Leah Benson Therapy

12/19/2025

If stress persists too long, your body loses faith in its hormonal quick fixes, and the deeper, slower-moving immune system steps up to regulate long-term energy resources.

👀Why this matters: When the chronic stress response overwhelms the short-term hormonal system (HPA axis), the immune system becomes the long-term regulator. This shift is a key indicator that the body views the energy crisis as deeply entrenched and you need help, pronto! ⏰⏰

Feeling overwhelmed? Click the link to read the full blog post on how Relentless Stress hijacks your energy and the science behind recovering your Inner Balance (drawing on research about allostatic overload).

https://zurl.co/9w33Y

12/17/2025

A debilitating sense of uncontrollability hits when every option you consider feels equally useless, leading to that paralyzing feeling of "I don't know what to do next."

👀Why this matters: This paralysis is the core of learned helplessness. When your brain infers that action or no action leads to the same outcome, it stops allocating energy to futile action policies, resulting in apathy and diminished motivation.

Feeling overwhelmed? Click the link to read the full blog post on how Relentless Stress hijacks your energy and the science behind recovering your Inner Balance (drawing on research about allostatic overload).

https://zurl.co/at7XB

12/15/2025

If your usual goal-directed actions fail to reduce uncertainty, the acute stress response kicks in automatically, flooding your system with hormones like cortisol to mobilize necessary energy.

👀Why this matters: Cortisol is your mid-level manager taking over when your plan (goal-directed actions) fails. This hormonal burst is meant to supply quick energy for "belief updating" (or learning) so you can figure out what to do next.

Feeling overwhelmed? Click the link to read the full blog post on how Relentless Stress hijacks your energy and the science behind recovering your Inner Balance (drawing on research about allostatic overload.)

https://zurl.co/zJUEl

12/12/2025

The brain uses "precision" (or confidence) like a volume k**b, and chronic stress turns down the confidence you have in your ability to control outcomes, making you feel truly helpless.

👀 Why this matters: Precision is your brain's measure of confidence. When this confidence drops due to chronic stress, it translates directly into feeling worthless and experiencing a metacognitive lack of self-efficacy—you lose faith in your own decisions.

Feeling overwhelmed? Click the link to read the full blog post on how Relentless Stress hijacks your energy and the science behind recovering your Inner Balance (drawing on research about allostatic overload)

https://zurl.co/8SQZw

12/11/2025

https://leahbensontherapy.com/stress-overload-depression-why-you-feel-stuck-and-how-to-break-free/

Feeling crushed by life’s demands and like joy is slipping away? You might be grappling with stress-overload depression, where your body’s energy budget gets

12/11/2025

To manage the internal energy crisis of depression, your body relies on a three tiered support team: your top-level goal-directed actions, your mid-level stress hormones, and your long-term immune system.

👀Why this matters: Seeing these three systems (behavioral, hormonal, and immunological) as a team helps explain why depression looks so different in different people—the key is identifying which layer is currently in control of your energy allocation.

Feeling overwhelmed? Click the link to read the full blog post on how Relentless Stress hijacks
your energy and the science behind recovering your Inner Balance (drawing on research about
allostatic overload)

https://leahbensontherapy.com/stress-overload-depression-why-you-feel-stuck-and-how-to-

12/09/2025

Feeling stressed out actually means your brain is facing "predictive uncertainty"—it doesn't know what specific action will restore balance or fix the problem.

👀 Why this matters: Stress isn't just an emotion; it's a cognitive crisis. Relentless stress teaches your brain to expect the worst outcomes (like failure), trapping you in a self-fulfilling prophecy of negative thoughts that’s tough to break.

Feeling overwhelmed? Click the link to read the full blog post on how Relentless Stress hijacks your energy and the science behind recovering your Inner Balance (drawing on research about allostatic overload).

https://zurl.co/KOQbj

12/06/2025

When relentless, persistent stress never lets up, your body's energy "bank account" gets dangerously overdrawn, creating a state called allostatic overload ⏰⏰⏰

👀Why this matters: Allostatic overload is the scientific way of defining "stress overload depression"; this concept shows that your exhaustion and low mood are not personal weaknesses but the cumulative cost of chronic physiological effort.

Feeling overwhelmed? Click the link to read the full blog post on how Relentless Stress hijacks your energy and the science behind recovering your Inner Balance (drawing on research about allostatic overload.)

https://zurl.co/XNMoG

12/03/2025

For empaths who are ready for change. And if you want help with your transformation, give me a call, we'll talk.


https://zurl.co/8mAIH

🔥 What Happens When A Sensitive Soul Stops Pleasing Everyone | Alan Watts 🔥In this powerful 25-minute motivational speech, Alan Watts reveals the deep stre...

12/03/2025

Life requires achieving stability by constantly changing—a dynamic regulation
process called allostasis—which means your body must anticipate and adjust to
daily demands to maintain balance.

👀 Why this matters: Your body isn't just reacting to stress; it's actively trying to
anticipate it. Understanding that stability comes through change helps reframe
mental health challenges as an adaptive system struggling to keep pace, not a
fixed failure.

Feeling overwhelmed? Click the link to read the full blog post on how Relentless Stress hijacks your energy and the science behind recovering your Inner Balance (drawing on research about allostatic overload.)

https://zurl.co/Yz7bB

12/02/2025

Your brain is a super-forecaster, constantly running a hidden "energy budget" to
predict how much juice your body needs to survive the day, a process central to
your mental health.

👁️ Why this matters: This prediction system, known as active inference, is the
foundation of your mental well-being; when stress messes up this internal energy
budgeting, it is literally what drags your mind into a depressive rut and leaves you
feeling stuck.

Feeling overwhelmed? Follow this link to read the full blog post on how Relentless Stress hijacks your energy and the science behind recovering your Inner Balance (drawing on research about allostatic overload).

https://zurl.co/2cU00

11/28/2025

🧠⚙️ November: A month of Predictive Processing and “The Self”🧠⚙️

Your “reality” emerges from (a personally useful) flexible balance between beliefs you have and sensory information from the world that contradicts those beliefs that you choose to attend to.

⏰Why this is important ⏰

Relationships require patience. People see and believe whatever helps them survive.
Sometimes that matches up with your reality, and sometimes it doesn’t.

Learn more in this month’s featured blog post:

“The Secret Architecture of Your Mind: 12 Nuggets for Understanding Why You Feel Stuck or Detached”

https://leahbensontherapy.com/the-secret-architecture-of-your-mind-12-nuggets-for-understanding-why-you-feel-stuck-or-detached/