Stress Management: The Pain Dial

The Pain Dial: Why We’ve Stopped Recognizing Our Own Stress

A concept I’ve been thinking about lately is how few people recognize their own level of stress. I often hear patients say, “I don’t feel stressed.”

Then I start listing what’s actually happening in their lives: marital conflict, a child struggling with addiction, looming retirement without a plan, the guilt of having to let long-time employees go, financial insecurity, and 50 extra pounds they can’t seem to lose. Suddenly, the realization hits — maybe, just maybe, they’re under a bit of stress.

My Wake-Up Call

I learned this lesson the hard way.

A few years ago, I took one of those cumulative stress tests — something like the Holmes-Rahe Life Stress Inventory. My score came back around 1200. For reference, anything over 300 suggests an 80% chance of a major health event within two years.

It should have been a wake-up call. Instead, I did what many of us do — shrugged, told myself I was fine, and kept pushing forward. 

Alarm Fatigue and the Modern Mind

What happens is a kind of alarm fatigue. In hospitals, when too many monitors beep at once, staff eventually tune them out. The alarms lose their meaning.

In life, our stress signals do the same thing

We justify it with thoughts like:

“If I don’t do it, no one will.” “The work needs to get done.”

For solo entrepreneurs, single parents, primary caregivers and anyone carrying too much weight alone, that logic feels true. The problem is, it’s not sustainable. Asking for help feels like another job — training someone new, tolerating mistakes, summoning patience you no longer have.

So, you do what most of us do: you turn the pain dial down.

The Ripple Effect of Numbness

Once the dial is off, the pile begins to grow. You go home irritable. Your family mirrors that energy back. The house feels tense, the kids are snappier, your spouse more distant — and it all feels “normal.”

Those are more alarms, but you’ve stopped listening.

The Trap of Relativity

I also see this with high achievers in later chapters of life. They’ll say, “This isn’t stress — stress was when I was broke, starting a business, and raising toddlers.”

They forget they’re no longer 30. Their capacity has changed — physically, mentally, hormonally. The stress might be different now, but it’s no less real.

The Cup Analogy

Two decades ago, I learned a simple but profound analogy from Strong Medicine:

Think of your stress capacity as a cup.

The size of the cup represents your capacity. The water pouring in is your life stress — work, relationships, finances, aging parents, poor sleep, diet, etc. When the cup overflows, symptoms appear: fatigue, anxiety, blood pressure issues, digestive problems, irritability.

Rather than emptying the cup, we medicate or distract ourselves — with pills, alcohol, online shopping, or endless productivity hacks. We rarely address the root cause: the cup is simply too full.

The American Optimization Trap

In America, we don’t want to remove anything from the cup — we want a bigger cup. We chase optimization through exercise, supplements, spirituality, therapy, financial security, biohacking, and better sleep. Those are good things — but often, they’re just attempts to squeeze a bit more juice out of an already drained system.

We keep adding until something starts to slip through the cracks.

The Debt of Ignored Stress

The longer you turn off the pain dial, the greater the debt you owe later. A retired UFC fighter once told me it took three years for his body to function normally after retirement. A successful businesswoman shared that it took two years after selling her company before she felt motivated again. Most caregivers say it takes two to three years to recover after the death of a loved one.

But we live in an “Amazon Prime” culture — we want the answer overnight. Healing doesn’t work that way.

Turning the Dial Back On

Re-learning to listen to your internal alarms takes time and repetition. It’s not about perfection — it’s about noticing.

• Maybe your HRV score of 7 means you should go for a walk instead of a CrossFit double-header.

• Maybe your spouse’s frustration is an invitation to reconnect, not defend.

• Maybe being tired means you should sleep, not push through.

• Maybe when you’ve already “won the game,” it’s time to enjoy the victory instead of starting another one.

Maybe — just maybe — it’s time to start listening to the pain dial again.

Summary (3 Bullet Points):

• Many people are unable to recognize their own stress because they’ve developed alarm fatigue — tuning out constant stress signals and normalizing dysfunction in their relationships, work, and health.

• We justify overextension through necessity (“if I don’t do it, no one will”) and comparison (“this isn’t as bad as my 30s”), ignoring that our capacity to handle stress changes with age and circumstances.

• Suppressing stress doesn’t erase it — it simply builds a “stress debt” that must eventually be repaid through illness, burnout, or prolonged recovery once the body or mind finally breaks down.

Practical Takeaways (3):

1. Start listening to the alarms again: Notice irritability, fatigue, and poor sleep as early warning signs — not character flaws — and make small course corrections instead of waiting for collapse.

2. Empty the cup regularly: Schedule true recovery practices (sleep, exercise, nature, spiritual time, meaningful connection) rather than just trying to “increase capacity” through optimization.

3. Respond, don’t numb: When pain or frustration arises, view it as information — a cue to rest, reconnect, delegate, or simplify — instead of masking it with alcohol, overwork, or distraction.