{"id":2819,"date":"2026-08-10T11:54:55","date_gmt":"2026-08-10T11:54:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ohmypeople.be\/stress-drives-behavior-not-your-mind\/"},"modified":"2026-08-10T11:54:55","modified_gmt":"2026-08-10T11:54:55","slug":"stress-drives-behavior-not-your-mind","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ohmypeople.be\/en\/stress-drives-behavior-not-your-mind\/","title":{"rendered":"Stress drives behavior, not your mind"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cStress drives our behavior, not our intelligence.\u201d Stress expert Elke Van Hoof on behavioral change, communication, and the mental impact of stress. <\/p>\n<p>Why does your thinking become so black-and-white when stress builds up? And why do you suddenly start doubting things you actually know very well? In this episode of \u201cStress as a BFF,\u201d stress expert Elke Van Hoof clearly explains what happens in your brain when you\u2019re under stress. Your brain switches from predicting to protecting. It opts for quick, limited reactions instead of open and calm communication.    <\/p>\n<p>Your language becomes harsher, nuance disappears, and it becomes harder to attune to the other person. Does that mean you\u2019re suddenly less empathetic or less intelligent? Absolutely not. However, at that moment, you have less access to your knowledge, experience, and context. Stress often feels like a barrier to clear thinking, but it can actually be the path toward it. By exploring together where the friction lies, we create space for one another once again.     <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cStress drives our behavior, not our intelligence.\u201d Stress expert Elke &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":2821,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_members_access_role":[],"_members_access_error":""},"categories":[173],"tags":[236],"class_list":["post-2819","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-podcast","tag-podcast-episode-28"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ohmypeople.be\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2819","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ohmypeople.be\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ohmypeople.be\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ohmypeople.be\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ohmypeople.be\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2819"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ohmypeople.be\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2819\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ohmypeople.be\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2821"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ohmypeople.be\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2819"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ohmypeople.be\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2819"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ohmypeople.be\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2819"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}