Why I stopped trying to eliminate stress.

Read time: 3 min.

5 years ago, I had a leaky gut.

I was gaming until 3am most nights. Eating whenever I felt like it, usually around midnight. Sleep was something that happened when my body finally gave up. My gut was completely wrecked, and everyone I talked to said the same thing: stress is destroying your body. You need to eliminate it from your life.

So I tried. Whenever I felt stress building, I'd force myself to calm down. I genuinely believed the answer was living a stress-free life.

That approach kept me sick.

Then I found Andrew Huberman, and he said something completely different. Stress has a function. Your body is designed to handle it. The problem isn't stress itself. It's fighting your biology instead of working with it.

He taught me about morning sunlight and how getting light in your eyes within the first hour of waking does something specific to your system. He explained cold exposure and why seeking out acute stress early in the day actually helps. He showed me how to build my schedule around my body's natural rhythms instead of pretending they don't exist.

That's what healed my leaky gut. Not from avoiding stress, but from working with my biology.

What Most People Get Wrong

Here's the part I think most people still miss.

Cortisol gets treated like it's this terrible thing. The stress hormone. Something dangerous that you need to avoid.

But cortisol isn't your enemy. The timing is what matters.

Your body uses cortisol to mobilize energy. It's how glucose gets to your brain and muscles so you can actually function. It's literally what wakes you up every morning.

There's something called the cortisol awakening response. While you're sleeping, your cortisol is at its lowest point. A few hours before you wake up, it starts climbing. By the time you open your eyes, it's reached a threshold that pulls you out of sleep.

That morning spike is supposed to happen.

About three hours after your cortisol peaks in the morning, your body triggers a feedback loop. Your cortisol starts dropping. By afternoon it's lower, and by evening it should be low enough that melatonin can rise and you can wind down naturally.

It's a clean rhythm when it works right.

But if you skip that morning spike, your system doesn't get the signal. It stays primed and on edge all day long. The curve flattens, and that's chronic stress.

Gaming until 3am was spiking my cortisol when it should have been dropping. Trying to stay calm all day was blocking the natural morning spike my body needed. I was dysregulated in both directions.

The solution wasn't less stress. It was better timing.

What Finally Worked

When I started leaning into my mornings instead of fighting them, my body finally responded.

I'd get outside for a run in the early light, moving before my brain fully woke up. Sometimes I'd do a cold shower first, sometimes after. The order mattered less than doing it.

I was amplifying the spike my body wanted anyway, and that kicked off the natural drop later in the day.

Now I get more done in less time, not because I'm more disciplined but because I know when my system is actually ready to perform. Last Wednesday I woke up, went straight outside for a run, and finished my hardest work by 2pm right as my energy naturally dipped. The rest of the day was calm and present.

I wasn't forcing myself to relax. My biology was already there.

This used to be different. Normally, I was always reacting to whatever my body threw at me. Random energy crashes. Afternoon anxiety for no clear reason. Lying awake wondering why sleep wouldn't come.

Now I can see it coming. The stress is still there because I'm still intense about my work and I still care deeply about the results I create. But when stress shows up in the morning now, I think "let's go" instead of "I need to calm down."

The Real Point

Chronic stress destroys you. That's cortisol staying elevated all day and all night, flattening your natural rhythm. That's what wrecks your body.

But acute stress, timed correctly, is just your body doing its job.

The question was never how do I eliminate stress. It was am I working with my biology or fighting it.

If you want to try this: get outside within 30 minutes of waking. Light in your eyes for 5 to 10 minutes. Move your body, even if it's just a walk. Lean into that natural cortisol spike.

In the evenings: dim the lights, turn off screens, wind down intentionally. Let your cortisol drop naturally instead of spiking it late with games or intense work.

Nothing complicated. Just listening to what your body's been trying to tell you all along.

Look, I'm not perfect at this. Some nights I work too late. Some evenings I end up staring at a screen longer than I probably should. But here's what I've learned: when I feel anxious or restless during the day, I can always trace it back. The past few days were chaotic. I let the routine slip. And when I actually do follow it? I never regret it. Not once.

5 years ago I was fighting my body. Now I work with it. That's the only difference, and it's made all the difference.

Much love,

— Martijn