The Stress Prescription

How can you live with more calm and vitality when the world around you feels increasingly uncertain? In The Stress Prescription: Seven Days to More Joy and Ease, Dr. Elissa Epel—a renowned health psychologist and pioneer of stress and aging research—argues that stress is not the enemy we think it is. Instead, she contends that stress, when understood and managed correctly, can become one of our greatest allies for health, creativity, and resilience.

Epel’s core insight is that we can’t eliminate stress, but we can change our relationship with it. By transforming how we think about uncertainty and control, and by training both the mind and body to metabolize stress better, we can profoundly influence our emotional well-being—and even slow the cellular processes of aging. Her seven-day framework offers “go-bag tools” for modern life: simple, evidence-based practices drawn from decades of research and wisdom traditions that enhance flexibility, optimism, and biological resilience.

Stress Isn’t the Villain—It’s the Signal

Most of us dream of a stress-free life. But as Epel explains, “stress is woven into life itself.” Our stress response—this ancient survival mechanism—doesn’t just protect us from danger; it also allows us to grow, adapt, and thrive. When you experience short bursts of stress followed by recovery—a “peak-and-recovery” cycle—you build strength at both psychological and cellular levels.

However, modern life has disrupted that balance. Because we remain “switched on” almost constantly—bombarded by emails, alarms, social media, and worries about the future—our bodies interpret even minor triggers as ongoing threats. The result is chronic stress, which floods the body with cortisol and inflammation, damaging cells and shortening telomeres—the protective caps on chromosomes that serve as biological clocks of aging.

“We are built to handle stress,” Epel writes. “In fact, we need it. But only if we also know how to recover.”

Expect the Unexpected: The Power of Mental Flexibility

The book opens with Epel’s neighbor, Bryan, whose resilience was forged on a Soviet military base in the Arctic. When he realized that he couldn’t control his extreme environment but could control his mindset, his suffering diminished. This story sets up the book’s key pivot: resilience begins with expecting the unexpected. Life will always deviate from plan; stress arises when we fight that truth. But when we anticipate uncertainty and loosen our grip on rigid expectations, our nervous system relaxes, lowering our baseline arousal (“yellow mind”) and opening the door to calm curiosity.

Epel draws an analogy to meditation and the Buddhist teaching of impermanence—everything changes, so fighting change only multiplies suffering. Accepting flux and ambiguity, she says, is not resignation; it’s preparation. When the unexpected happens, our body stays calm, our mind stays clear, and we respond instead of react.

A Seven‑Day “Stress Prescription” for a Resilient Life

Epel’s “prescription” unfolds as a series of seven days, each with its own science-backed practice for recalibrating stress responses:

• Day 1: Expect the Unexpected – Train the body to release tension and accept uncertainty.
• Day 2: Control What You Can—Put Down the Rest – Differentiate your “sphere of influence” from what’s truly beyond your control.
• Day 3: Be the Lion – Shift from a threat response to a challenge response; use stress as energy for growth.
• Day 4: Train for Resilience – Strengthen cellular health through brief, positive stressors like exercise, cold water, or breathwork.
• Day 5: Let Nature Do the Work – Use nature’s restorative power to lower vigilance and spark awe.
• Day 6: Don’t Just Relax—Restore – Invoke deep rest through mindful breathing and “retreat moments.”
• Day 7: Start Full, End Full – Cultivate joy and gratitude at the start and end of each day.

Each day’s lesson comes with a short reflective or body-based exercise—what Epel calls a “go-bag skill”—that takes five to ten minutes. They’re not theoretical; they’re immediately usable. For example, the Day 1 practice “Catch and Release” helps you identify bodily tension caused by mental uncertainty and consciously release it. Day 3’s “Don’t Run, Roar” reframes stress as fuel. Even if you practice just one tool, she promises, your biology begins to shift.

Stress and Aging: The Cellular Connection

Epel’s scientific background gives the book unusual depth. Working with Nobel laureate Elizabeth Blackburn, she discovered the link between chronic stress, telomere shortening, and premature aging. But she emphasizes that biology is not destiny. Just as stress can damage, recovery and restoration can repair. Mindset changes and restorative states like deep rest, awe, and joy activate processes that lengthen telomeres, enhance mitochondria, and rebuild resilience from the inside out.

In this way, The Stress Prescription bridges psychology, neuroscience, and mindfulness. It argues that stress management isn’t about bubble baths or escaping pressure—it’s about retraining your stress response itself. You can turn harmful chronic stress into healthy short-term stress by: relaxing into the uncontrollable, engaging challenges intentionally, and giving your nervous system time to restore.

From Survival to Thrival: A New Public Health Vision

Epel ultimately reframes stress as a social and existential challenge. In a world of pandemics, climate anxiety, and information overload, individual stress resilience becomes a collective tool for healing. Self-care isn’t just personal—it’s planetary. By moving from chronic vigilance to flexibility and flow, you don’t just improve your own health; you contribute to a calmer, more compassionate society.

In essence, the Stress Prescription is both a scientific protocol and a spiritual reawakening. It invites you to expect chaos, rest deeply, move toward joy, and carry a light, metaphorical “go bag” full of timeless practices—from breathwork and reflection to purpose and awe. Stress, Epel teaches, isn’t the obstacle to your best life—it’s the raw material from which that life is formed.

The first prescription in Epel’s weeklong program is deceptively simple: learn to expect the unexpected. Uncertainty, she argues, is the “defining condition of our lives,” and our frustration with it fuels chronic tension. But uncertainty itself isn’t harmful—our intolerance of it is.

Uncertainty as a Hidden Stressor

Even small events—like a delayed email or unexpected traffic—activate the body’s threat response. Epel points to research showing that anticipating stress can be worse than the stress event itself. When the mind predicts danger but the outcome is unclear, cortisol spikes, heart rate rises, and the brain’s vigilance mode stays locked on. This constant readiness for “what might go wrong” quietly eats away at energy and health.

In one study she describes, people facing intermittent electric shocks felt far more stressed than those shocked on schedule—proof that ambiguity, not pain, drives anxiety. Similarly, during the pandemic, those less tolerant of uncertainty engaged more in panic buying and experienced higher post-traumatic stress. The lesson: our nervous system hates “maybes.”

Your Stress Baseline: From Red Mind to Blue Mind

Epel and her UCSF colleagues mapped four “mind states.” Most of us live in “yellow mind”—a chronically vigilant baseline between acute stress (“red mind”) and relaxation (“green mind”). Below green lies “blue mind,” a rare state of deep rest when true cellular restoration occurs. To reach it, you must lower your default arousal by softening into life’s uncertainty instead of scanning for threats.

Loneliness, discrimination, and digital overload can all raise your baseline, keeping you stuck in yellow. On the other hand, monotasking, nature exposure, and slow breathing signal safety to the vagus nerve, which regulates calm and recovery.

“Expectations rule out the possibility of being present,” Epel’s yoga teacher reminds us. Presence—not prediction—is the antidote to stress.

Shift Your Mindset: From Control to Curiosity

Epel showcases the story of Vivian and her daughter, Alicia, who react very differently when life veers off-script. Vivian expects detours; Alicia expects green lights. Every time plans change, Alicia’s stress response fires. This illustrates what Epel calls the “violation of expectation effect.” When reality diverges from our mental script, we experience a double dose of stress—the event itself and our emotional resistance to it. In Buddhist terms, these are the “two arrows” of suffering.

The remedy is loosening expectations before they harden into ultimatums. Releasing attachment to “how things should go” opens mental flexibility—the cornerstone of resilience. As clinical psychologist Jon Kabat-Zinn, another pioneer in mindfulness, often says, “You can’t stop the waves, but you can learn to surf.”

The Practice: Catch and Release

To embody this change, Epel offers the “Catch and Release” exercise. You start by scanning your body for tension—jaw, shoulders, chest, gut—and noticing where uncertainty hides physically. Then breathe into those areas and consciously release tightness. Finally, “lean back” both physically and mentally. You’ll notice that relaxation isn’t passive; it’s an act of trust in the unfolding of life.

She also recommends mini “uncertainty experiments.” Predict a feared outcome, test reality, and note how often the worst fails to happen. This retrains the brain from catastrophizing to statistical realism. Over time, you learn that most surprises are manageable—and some are even delightful.

Crucially, Epel advises staying mindful about your information diet. Doomscrolling and continuous news exposure tether us to global uncertainty beyond our control. Instead, she suggests asking, “Does checking now help—or can it wait?” This small pause begins the lifelong practice of expecting the unexpected without being ruled by it.

After accepting uncertainty, the next skill is discernment—learning to separate what’s within your control from what isn’t. As Epel writes, “We love control, but when we grip too tightly, we suffer.”

The Double-Edged Sword of Control

A sense of agency is fundamental to human resilience. People who believe they can influence outcomes recover from stress more quickly and even live longer. Epel cites research showing that perceived control enhances emotional stability, reduces the intensity of negative emotions, and protects the body from the harms of chronic stress. But when we try to control the uncontrollable—like another person’s health, the economy, or the weather—stress becomes toxic.

To illustrate this, Epel compares humans to hierarchical baboons. When dominance is stable, alpha males—creatures literally in control—have better health and lower stress hormones. But when power dynamics destabilize and they can’t control outcomes, their stress skyrockets, causing heart disease. The takeaway: striving for control without the capacity to achieve it harms us more than a total lack of control.

Sorting Life into Buckets

Epel guides readers through a “Stress Inventory” where they divide stressors into three categories: what can be changed, what can be influenced, and what must be accepted. This exercise reveals how much of our mental load comes from carrying bricks we can never put down.

For instance, Jane—a woman caring for her mother after a stroke—was drowning in anxiety, trying to research cures she couldn’t find. Her transformation came when she adopted a single mantra: “This has happened. Reality is as it is.” By focusing on what she could do (get a medical alert necklace) rather than what she couldn’t (reverse her mother’s illness), she regained calm and control of her energy.

Simple Tools: Delete, Delegate, and Accept

Epel introduces several practical actions:

• Push the delete button – Identify obligations and duties that aren’t truly required. Setting boundaries, especially at work, can turn burnout into breathing room.
• Simplify your day – COVID lockdowns forced many to reassess what actually matters. Epel encourages treating that pause as a life audit: what deserves your finite time?
• Drop the rope – Visualize letting go of a tug-of-war with life. If your energy achieves nothing, step back with compassion rather than guilt.

This process often surfaces a surprising truth: most chronic overwhelm comes from false obligations, not real necessity. Recognizing that you can’t do it all is liberating.

Radical Acceptance and the Worry Window

Radical acceptance, a concept borrowed from Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), means fully acknowledging reality—even if painful—instead of fighting it. Accepting doesn’t mean approving. It’s choosing not to multiply suffering with resistance. Epel likens it to surviving a riptide: you don’t win by fighting the current; you float with it until it releases you.

To manage daily mental noise, she proposes the “Worry Window.” Schedule five minutes each day just to worry. Capture your fears on paper, then close the window until tomorrow. Paradoxically, confining worry reduces overall rumination and provides control over mental time.

Living from Purpose, Not Pressure

The chapter ends with a poignant reflection from Epel’s colleague, Martica Hall, a scientist facing terminal cancer who told friends she had “no regrets.” She’d spent her time on what mattered most—meaningful work and love. From her, Epel draws the concept of spiritual urgency: living now as if this year were your last. When you live by priorities, stress naturally organizes itself around purpose—and the uncontrollable becomes background noise.

When life corners you, are you the gazelle or the lion? That’s how Epel opens her third lesson. Both animals experience stress, but their physiology—and mindset—differ entirely. The gazelle perceives threat: fear constricts blood vessels, limits oxygen to the brain, and fuels panic. The lion perceives challenge: adrenaline sharpens focus, expands blood flow, and powers pursuit. The same stress response, reframed from threat to challenge, becomes a source of strength.

Threat vs. Challenge Responses

Epel draws from groundbreaking work by psychologist Wendy Berry Mendes, showing that “challenge stress” enhances performance and resilience. When you interpret stress symptoms—racing heart, sweaty hands—not as danger but as helpful energy, your body flips from constriction to expansion. Blood pumps more efficiently, cognition sharpens, and inflammation drops. People who view stress as enhancing even live longer (as shown in studies by Alia Crum at Stanford).

Reframing the Internal Dialogue

Epel offers four common “threat beliefs” and their reframes:

• Instead of “If I fail, I’m not cut out for this,” say “If I fail, it means I’m challenging myself.”
• Instead of “I’ll never pull this off,” remind yourself “I can figure this out or ask for help.”
• Instead of “If I don’t succeed, everything will collapse,” zoom out: “In five years, how much will this matter?”
• Instead of “This is so stressful,” try, “This is exciting energy helping me perform.”

Through repetition, these reframes reshape brain circuitry. People who adopt them experience lower cortisol, steadier pulse, and more “recovery-ready” nervous systems. Epel quotes a participant’s motto: “From ‘Why me?’ to ‘Try me!’”

The Impostor Syndrome Trap

Using the story of Steven, a first-time mayor overwhelmed by public scrutiny, Epel explores impostor syndrome—the belief “I don’t deserve to be here.” This mindset keeps people trapped in red-mind reactivity. Once Steven recognized his transferable strengths—communication, collaboration, integrity—his stress transformed into purpose. Self-compassion, not perfection, fuels the lion’s calm.

Identity and the Power of Values

Epel highlights NBA star Kevin Love’s panic attacks as an example of identity threat: when our self-worth hinges on performance, even small failures feel existential. The antidote is “identity diversification.” You are more than your job or parental role—you’re also a friend, learner, neighbor, artist. Writing about three core values you already embody can reconnect you to inherent worth. Neuroscientific studies show such affirmations activate the brain’s reward system and reduce stress cortisol for months.

“I am enough. I have enough. I do enough.” Epel calls this mantra an inoculation against chronic threat stress.

By roaring rather than running, you reclaim agency. Stress becomes your body’s fuel, not its foe. Each challenge navigated from curiosity and self-trust strengthens the neural and cellular circuits of resilience—your internal pride of lions waiting to act.

On Day 4, Epel introduces a revolutionary idea: use stress itself to build resilience. Instead of avoiding stress, deliberately expose yourself to moderate, manageable doses that train your nervous system to recover faster. This concept, known as hormetic stress, acts like exercise for your cells.

Hormesis in Action

Hormetic stress is any brief challenge that triggers growth: short bursts of high-intensity exercise, cold showers, or controlled breathing. These stressors enhance autophagy (cellular cleanup), increase mitochondrial efficiency, and sharpen heart-rate flexibility. In other words, hormetic stress flips the switch from decay to repair.

Epel cites research with dementia caregivers—among the most chronically stressed populations—who exercised just three times weekly for six months. Their depression dropped, stress-resilience increased, and even their telomeres lengthened. A similar result was found with Wim Hof’s cold exposure and breathwork techniques, which lowered inflammation and boosted positivity. The message is clear: your body learns resilience by practicing recovery.

Practical Micro-Stressors

Epel offers three simple hormetic challenges:

• HIIT Workouts – Seven minutes of alternating effort and rest. As Peloton coach Robin Arzón says, “Develop a relationship with discomfort.”
• Cold Showers – End your shower with 30–60 seconds of cold water. Relax your mind as your skin tightens—it’s mental strength training for daily shocks.
• Breath Holds – Perform 30 deep breaths, exhale, and hold. This “intermittent hypoxia” stimulates cellular regeneration through controlled stress.

Other “bonus” hormetic practices include sauna exposure—hyperthermia that mimics exercise—and contrast baths alternating hot and cold for cardiovascular stimulation. As with physical training, consistency matters more than intensity. Start where you are, Epel urges, remembering that resilience grows through deliberate discomfort followed by deep recovery.

Cellular Lessons from the Iceman

One of Epel’s most compelling encounters was with Wim Hof, “the Iceman,” whose methods demonstrated control over the immune system once thought impossible. People trained in his technique, combining cold exposure and dynamic breathwork, showed reduced inflammatory responses to bacterial toxins—proof that the mind can regulate autonomic systems. Likewise, nurse Lynne Brick discovered physical movement cured her trauma-related exhaustion; “movement was the medicine.”

From Burnout to Bounce-Back

Hormesis, Epel notes, is the antidote to both sedentary living and chronic overwhelm. Instead of being “on high alert” indefinitely (yellow mind), you consciously oscillate between activation and rest. Short, chosen bursts of stress teach your nervous system: energy can rise and fall safely. Over time, you hardwire resilience—the physical confidence that “I can handle this.”

The goal isn’t a stress-free life, Epel concludes—it’s a stress-fit one.

Day 5 turns attention outward—to nature, the original stress regulator. During the pandemic, millions rediscovered walks, parks, and beaches. Epel calls this the ultimate “blue prescription.” Time in natural environments automatically lowers vigilance, refreshes cognition, and triggers awe—an emotion that shrinks problems down to size.

How Nature Resets the Nervous System

Modern living keeps us in sensory overload: constant screens, sirens, and notifications. Nature, by contrast, reduces this “cognitive load.” Even viewing trees or hearing birdsong activates brain areas linked to safety, slowing heart rate and cortisol. Forest bathing studies in Japan and Korea show measurable drops in inflammation and blood pressure after just two hours outdoors.

Exposure to natural “blue-green spaces”—oceans, lakes, woods—helps restore vagal tone and promotes what Epel calls attentional restoration: the ability to focus effortlessly. The shift from tunnel vision to open awareness creates emotional spaciousness and physiological calm.

The Magic of Awe and Water

Epel highlights UC Berkeley researcher Dacher Keltner’s work showing that awe reduces stress markers and boosts meaning. Veterans with PTSD who spent a week in the wilderness showed a 30% drop in symptoms, proof that nature-inspired awe can recalibrate trauma-altered physiology. Awe, says Keltner, makes “the small self” humble and connected.

Water environments—what marine biologist Wallace J. Nichols calls “Blue Mind”—are particularly powerful. Rhythmic waves or flotation therapy lower muscle tension and raise interoception (awareness of bodily signals). Just listening to water can synchronously slow your breathing and heartbeat.

Urban Nature Counts Too

You don’t need wilderness. Studies show that living near trees or parks—even having houseplants—correlates with longer telomeres and improved longevity. Epel reminds city dwellers that nature is “bursting through the cracks”: birds, sky, wind, and sunlight all communicate “you’re safe now.” Fifteen minutes of urban greenery can act as a nervous-system reset.

Practicing Awe Intentionally

Epel invites readers to “bimble”—wandering through nature without purpose, guided only by the senses. Listen for layered sounds, trace the fractals of leaves, feel your feet kiss the earth. What begins as observation becomes absorption. If wilderness isn’t available, bring nature inside: light a pine-scented candle, play ocean sounds, or hold a stone from the ground.

“Nature’s peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees.” —John Muir

Letting nature do the work reminds us of our scale: vast yet connected, temporary yet timeless. Encountering beauty in the natural world, we remember—awe isn’t escape. It’s alignment.

If stress is inevitable, recovery is essential. On Day 6, Epel distinguishes between light relaxation and deep restoration. Most of us confuse watching Netflix or scrolling our phones with rest. True deep rest is a physiological state where the body heals, cells regenerate, and the mind resets to safety. It’s what she calls the “blue mind” state—the biological opposite of chronic vigilance.

Why Real Rest Is Elusive

When you hold your breath while checking email (“email apnea”), your nervous system reads urgency as danger. Over time, this shallow breathing hardwires tension. Epel reminds readers that relaxation isn’t a luxury—it’s a survival tool. Without recovery cycles, chronic stress accelerates aging at the cellular level. Deep rest floods the body with oxygen, boosting nitric oxide, widening blood vessels, and lowering blood pressure.

Creating a Retreat State of Mind

You don’t need to fly to Bali for restoration. Epel’s research shows that even one week in a peaceful setting dramatically changes gene expression—lowering inflammation and oxidative stress—whether or not participants meditate. The key conditions are safety, seclusion, and sensory quiet. These can be recreated anytime: dim lights, silence devices, recline, and breathe deeply. The body takes over from there, switching on repair mechanisms and calming the brain’s threat detectors.

The Science of Breath

The fastest portal to deep rest is breath. Nose breathing produces nitric oxide; slow breathing boosts vagal tone. Functional breathing expert Patrick McKeown’s “Light, Slow, Deep” method trains this skill. Try inhaling for four seconds, holding for six, exhaling for eight. This pattern reduces heart rate and anchors attention in the body—a shortcut to the parasympathetic zone. Over time, such practices shift your baseline from yellow to green mind.

Rest as Resistance

Epel also connects rest to justice. Drawing on the work of Tricia Hersey’s Nap Ministry, she reframes rest as a human right, not an indulgence. Marginalized groups, especially Black Americans, experience systemic sleep deprivation due to social inequities. The act of resting becomes revolutionary—reclaiming agency from a culture that glorifies overwork. She writes, “If you don’t make time for rest today, you’ll be forced to make time for illness later.”

“Deep rest is not a luxury,” Epel concludes. “It’s how we remember who we are beneath the noise.”

The final prescription centers on joy—both its mental and biological importance. Stress, Epel reminds us, thrives in scarcity: of time, gratitude, and attention. Joy, however, expands capacity. It strengthens immunity, protects telomeres, and gives us energy to face challenge. You can’t chase happiness, she warns, but you can cultivate it deliberately.

Bookending Your Days

Morning and night are biochemical crossroads. Upon waking, cortisol surges to mobilize glucose for the day. If we start anxious—opening email in bed—this surge overshoots, leaving us edgy for hours. At bedtime, lingering tension keeps cortisol high, disrupting cellular repair. To reset, Epel introduces her “Bliss Bookends”: a five-minute gratitude ritual at both ends of the day.

Morning: Before touching your phone, ask, “What am I looking forward to today?” and “What am I grateful for?” Begin with small delights—the scent of coffee, a pet’s affection, a sunrise. These thoughts calibrate your nervous system for positivity, boosting mitochondrial energy and lowering anxiety.

Evening: Reflect on “What went better than expected?” or “What made me smile?” Replaying positive memories before sleep enhances deep restorative cycles and trains your mind to scan for good. Even hard days hold silver linings—kindness from strangers, laughter in tears, lessons learned.

Joy as a Stress Buffer

Epel draws on decades of positive psychology research (Sonja Lyubomirsky, Barbara Fredrickson) showing that gratitude, compassion, and kindness directly lower inflammation and raise life satisfaction. In her studies, caregivers who woke up joyful had healthier mitochondria than those waking with dread. Emotional energy, it turns out, defines cellular energy.

Pleasure vs. Purpose

Lasting happiness comes from eudaimonia—meaningful living—rather than hedonic highs. Pleasure fades; purpose endures. Epel recalls Tibetan teacher Tsoknyi Rinpoche quipping that new gadgets can’t deliver inner joy: “I bought the iPad—but my belly was still round!” Contentment comes from aligning with values, not upgrades. When you give, create, or appreciate beauty, you are literally buffering stress chemistry.

Joy Multiplies When Shared

Performing one small act of kindness a day—complimenting a colleague, helping a neighbor—creates measurable physiological effects, lowering blood pressure and increasing “feel-good” oxytocin. Even smiling fakes the body into happiness. As Thich Nhat Hanh says, “Sometimes your smile is the source of your joy.”

The science is clear: joy is preventive medicine. Start and end full, and the waves of stress that once capsized you will barely rock the boat.

In her conclusion, Epel expands the lens from personal wellness to collective survival. Resilience, she writes, isn’t just about bouncing back—it’s about bouncing forward with purpose. Hope becomes the final prescription—a form she calls active hope. Unlike passive optimism, active hope is doing what you can, where you are, for what matters most.

From Anxiety to Agency

In an era of climate crisis, division, and global uncertainty, existential stress is unavoidable. But channeling it into purposeful action transforms paralysis into empowerment. Drawing inspiration from Buddhist scholar Joanna Macy and the Dalai Lama, Epel defines hope as a practice of compassion in motion: renewing warmheartedness daily rather than clinging to abstract optimism.

Finding Your North Star

Purpose doesn’t require grand gestures. Helping others, mentoring youth, caring for elders, or healing the planet—all count. Epel shares her awakening during the California wildfires, when the sky turned rust-red and she realized she could no longer just worry about climate change; she had to act on it, even through small projects fostering eco-anxiety resilience. “Worry became warrior,” she says.

She also highlights her father’s story: a teacher whose casual encouragement changed a student’s life forever. This illustrates “quantum social change”—the idea that personal acts ripple outward in unseen ways, influencing systems beyond our lifetime.

Hope as a Daily Ritual

Epel offers a “hope vow” patterned after Celtic poet Pádraig Ó Tuama’s prayer: “May we make room for the unexpected. May we find wisdom and life in it.” This refrains from future-tripping and recenters the self in presence and compassion. Aligning action with values—whether through activism, art, or kindness—anchors meaning amid chaos.

“Uncertainty also means freedom,” Epel concludes. “Anything can happen.”

That, finally, is her stress prescription’s most radical promise: when we stop fighting the unknown and start serving something larger than ourselves, we don’t merely survive uncertainty—we transcend it.