Leah Benson Therapy

12/26/2025

A shift to immune dominance forces your system into "sickness behaviors" like fatigue and withdrawal, essentially forcing you to conserve energy to survive the chronic imbalance.

👀Why this matters: Those exhausting "sickness behaviors" are the immune system’s way of preserving energy. Recognizing these symptoms as a biological attempt to save power—not just laziness or failure—shifts your perspective and empowers you to seek support. 💪

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/pVC0U

12/24/2025

Chronic fatigue, lack of pleasure (anhedonia), and heavy feeling of atypical depression often indicate a deeper imbalance: the immune system has taken over.

👀Why this matters: Atypical depression is often characterized by high inflammation and low cortisol. This profile, sometimes linked to early life stress, signals a shift to immune dominance in the body, reflecting a more severe, chronic biological state that requires specialized support.

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/vqwIK

12/22/2025

The intense, often sudden sadness of melancholic depression is frequently linked to an initial hyperactive stress hormone phase, where cortisol levels are high.

👀Why this matters: High cortisol suggests your body is in the neuroendocrine regime dominance stage, frantically trying to fight the stressor. For this profile, treatment often involves calming and downregulating that overactive hormonal system. 💆

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/skpDK

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

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