World chaos spikes our cortisol; cheer-up slogans won’t fix that. A ten-minute protocol re-codes the body from threat to agency, so you can meet the day without numbness or denial.
‘It was the best of times, it was the worst of crimes’ Taylor Swift.
As the news cycle reports on the bombs raining down in the Middle East; children killed, ships burning, I look out the window of the tin shack to a pristine, deserted beach on the wild south coast of Western Australia.
It is a tale of two countries. The one I live in, and the one that is burning.
Two weeks ago, this was not happening. Not in the world, and certainly not in my mind. But the images of the oil and the fire and the rubble are there now, taking up more and more space like a malignant tumour feeding on its own toxicity.
How the leader of the free world thought that bringing death and destruction was a good idea to avoid death and destruction is beyond me. Like many of the decisions, actions and words that have emerged in recent months from that great collective, Western civilisation.
The cognitive dissonance makes me sick.
But this is not a political piece. This is a personal one.
Global events have me depressed and anxious. I can feel it in the tears that well very close to the surface of my face. I can feel it in the knot in my stomach that I wake with every morning. I can feel it in my obsession with the news cycle, the obsessive restlessness of my mind. My sense of safety is a thin veneer.
The signals from my body and mind tell me a lot about my body's chemistry right now. My threat chemistry is elevated, and my well-being chemistry is suppressed. I expect my serotonin and oxytocin to be low, while my cortisol is higher than usual.
This maps to my low mood and struggle to make sense of the events unfolding around me. To compound this, the narrative in my head is goading me into frustration and hopelessness in equal measure; who am I to claim expertise in performance chemistry when I won’t shift my own state?
I can see my own state.
I can understand my own state.
And I know what I need to do to begin to work on changing the conditions that affect my state. But I just don't want to rise. I damn well want to stay angry, upset and deeply affected by the global chaos. To be otherwise depletes the magnitude of this moment in civilisation’s history.
But I know I need to act. I need to act now. Having experienced depression once, the shadows of it are forever flickering in my periphery, threatening to emerge in a volume that is all-consuming.
I suspect my experience of the world right now is a common one.
When personal or universal events erode our sense of safety, our threat chemistry becomes elevated, changing our experience of life. But we can change our chemical conditions.
That small understanding can give us just enough momentum to add one small habit to the day.
A habit with the power to fundamentally change our baseline state.
Here’s what I did, and you can too.
The Protocol: Rebuilding Safety, Then Direction
I committed to ten minutes each morning.
Not because I thought it would change my day immediately.
But to change the chemistry of my system, one input at a time.
Because if the conditions change, the experience follows.
1. Breathe and Move
I began with deep, deliberate breathing paired with simple yoga stretches.
Nothing complex. Nothing that requires a heavy dose of motivation, because that remains in short supply.
Just enough to shift my physiology.
It is a version of a salute to the sun.
Within minutes, I sink into my body. Air in, stretch, air out. Breath.
This is not mindset. It is biology.
Breathing this way increases the body’s safety signal. It tells the nervous system that there is no immediate threat.
And when the body believes it is safe, everything begins to change.
2. Become Present to the Body
Then I sat.
For five minutes, I brought my awareness to seven areas of my body, one by one, moving from the ground up.
Legs.
Pelvis.
Solar plexus.
Heart.
Neck.
Forehead.
Crown.
Not to analyse. Or fix. Just to feel.
To be fully present in the body, in this moment.
Because anxiety lives in the future. Rumination lives in the past. The body lives now.
3. Generate Gratitude
Then I chose three things I was genuinely grateful for.
Not the ones I think I should be grateful for.
The ones I viscerally feel. These are often the smallest.
The smell of coffee.
The sound of the ocean.
The smile of a stranger.
Gratitude is not a moral exercise. It is a chemical one. It shifts the system toward connection, toward safety, toward.....enough.
4. Set Direction
Finally, I chose an intent for the day.
Sometimes a way of showing up. Sometimes a feeling I want to experience more of in my day.
One thing.
Clear and simple.
Because once the system is calm, it can move.
And direction turns energy into action.
Why This Works
This sequence matters.
First, calm the body.
Then stabilise the mind.
Then magnify positive feelings.
Then choose a direction.
In ten minutes, the system shifts from threat to safety, and from safety to agency.
And when that happens, we don’t have to force ourselves to rise.
We find that we can.
A Final Word
The practice produced no immediate relief.
My chemical state of anxiety had momentum, and my small intervention barely moved the needle immediately. But I knew it would if I stuck to it. Baseline state-shifts may take days....or weeks.
After 5 days, I wondered if my system was broken. But I showed up to do it anyway.
After 10 days, and through tears of frustration, I wondered, 'what's the use', but I showed up again anyway.
After fourteen days, panicky doubt crept in: what if this time it really didn't work? My chest still felt heavy, and tears remained near the surface.
That afternoon was my 'darkest before dawn' moment. The following day, something made me laugh. Bombs still fell, oilfields burned, and powerful men spewed lies, yet I laughed—and felt lighter. Neurochemistry had shifted, altering my experience of an unaltered world.
One habit will not remove the weight of the world. It will not erase tragedy. It does not deny reality.
But it can expand capacity to meet that reality.
To stay informed without being consumed.
To feel deeply without drowning.
To act deliberately, instead of flailing in the chaos.
We cannot dictate the world we wake to, but we can influence the state we meet it in.
Sometimes that is the difference between staying down…
and rising anyway.
