How STRESS MANAGEMENT Helps You Heal (Essential 8 Series – Part 5)
Episode 63: Spotify | Apple Podcasts | YouTube
View transcript on Buzzsprout
In part five of Amanda’s Essential 8 series, she dives deep into a topic that gets talked about often—but not always helpfully: stress management. If you’ve ever been told to “just manage your stress” without any real context or tools, this one’s for you.
This post isn’t about doing more. It’s about carrying less. You’ll learn how unmanaged stress becomes a root driver of anxiety and depression, and how to practically decrease your system’s load to create real capacity for healing. From Amanda’s powerful “stress bucket” analogy to small, doable shifts that can make a real difference, this episode offers clarity and direction for anyone feeling overwhelmed by everyday life.
📓 Download your Stress Management Workbook! – CLICK HERE
What We Cover in This Episode
- How stress physiology impacts mental health
- Amanda’s signature “stress bucket” framework
- Six categories of stressors to assess and edit
- Why creating capacity comes before deep healing work
- Practical, realistic ways to reduce stress load starting today
Why Stress Isn’t Just a Buzzword
Most of us already know that stress impacts health, but few understand the physiology behind it. Chronic stress dysregulates the nervous system, fills your “bucket,” and leads to symptoms we label as anxiety and depression. The solution isn’t to just power through. It’s to reframe and rebalance.
The Stress Bucket Framework
Amanda breaks down her popular stress bucket analogy to help you visualize how stress accumulates in the body:
- The Bucket = Your nervous system’s capacity (aka your window of tolerance)
- Water = Daily and baseline stressors (the stuff that adds up)
- Rocks = Triggers (what quickly displaces capacity and causes overflow)
- Overflow = Symptoms (when stress exceeds your system’s limits)
Stress management isn’t about fixing everything overnight. It’s about slowly draining the bucket so you have more room to breathe, heal, and respond with less overwhelm.
Six Categories of Stress to Assess
Use Amanda’s worksheet to evaluate and reduce stress across these areas:
- Physiological: Habits like sleep, breath, movement, and nutrition
- Mental Load: The invisible to-do list running in your mind
- Environmental: Clutter, toxins, and overstimulating surroundings
- Technology: Screen time, digital noise, and device overuse
- Play & Community: Belonging, joy, and time in nature as stress mitigators
- Deeper Work: Triggers, trauma, and healing that require capacity to approach
You don’t need to fix all of these at once. In fact, Amanda urges you to start with what feels easiest.
Creating Capacity Is the First Step
Healing anxiety and depression starts with reducing your body’s stress load. Otherwise, even well-intentioned healing efforts (like therapy or trauma work) can backfire and reinforce survival mode. Amanda shares why sequencing matters—and how to build capacity before diving deeper.
Three Tangible Takeaways
- You can’t manage an unmanageable amount of stress. Assess and edit where you can—ideally with support.
- Capacity must come before deep healing. Reduce load first, then go deeper.
- Start with what’s easiest. Even tiny wins create room for bigger change.
Looking for more personalized support?
- Book a FREE discovery call for RESTORE, our 1:1 anxiety & depression coaching program (HSA/FSA eligible & includes comprehensive bloodwork)
- Join me inside the Regulated Living Membership, a mental health membership and nervous system healing space (sliding scale pricing available)
- Join my Release Class – Monthly guided nervous system regulation class
- Order my book, Healing Through the Vagus Nerve today!
- Download free resources here
*Want me to talk about something specific on the podcast? Let me know HERE.
Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your physician or qualified mental health provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition.
