Stress Resets

Have you ever wished you could pause your spiraling thoughts in a stressful moment—literally press a reset button for your mind? In Stress Resets, clinical psychologist Jennifer L. Taitz argues that you can. Drawing on years of cognitive behavioral, acceptance, and dialectical behavior therapy practice, Taitz contends that stress isn’t inherently bad—it’s our reaction to it that matters most. With the right tools, she insists, we can transform stress from a paralyzing force into a powerful source of growth and meaning.

In this conversational and research-backed guide, Taitz introduces the concept of “stress resets”—quick, effective techniques designed to help you pause, ground yourself, and choose wiser responses in minutes rather than hours. These strategies are drawn from evidence-based therapies—DBT, ACT, CBT, and mindfulness—and they’re intentionally short and practical. As she explains, the goal isn’t to avoid stress or magically erase it but to pivot from habitual reactions like overthinking, avoidance, or self-criticism to more effective, value-driven actions.

Why We Need to Rethink Stress

Taitz begins by noting how widespread stress has become. A 2022 American Psychological Association survey found that 27% of U.S. adults feel so stressed they struggle to function. Modern life—with political divisions, financial volatility, and the aftermath of a global pandemic—has made intense stress practically inevitable. Left unaddressed, this state can devastate physical and psychological health. Yet, Taitz insists that we can intervene—not by eliminating stress but by changing our relationship to it. Echoing pioneering researchers Hans Selye and Richard Lazarus, she reframes stress not merely as an external force but as an interaction between event and response. Your beliefs about your abilities shape how you experience tension. A challenge you view as manageable can motivate and strengthen you; one you view as overwhelming can cripple you.

She drives this point home with humorous anecdotes about herself and her husband—spilled milk and self-inflicted stress spirals included—to show how small events snowball when we’re reactive. These stories are familiar because they mirror most of our daily patterns: we stew, self-criticize, and seek instant comfort in distraction or substances. Taitz calls this the “stress cycle”: thoughts (“I can’t handle this”), body reactions (racing heart, clenched jaw), and avoidance behaviors reinforcing one another until we’re trapped in a loop.

The Science of Resets

A central insight of Stress Resets is Viktor Frankl’s famous observation: “Between stimulus and response there is a space.” Taitz’s mission is to help readers widen that space. Using micro-practices lasting mere minutes, you can interrupt biological stress cycles, regain perspective, and make choices aligned with your values. These practices draw on three therapeutic models she uses in her own clinical work:

• Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT): Developed by Dr. Marsha Linehan, this framework teaches distress tolerance and mindfulness skills to handle emotions without impulsive reactions.
• Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT): Created by Dr. Steven Hayes, ACT emphasizes psychological flexibility—accepting inner experiences, defusing from unhelpful thoughts, and acting according to your core values.
• The Unified Protocol (CBT variant): Spearheaded by Dr. David Barlow, it provides strategies to face avoidance and regulate emotions across different psychological problems.

These therapies overlap in one crucial idea: resisting or suppressing discomfort makes it worse. Instead of trying to “calm down,” you can learn to ride out the wave of bodily reactions, transforming them into manageable energy. This aligns with the neuroscience of stress regulation, which shows that short, mindful interventions calm the amygdala and re-engage the brain’s rational centers.

The Structure of the Book

Taitz’s book is smartly divided into three parts to mirror the journey from short-term survival to long-term growth:

• Part One: Befriending Stress, Living Better explores mindset shifts. You’ll learn to “turn your knots into bows,” distinguish stress from anxiety, regulate emotions, rethink overthinking, and identify healthier ways of coping without substances.
• Part Two: Stress Resets for Intense Times introduces quick “Mind,” “Body,” and “Behavior” resets—bite-sized tools like “anchor yourself,” “sing your thoughts,” “tense to let go,” “walk outside,” or “build a hope kit.” Each reset takes minutes and draws from empirical research.
• Part Three: Stress Buffers for Building Resilience focuses on long-term lifestyle adjustments—psycho-behavioral “buffers” that strengthen your baseline resilience through practices like mindfulness, gratitude, exercise, breathing regulation, setting sleep routines, and cultivating purpose.

Each exercise is practical and compassionate, written in Taitz’s trademark tone—direct but gentle, like having a therapist cheering you on in plain English. For example, she writes that when overwhelmed late at night, you can still “reduce stress by 50 percent immediately, at no cost, without even trying. Just don’t make things worse.”

The Deeper Promise of Resetting

Ultimately, Stress Resets aims to restore agency. By recognizing that stress is a sign of caring—proof that life matters—you begin to use tension as fuel for growth. Taitz’s stories of clients like Laurie, Melanie, and Cameron show that transformation begins not in removing challenges but in responding differently to them. Stress becomes a teacher instead of a tormentor. You can learn to speak kindly to yourself, find excitement where you used to feel dread, and even design routines that buffer future crises.

In an age of chronic overwhelm, Taitz’s message is surprisingly hopeful: you don’t need to escape stress—you need to reclaim your space between trigger and response. Through micro-resets and steady practice, she helps you do just that, reminding you at every turn that you already possess the tools to live with more calm, courage, and meaning—one reset at a time.

The first major lesson in Taitz’s book is to stop vilifying stress. Through the story of Laurie, a woman in her fifties overwhelmed by a new remote job, Taitz illustrates how stress often feels like a personal failure—but it’s actually a natural reaction to meaningful pursuits. “Stress is part of the price we pay for living a life that matters,” she writes. Instead of trying to eliminate it, the goal is to harness it.

Stress Mindset: Threat vs. Challenge

Laurie’s migraines, insomnia, and self-doubt reflected a belief that stress meant doom. Yet research by Stanford psychologist Dr. Alia Crum—whose work Taitz highlights—shows that people who view stress as a challenge perform better and feel healthier than those who see it as a threat. Simply shifting your “stress mindset” can change physical and emotional outcomes. In one experiment, participants who watched a short video reframing stress as energizing performed better in tough tasks and felt more confident afterward.

Taitz encourages you to catch yourself in moments of inner resistance—when you say “I can’t handle this” or “I need to calm down”—and replace it with “I’m excited.” This isn’t denial; it’s reframing stress as fuel. Harvard researcher Dr. Alison Wood Brooks found that verbalizing excitement before a performance (“I am excited!”) improves results more than trying to “relax.” The physiological arousal of stress can enhance focus and performance when interpreted as readiness.

From Knots to Bows

The shift from fear to engagement is what Taitz calls turning your knots into bows. Through studies by psychologists Jeremy Jamieson and Wendy Mendes, she explains how reappraising bodily stress—seeing a racing heartbeat as preparation rather than panic—boosts performance and lowers hormone surges. Students trained to reinterpret anxiety before an exam scored higher and had lower cortisol than those who didn’t. Likewise, treating “butterflies” as helpful energy improves public speaking and even strengthens teamwork, according to social psychologist Christopher Oveis.

Taitz distills a practical truth: the sensations of stress—heart pounding, breath quickening—can be interpreted as either threat or vitality. Your perception determines the outcome. “What we tell ourselves significantly affects how we approach and feel about situations,” she writes, adding her own mantra: Stress isn’t the enemy—it’s information.

Why Acceptance Is Empowering

Finally, Taitz reframes acceptance not as passivity but as empowerment. To “radically accept” stress means acknowledging its presence fully, without judgment or avoidance. Acceptance frees energy for action. She supports this with evidence from psychologist Mark Seery, whose longitudinal research shows that people exposed to moderate stress—not none—develop stronger resilience. As Taitz puts it, “Meaningful involvements increase one’s stress, but they also enrich one’s life.”

By embracing the inevitability of stress and learning to view it as proof of purpose, you shift from “Why me?” to “Why not me?” The stressors don’t vanish—but their power to define you does. You move, as Laurie ultimately did, from paralysis to possibility.

Once you’ve befriended stress, Taitz takes you deeper into emotional regulation—the art of staying present and effective even when your feelings flood you. Through the story of Melanie, a sleep-deprived journalist balancing family and work, she explores how volatile emotions become stressful not because they exist, but because we judge and suppress them.

Primary and Secondary Emotions

Taitz distinguishes between primary emotions (authentic, fact-based feelings like sadness or frustration) and secondary emotions (feelings about feelings—guilt about anger, shame about sadness). When you compound feelings this way, you lose access to their wisdom. Fear can cue caution, anger can signal unmet needs, and sadness can prompt connection. But when layered with self-criticism, those natural signals turn toxic.

The ARC Model

Taitz introduces a framework called ARC—Antecedent, Response, Consequence—to help you analyze emotional episodes. Identify what triggered you, how you responded (physically, mentally, behaviorally), and what followed. This awareness lets you adjust midstream, altering future outcomes. For example, Melanie realized that antecedents like exhaustion or partner resentment led her toward snapping; by noticing them early, she could take timeouts or communicate sooner.

Strategies for Balance

• Think flexibly: Observe catastrophic thoughts (“I’m a terrible parent”) and distance yourself from them. Ask: Is this thought helpful or factual? Reappraise, don’t suppress.
• Accept sensations: Practice sitting with emotions physically—like noticing tension while watching agitating news—and observing it pass. “You can’t stay at fever pitch forever,” notes therapist Cory Newman.
• Act opposite: Instead of acting how you feel, act how you want to feel. Behavioral activation—doing what aligns with values even when unmotivated—can break anxiety and depression cycles.

Melanie practiced playing with her son even when anxious, discovering joy followed action, not the other way around. Likewise, studies by Dr. Sona Dimidjian show that scheduled, meaningful action can rival antidepressants for improving mood.

Taitz’s takeaway: feelings are data, not directives. You can’t control your first emotion, but you can choose the next move. By tracking your ARCs and acting opposite destructive urges, you build mastery—and emotional maturity that makes every future stressor easier to weather.

Overthinking is the quiet engine of modern stress. Taitz, echoing decades of research by the late Dr. Susan Nolen-Hoeksema, calls it “chewing without digesting.” Through her client Max, a thoughtful college student who couldn’t stop analyzing life’s meaning or his own mistakes, she explores how repetitive thoughts masquerade as problem-solving but actually block it.

Why We Overthink

Overthinking often comes from good intentions—wanting to be prepared, conscientious, or self-aware—but it creates paralysis. Taitz shows how chronic rumination activates the same biological threat system as real danger. Studies by researcher William Gerin reveal that merely recalling anger-evoking events spikes blood pressure. Stress lives not in the event but in our minds’ replay function.

Ten Ways to Break the Cycle

• Clarify your goal: Identify one issue at a time to stop vague mental “loading screens.”
• Spot triggers: Try a “functional analysis” (Dr. Edward Watkins’s term) to note when and where you overthink—often late at night or when idle.
• Self-distance: Observe your thoughts in third person (“You’re worrying again”) to gain perspective (supported by Dr. Ethan Kross’s work).
• Shift from why to how: Swap “Why did this happen?” with “How can I act constructively?”
• Problem-solve what’s controllable: If anxious about health, take concrete precautions rather than infinite worry.
• Write it out: Use expressive writing (James Pennebaker’s method) for clarity and closure.
• Feel instead of analyze: Presence is not the enemy—rumination is avoidance in disguise.
• Reschedule rumination: Give it ten minutes later; most worries fade when postponed.
• Distract wisely: Absorbing tasks, even eavesdropping on neutral sounds, break loops better than sitting still.

By practicing these, Max transformed from “no chill” to grounded. Brain studies confirm this shift: being present, as researcher Matt Killingsworth found, correlates strongly with happiness. “A wandering mind is an unhappy mind,” he wrote—a claim Taitz revives with compassion: Your peace depends less on your circumstances than on where your attention resides.

In short, overthinking is controllable not through force but through structure: identify, externalize, schedule, and then choose living over looping. It’s a reset for the mind itself.

In one of the book’s most candid chapters, Taitz challenges modern ideas of “self-care” that rely on numbing rather than healing. Through her client Cameron, a thirty-something man using benzodiazepines for anxiety and cannabis for calm, she explores how substances masquerade as solutions while deepening stress.

The False Calm of Quick Fixes

Cameron’s story encapsulates our collective tendency to self-soothe externally—via pills, drinks, or dopamine loops. Taitz is clear: medication can be life-changing when prescribed appropriately, but dependency-based coping “outsources resilience.” Benzodiazepines (like Xanax or Klonopin) activate the body’s inhibitory system (GABA), creating temporary calm but diminishing natural regulation. Over time they dull cognition, impair memory, and heighten withdrawal anxiety. Addiction psychiatrist Arthur Robin Williams succinctly summarizes: “Anything that changes how you feel immediately has abuse liability.”

Cannabis, she adds, is another false refuge. While it can provide brief relaxation, long-term use correlates with apathy, cognitive sluggishness, and diminished motivation. Even “taking the edge off” can escalate into avoidance of difficult emotions. True thriving requires tolerating discomfort, not sedating it.

The Path to Internal Strength

Taitz guided Cameron toward tapering his medication under medical supervision while fortifying his coping toolbox—structured routines, physical exercise, communication skills, and “task-oriented cognitions.” She teaches him TIC-TOC thinking (from psychiatrist David Burns): swap Task-Interfering Cognitions (“I can’t handle this meeting”) with Task-Oriented Cognitions (“I can start now”). This simple swap reframes difficulty as agency. Repeated practice builds self-trust: each sober coping win reinforces the belief, “I can manage on my own.”

Ultimately, this chapter isn’t about judging self-medication; it’s about reclaiming power from dependency. As Taitz reminds readers, “You don’t need to anesthetize your life to enjoy it.” Instead of numbness, you can pursue vitality through purposeful discomfort—learning that confidence, energy, and joy are naturally self-produced.

For Taitz, stress isn’t just a signal to rest—it’s an invitation to realign with meaning. In her chapter on “Focusing on Something Bigger,” she tells the story of Gary, a retired consultant whose chronic pain and health anxiety left him bitter and disconnected. Through structured reflection and values work, she shows how reconnecting with purpose can transform even lasting stress.

The Miracle Question

Adapting a technique from solution-focused therapy, Taitz poses: “If a miracle happened overnight and your problems disappeared, how would your day look?” This question bypasses hopeless rumination and activates problem-solving. Research by Jenna Sung shows that envisioning this “miracle day,” naming small actionable steps, and anticipating obstacles significantly boost hope and diminish anxiety. Gary’s “miracle” involved connection and purpose: sharing coffee with his wife, mentoring his grandkids, volunteering. Once verbalized, those dreams became attainable goals.

Living Your Values

Taitz distinguishes goals (achievable outcomes) from values (ongoing directions). You can’t check off “kindness” or “curiosity” as done—but you can embody them daily. She incorporates the ACT technique “bull’s-eye values,” where you map life areas—health, work, relationships, leisure—and mark how close you feel to your values in each. Gary realized that focusing on reassurance-seeking (“avoid pain”) prevented him from living his values (“contribute despite pain”). By shifting focus, he regained agency and intimacy.

Purpose as Stress Buffer

Studies Taitz references show that having a sense of meaning aids physiological recovery from stress—students with clear life goals rebound faster from upsetting stimuli, for example. Therapist Hawthorne Smith, who works with survivors of torture, told Taitz that reframing suffering as survival “for the benefit of others and future generations” restores hope even in dire contexts. Similarly, palliative physician BJ Miller finds meaning by asking, “You’re still here—now what do you want to do?”

Taitz’s message: values aren’t a luxury for calm times—they are navigation tools in chaos. When you live by them, even pain can coexist with peace. Gary eventually replaced fear with gratitude, turning mornings once filled with symptom-checking into rituals of connection. As Taitz concludes, “Stress clarifies priorities—it reminds us to choose what matters most.”

The second part of the book—a literal “recipe book for your well-being”—offers fast-acting techniques to pause emotional spirals. Each “reset” is a miniature intervention from evidence-based therapy, practical enough to try mid-email or argument.

Mind, Body, and Behavior Resets

Taitz divides these into three categories:

• Mind Resets adjust thinking patterns. Examples include anchoring (“What am I thinking, feeling, and doing right now?”), singing your thoughts (a playful “cognitive defusion” trick that softens negativity), radical acceptance, and naming emotions to engage the prefrontal cortex and calm the limbic system.
• Body Resets address the physiology of stress. Using practical science, she advises icing your face (activating the vagus nerve), progressive muscle relaxation, coherent breathing (inhale five, exhale five), or simply adopting a half-smile to trigger neural calm.
• Behavior Resets target action. Tools include “STOP” (Slow down, Take a step back, Observe, Proceed mindfully), “surf your urges,” “take a walk outside,” and “build a hope kit” (a tactile reminder of joy for moments you feel hopeless).

Why They Work

Each reset rewires attention and biology through brevity and repetition. For instance, “Inhale for five, exhale for five” triggers vagal tone adjustment, lowering heart rate in minutes (confirmed by neuroscientist Andrew Huberman’s breathing studies). Similarly, “naming an emotion” activates rational circuits that soothe panic. These shifts may sound modest, but they accumulate—tiny interventions that prevent single bad minutes from becoming bad days.

Taitz compares these to “small wheels on a heavy suitcase”—simple but transformative tools that let you move forward gracefully. The key is consistent practice, not perfection: every reset is a rehearsal in resilience.

After mastering quick fixes, Part Three turns toward sustainable resilience. These “buffers” are deliberate habits—mental, physical, and behavioral—that strengthen your baseline mood over time. Taitz reimagines mental health maintenance as a form of emotional immunity: you can inoculate yourself against future stress.

Mind Buffers

These practices reshape perception. You might identify negative core beliefs (“I’m unlovable”), practice expressive writing for closure, or keep a gratitude journal. Even brief mindfulness sessions—three-minute “breathing spaces”—train awareness and lower relapse risk for depression as effectively as medication. She also recommends “cognitive empathy” (understanding emotions without absorbing them) and “sympathetic joy”—feeling happiness for others instead of envy—to counter modern comparison culture.

Body Buffers

Body-based resilience includes regular exercise (as powerful as antidepressants for moderate depression), morning sunlight exposure, paced breathing, and mindful eating. Sleep hygiene plays a starring role: setting consistent wake times and restricting time in bed paradoxically improves insomnia. Taken together, these routines stabilize hormones and energy, nurturing calm as the new baseline.

Behavior Buffers

Behavioral practices expand outward into lifestyle design—communicating assertively (through the DEAR MAN method), ditching gossip, making small talk to fight loneliness, and balancing digital life by limiting interruptions. Even gestures like daily bed-making or plotting joyful events generate small wins that reinforce agency. Financial mindfulness and health checkups appear too—because practical stressors often masquerade as emotional crises.

Through these buffers, stress becomes an occasional visitor rather than a permanent roommate. Taitz’s holistic framework—micro resets for the moment, buffers for the long term—ensures resilience becomes habit, not effort.

Taitz closes her work with a moving reminder: stress is also an opportunity—a gateway to growth, purpose, and connection. She revisits her first client, Deon, a man recovering from addiction and homelessness, who found stability by spending his days reading at Barnes & Noble. That humble routine, built around consistency and curiosity, gave him sobriety and self-worth. His story encapsulates her message: stressful lives don’t need extraordinary rescues; they need meaningful habits practiced faithfully.

In her final reflection, Taitz echoes psychiatrist Jerome Motto’s research showing that small gestures—letters of care sent to struggling individuals—dramatically lowered suicide risk. In the same way, small mindful gestures toward ourselves and others can rewire despair into hope. Stress, far from being a curse, is the raw material for courage, creativity, and compassion.

Her closing challenge is deceptively simple: widen your pause between stimulus and response, and use that space to choose kindness—toward yourself, toward others, and toward whatever life brings next. In doing so, you don’t just master stress; you create meaning.