Unlocking the Stress Cycle: Scary Movies

It’s the early 2000s. A foil packet of Jiffy Pop hisses and swells on the stovetop, hot oil spitting onto my fingers as I hover a little too close. In the living room, my cousin leans toward me, whispering about the scary movie we’ve just convinced our her mom to let us rent from Blockbuster. Tonight feels special: we were allowed to pick out Snow Caps, but most importantly, we’re watching The Blair Witch Project.

Even with the opening scene starting, I can already feel it- the quickening pulse, my sweaty palms, the creeping tension that climbs into my throat. By the time the ending arrives (abruptly, in those early versions without credits!) we are talking and laughing about who was scared the most. For me, the thrill is simpler: the movie is over. My body exhales. The stress has finally passed.

That cycle—the mounting dread, the sudden shock, the eventual relief—was more. It mirrored the way our nervous systems move through stress, a mirroring of my daily anxiety. The difference, of course, is that a horror film provides closure. Real life rarely does.

What Is the Stress Cycle?

In Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle, sisters Emily and Amelia Nagoski describe stress not as a single moment or event, but as a biological process the body is designed to complete. “Stress is not the stressor,” they write, “stress is the neurological and physiological shift that happens in your body when you encounter one of these threats.” Unless the body is guided through to resolution, the cycle stalls, leaving us tense, exhausted, and vulnerable.

A scary movie offers a safe, contained rehearsal of this same process:

• The buildup: Shadows lengthen, the music swells, your body braces.
  
  

• The peak: A jump scare lands, your chest seizes, maybe you even scream!
  
  

• The resolution: The scene shifts, the danger evaporates, and relief floods in.
  
  

That exhale, shaky as it may be, is the body completing the cycle.

Aha! Moment

When I first encountered the Nagoskis’ work, I had the strange sense of a puzzle piece clicking into place. As someone who has lived with anxiety—and especially social anxiety—I realized that the workouts I gravitated toward weren’t random. Long runs, spin classes, HIIT sessions: they all mimicked that arc of stress, and, crucially, resolution. The pounding heart, the sweat, the breathless climb—and then the release. It wasn’t just exercise. It was completion. That stress response was one I knew intimately. Except I now I was about to channel that stress into healthier outlets that encouraged relief and completion. 

Looking Back: Horror as Relief

As a socially anxious queer teen, I didn’t yet have the language of “stress cycles.” But I understood the relief of scary movies, even as I dreaded them. My best friend adored horror and stacked his shelves with cult classics: Sleepaway Camp, Bikini Bloodbath, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Carrie, Prom Night. I went along, jittery but loyal, bracing myself through each jump-scare and gore-slicked frame.

What I see now is that those movies gave me something daily life did not: a reliable ending. My chronic anxiety meant I often carried a vague, shapeless dread—one that rarely subsided. But horror marathons forced that dread into form. It spiked, it broke, and then it was over. That closure felt like oxygen.

Real-Life Stress Rarely Ends So Neatly

The trouble, of course, is that everyday stress doesn’t fade to black. A late-night email from a boss or a simmering family conflict doesn’t resolve in ninety minutes. Instead, the nervous system can stay braced for impact indefinitely, caught in the loop without release. That chronic strain takes a toll.

The good news, as the Nagoskis emphasize, is that we can create our own endings—our own ways to move the body through the cycle:

• Movement: Running, dancing, walking—any physical activity that signals “the danger has passed.”
  
  

• Breathwork: Slow, intentional breaths cue safety to the nervous system.
  
  

• Laughter or tears: Both provide full-bodied release.
  
  

• Affection: A lingering hug with someone safe—at least 20 seconds—can complete the loop.
  
  

• Creativity: Engaging in creativity doesn’t just discharge stress—it can pull us into what positive psychologists call flow, that state of deep immersion where time softens and the body recalibrates. 

Amelia Nagoski, a choral conductor and educator who explores embodied cognition, frequently discusses how music, gesture, and physical expression intersect with emotional experience. As a board-certified art therapist, ATR-BC, I deeply resonate with this: the way rhythm, improvisation, and embodied creativity allow stress to flow rather than stagnate. Making art, singing, painting, or moving to music can be much more than a hobby in stress recovery- they can serve as direct paths to release and healing.