Are you familiar with zoomies? If you’re a pet owner you’ve probably seen this phenomenon. It’s that sudden burst of frantic, joyful energy when an animal runs wildly around for no apparent reason.
The first time I really noticed this was after giving my anxious dog, Elliott, a bath. Once the ordeal was over, he’d sprint through the house at top speed, skidding across floors and ricocheting off furniture. While watching this familiar ritual, I pointed it out to my kids and said, “Look, Elliott is completing the stress cycle!”
This was met with immediate eye rolls. My children have long lost patience with me turning everyday moments into psychology lessons. My youngest is especially quick to say, “Mom… don’t turn this into a psychology thing.” (I’ll let you imagine how fun it is to have me as a mother.)
Still, I can’t quite help myself.
Table of Contents
What Zoomies Can Teach Us About Stress
Animals often get the zoomies after a period of heightened stress or arousal. What looks like random energy is actually purposeful: they’re releasing what their bodies mobilized in response to stress so they can return to their baseline.
In the wild, this happens instinctively. Somatic therapist Peter Levine has described how an animal that escapes a predator and reaches safety doesn’t sit still and reflect on what just happened. It trembles. Its body shakes off that extra energy. Only then does it return to equilibrium and rest.
That physical discharge helps to complete the stress cycle. It tells the nervous system: the danger has passed.
Why Modern Life Makes Completing the Stress Cycle Hard
In the wild, stressors are often acute and time-limited. There’s a clear beginning and end: a threat appears, the body mobilizes, and then the danger passes. The nervous system knows when it’s over. Human nervous systems evolved for that kind of clear beginning-and-end stress (Robert Sapolsky explores this in Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers). Modern life, however, rarely offers clean stress.
Our stressors are often ongoing, abstract, or never fully “done”: constant notifications, work pressure, caregiving, chronic illness, financial uncertainty. We live with dozens of open loops, slowly dripping stress. Even when nothing immediate is happening, the body may still be carrying stress from earlier in the day. Or the week. Or much longer.
As I write this, I have dozens of unanswered emails, tasks and notifications all vying for my attention. My body responds to that with stress, even though unanswered emails aren’t a true threat. Our nervous systems aren’t especially good at distinguishing between life-threatening stress and modern stress. The stressors keep coming, which means the stress often doesn’t get released. Over time, it builds… and builds… until it’s just there.
Stress vs. Stressor: Why Stress Lingers in the Body
For many of us, unresolved stress accumulates in the body. It can show up as anxiety, somatic complaints, or a general sense of being keyed up and on edge.
This is where the distinction between stress and stressor becomes important.
The stressor is the external event: the email, the deadline, the ongoing responsibility, the thing asking for our attention. Stress is what happens inside the body in response. And while stressors may pause, repeat, or never fully resolve, the stress they generate can linger long after the moment has passed.
This is one of the insights that stood out to me most when I read Burnout (affiliate link) by Emily and Amelia Nagoski. They name something important for humans navigating modern life:
We don’t have to wait for the stressor to be over in order to address the stress.
Many of our stressors are open loops. Ongoing. Chronic. If we wait for them to be “done” before allowing our bodies to release stress, we may never get there. Some stressors are persistent but not immediately dangerous, like email, admin, or unfinished tasks. Others, including war, violence, and systemic harm, are serious threats, even when we have little power to change them directly. In both cases, the stress doesn’t really end. It stays with us, looping in the background, even when there’s no clear way to resolve it.
Completing the stress cycle, then, isn’t always about fixing or eliminating the stressor. It’s about helping the body discharge what it has mobilized, even when the stressor remains. Learning how to do that intentionally and regularly is one of the ways we protect our nervous systems.
What Is the Stress Cycle?
So if we can’t wait for stressors to end, the question becomes: how does the body actually release stress?
This is where the concept of completing the stress cycle becomes useful. At its core, the idea is simple: stress follows a cycle (one early model described it this way in 1989), and our bodies need signals of safety to fully complete it. The cycle looks like this:
A stressor appears (external or internal)
The body mobilizes to respond
The stressor is removed or managed
The body receives signals of safety and releases the remaining stress
That last step is the one modern life tends to skip.
The body doesn’t complete the cycle through insight or willpower alone. It completes it through physical and relational signals of safety.
How those signals often come through:
Connection (being with someone who feels safe)
Rhythm (movement, breath, repetition)
Familiarity (routines, known sensations)
Predictability (a sense of what comes next)
When the body receives enough of these cues, it can finally let go of the stress it’s been holding.
How to Complete the Stress Cycle
Sometimes completing the stress cycle seems obvious, like going for a run or laughing hard with a friend. Other times, it’s a bit more subtle.
For me, it often shows up as pacing after a difficult conversation. Or crying in a hot shower. Or laughing at dark comedy. Or listening to loud music and moving my body. Or listening to a stim song on repeat with weight and vibrations on my body.
In Burnout, the Nagoski sisters suggest 20 to 60 minutes a day of physical activity, though when I talked with Amelia, she said it doesn’t have to take that long. I like this framing because it’s concrete and doesn’t require remembering it in the moment of stress; instead, it builds moments of release into daily life.
Here are a few practices that can help release stress and complete the cycle:
Through Movement and Release
Movement: walking, dancing, stretching, pacing, or any form of physical motion
Shaking or stimming: letting the body discharge energy
Emotional Release
Laughter: laughing hard, especially with someone else, can ease tension
Crying: many people feel relief afterward because it helps release built-up stress
Signals of Safety: Breath, Pressure, and Connection
Breathwork: slow breathing, especially long exhales, can signal the body that it’s safe to settle
Pressure, vibration, or connection: hugging someone you trust, using weighted input, or steady rhythmic sensation
Completing the Stress Cycle During Shutdown
For many neurodivergent people, stress may also show up as shutdown. In shutdown, the nervous system isn’t calm; it’s immobilized. I think of this as stress being frozen in the body.
Frozen stress doesn’t mean the cycle is complete. It means the body needs gentler signals of safety before it can release what it’s holding.
If you tend toward shutdown, the release often needs to be gentler at first. Think thawing rather than forcing release. A grounded walk, soft stretching, or rhythmic stimming can help warm the system before introducing more vigorous movement.
Some supportive starting points might include:
Gentle movement
Grounded walking
Rhythmic stimming
A Few Closing Thoughts
In modern life, stress isn’t something we “solve” and move on from. It tends to stay with us, tucked into the body, unless we give it a way to move through.
For me, this looks pretty ordinary. Today I’ll probably spend a few hours addressing one of my stressors, like preparing for one of my upcoming talks. Later, I’ll take a walk to help my body release the stress the week stirred up. Both help, but for different reasons.
I wish you a week with space to address the stressors in your life and opportunities to release the stress they leave behind. And maybe, in whatever form it shows up, a chance to get out your own version of the zoomies.
A note on present-moment safety
There are many serious stressors unfolding in the world right now, stressors that understandably activate fight-or-flight and other survival responses. At times, we need these responses for safety. And for many people, especially those living under systems of chronic threat, unsafety isn’t occasional; it’s ongoing.
This is where the idea of “present-moment safety” can matter. It doesn’t deny serious or persistent danger. Rather, it encourages us to anchor into small pockets of safety when we have them: moments where the nervous system can release some of the stored stress, so there is more capacity, strength, and steadiness for what comes next.
The Autistic Burnout Course
A companion to The Autistic Burnout Workbook. It goes deeper into pacing, masking, sensory-first planning and accommodations, and into what recovery can look like when rest isn’t enough.
Cost shouldn’t be the thing that keeps you from this. We offer scholarships to everyone, starting at $15, and the application takes about two minutes.
Completing the Stress Cycle FAQs
What does it mean to complete the stress cycle?
It means helping the body release the stress it mobilized, even if the thing that caused it (the stressor) is still there. The idea comes from Emily and Amelia Nagoski’s book Burnout: stress and stressors are different, and the body needs signals of safety to finish the cycle.
How much time does it take?
There’s no set amount. For some people a short walk, a good cry, or a few minutes of stimming is enough; others need more. Small moments of release built into daily life count.
What if I shut down instead of feeling keyed up?
Shutdown is a stress response too. The stress gets frozen in the body instead of moving through it. Start gently: grounded walking, soft stretching, or rhythmic stimming can help warm the system before more vigorous movement.
Can I complete the stress cycle if the stressor is still there?
Yes. Many stressors are ongoing, but the stress they create in the body can still be released, little by little, through movement, connection, and other signals of safety.
A short, gentle email series to help you name Autistic burnout, understand why you’re so tired, and begin imagining a life that asks less from your nervous system.
Visual Guide
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Video Version
Additional Resources
Autistic Burnout and the Stress Cycle with Amelia Nagoski Our podcast conversation about completing the stress cycle
The Autistic and ADHD Nervous System How the nervous system responds to stress
Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle (affiliate link) by Emily and Amelia Nagoski
The Wellness Series More practical articles on rest, regulation, and self-care
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References
Nagoski, E., & Nagoski, A. (2019). Burnout: The secret to unlocking the stress cycle. Ballantine Books.
Reznick, A. Z. (1989). The cycle of stress: A circular model for the psychobiological response to strain and stress. Medical Hypotheses, 30(3), 217–222. https://doi.org/10.1016/0306-9877(89)90064-9
