressors with such consistency or intensity that the autonomic nervous system does not have a chance to activate the relaxation response.

When the coyote never leaves, but rather stalks you, you cannot return to homeostasis. You inhabit an incessant state of perceived threat. Indeed, this condition can chronically activate cortisol, which is a wonderful and useful hormone in the proper dose. It naturally crests in the morning to get your sleepy head out of bed. But chronically elevated cortisol will simultaneously degrade and over-stimulate the immune system. It will disrupt the balance of bacteria in your gut and lead to dysbiosis. And it can lead to elevate serum glucose levels. It causes imbalances. And imbalance is the signature of disease.

But there is more to being in constant “sympathetic overload.” 

When the biological imperative to survive is always activated, you “hang up the phone” on life — like I did on my poor mom. The aperture of your attention narrows. You become self-obsessed. You distrust the world around you. Again, this is adaptive when it arises and subsides quickly. It is profoundly maladaptive when it becomes your default condition. When you feel unsafe and preoccupied with self, you become unable to forge and maintain healthy social connections. 

You can understand “good” eustress and “bad” dis-stress by analogy with food. You eat the right amount of food and your body metabolizes it. It burns through it. However, when you overconsume, your body warehouses the excess input as fat. 

Your body also metabolizes stress. In the right dosage, your body processes it just fine. It gets dispersed and you return to equilibrium. However, when pressure and anxiety are abundant and incessant, stress gets stored in the body. Stress stowage can manifest both as hyper and hypo arousal – i.e. jittery and exhausted– and disrupt your bio-psycho balance.

So much of health rests on the ability to emotionally regulate, to bounce back to the middle. Ironically, this ability to return to the Goldilocks zone of life is enhanced through the deliberate self-imposition of short-term acute stress.

Consider the experience of getting in an ice bath. The involuntary response to cold is much like running into a coyote. It takes your breath away. Your heart pounds. You feel a sense of panic bubbling up. This is a normal “bottom up” response. But we have options here. We can use our neo-mammalian brain to assess the threat. We can intentionally leverage the breath to quiet the nervous system. We can apply conscious top-down pressure onto subconscious, bottom-up reactions. Over time, this skill becomes refined such that you can potently manage threats when they emerge. The emotional regulation training that comes from immersing in cold water, for example, begins to punctuate your life. 

This phenomenon is the premise of Good Stress, my Commune program that offers 10 protocols to enhance your ability to return to center, to find balance and well-being. 

This program serves as a buffer against the many chronic “dis-stressors” that characterize modern life. We are bombarded with social pressure, heavy workloads, and fear-inducing, 24-hour cycles of news and social media — not to mention ultra-processed foodstuffs, environmental toxins, and sedentariness. This program helps you tame the coyote of modern life. 

Good Stress outlines the protocols and benefits of: 
🍽️ Fasting
🏋️ Exercise & Resistance Training
☀️ Light Therapy
🥶 Deliberate Cold Therapy
🥵 Deliberate Heat Therapy
😮‍💨 Training the Mind & Breathwork
🗣️ Social Fitness & Difficult Conversations
🥦 Eating Stressed Plants
🏞️ Reconnecting with Nature

You can sign up for the first five episodes for free here. 

If you have questions, drop me a line at [email protected] and you can also join the private Good Stress Facebook group here for support as you bring these practices into your life.