Understanding Stress and Its Impact

For those living with chronic fatigue syndrome, fibromyalgia, burnout, or post-viral illness, understanding how the body and brain respond to stress is essential. In Episode 35 of the Huberman Lab Podcast, neuroscientist Dr Andrew Huberman interviews Dr Robert Sapolsky, one of the world’s leading experts on the science of stress.

This episode sheds light on how stress biology works, and how it connects to the lived experience of energy crashes, brain fog, pain, and nervous system overload that many people with invisible illnesses face every day.

Short-Term vs. Chronic Stress

Dr. Sapolsky starts by explaining that short-term stress is normal and even beneficial. It mobilises energy, sharpens focus, and helps us grow more resilient to challenges. But chronic stress, the type that persists over days, months, or years, causes problems.

When the stress response doesn’t turn off, the body’s regulatory systems start to break down. This contributes to:

• Sleep disruption

• Weakened immune function

• Hormonal imbalance

• Cognitive fatigue

• Digestive issues

This is what scientists refer to as allostatic load: the "wear and tear" on the body when it’s constantly adapting to stress. For people with CFS and fibromyalgia, high allostatic load is often a key factor in the condition’s onset and persistence.

The Role of Perception, Control, and Predictability

One of the most important messages from the episode is this:

“It’s not just the event itself, but how your brain interprets it”.

Sapolsky describes how the amygdala, a brain region responsible for detecting threat, plays a central role. If your brain perceives something as unpredictable, uncontrollable, or socially isolating, it increases your stress response, even if the actual event isn’t dangerous.

For example, a short shopping trip might seem harmless. But if you live with chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia, or POTS, and your nervous system is hyper-sensitive, your brain might register that activity as a threat. This leads to overactivation of the stress system, and often, a post-exertional malaise crash.

Why CFS, Fibromyalgia, and Stress Are Linked

Sapolsky explains that prolonged stress changes how the body manages energy, inflammation, pain sensitivity, and immune signalling. These are all systems affected in chronic fatigue and fibromyalgia.

Some key overlaps include:

• Cognitive fatigue and brain fog linked to cortisol dysregulation

• Heightened pain sensitivity via changes in the central nervous system

• Flare-ups or crashes after minor activity due to a low “stress threshold”

• Immune dysregulation, seen in post-viral fatigue and Long COVID

All of these symptoms can be understood through the lens of a nervous system stuck in a state of chronic threat and dysregulation, otherwise know as a Fight or Flight state.

Why Recovery Isn’t Just About “Reducing Stress”

It’s common to hear people with chronic illness be told, “You just need to reduce your stress.” But that’s overly simplistic, and often unhelpful.

Sapolsky and Huberman highlight that what matters is not just removing stress, but increasing:

• Perceived control over daily routines

• Predictability in your environment

• Supportive, safe social relationships

• Self-compassion and cognitive reframing

This aligns closely with how we approach recovery in chronic fatigue and related conditions. It’s not just about eliminating stress, but helping your brain and body feel safer and more regulated, so that over time you experience less reactivity to life’s demands.

What You Can Do: Practical Strategies

Based on the research shared in the Huberman Lab podcast and Robert Sapolsky’s work, here are some practical, evidence-based strategies for managing chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia, and other stress-related conditions:

1. Establish Routine and Structure

Creating predictable daily rhythms helps regulate your nervous system. Even small habits like waking at the same time, preparing meals regularly, or winding down in the evening can reduce internal stress signals by giving your brain a sense of safety and control.

2. Gentle, Paced Movement

Slow, low-impact activities like walking, stretching, or therapeutic exercise help regulate stress hormones and support circulation and mood, without overwhelming the system.

3. Mind-Body Practices

Practices like breathwork, body scans, meditation, or yoga nidra can calm the amygdala (your brain’s threat detector) and activate the vagus nerve, shifting you into a more restorative, parasympathetic state.

4. Safe Social Connection

Spending time with people who make you feel emotionally safe can co-regulate your nervous system. This activates oxytocin and helps dampen the body’s fight-or-flight response.

5. Micro-Restoration

Tiny, intentional rest breaks throughout the day (even 30–60 seconds of breath awareness or closing your eyes) can lower your allostatic load and improve resilience. These moments give your body a chance to recover in real time.

6. Pacing and Energy Management

Learning to balance activity and rest is critical, especially for people with post-exertional malaise (PEM). Structured pacing reduces boom-and-bust cycles, keeps you within your energy envelope, and gradually increases your functional capacity over time.

Understanding Allostatic Load in Invisible Illness

Dr Sapolsky's research reinforces what many people with CFS and fibromyalgia already know through experience: The body can’t heal when it’s constantly trying to survive.

Chronic stress, whether from childhood trauma, workplace pressure, illness, or daily micro-stressors—can quietly build up. This is the essence of allostatic load. Eventually, the nervous system becomes sensitised, perceiving safe experiences (like light exercise or social interaction) as threats. That leads to exhaustion, crashes, anxiety, or pain flare-ups.

Recognising this opens the door to more compassionate, science-based recovery strategies.

A Message for People Living with Chronic Illness

If you live with a chronic invisible illness, the idea that your body is in “survival mode” is not a personal failure, it’s a protective response that has simply stayed on too long.

The podcast affirms what many fatigue recovery professionals are seeing: healing starts by reducing allostatic load, teaching your system safety again, and rebuilding capacity gradually. It’s a nervous system journey, not just a mindset one.

Final Thoughts

Sapolsky's work reminds us that understanding stress isn't just an academic exercise, it’s a blueprint for recovery.

If you’re navigating CFS, fibromyalgia, or post-viral fatigue, integrating stress science can be life-changing. You don’t need to be a neuroscientist. You just need the right support, patience, and tools to help your body find safety again.

Want Help with This Process?

I work as a chronic fatigue specialist in Melbourne, supporting people with invisible illnesses to better understand their symptoms, reduce nervous system threat, and rebuild energy sustainably. You don’t need a diagnosis to begin, just curiosity and a willingness to try a new, evidence-informed path.

Further Reading and References

• Sapolsky, R. M. (2004). Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers.

• Huberman Lab Podcast. Episode 35: Dr. Robert Sapolsky on Stress

• McEwen, B. S. & Stellar, E. (1993). Allostatic load and the wear and tear on the body. Archives of Internal Medicine.

• McEwen, B. S. (2000). Allostasis and allostatic load: implications for neuropsychopharmacology. Neuropsychopharmacology.