Abstract
Most modern lives unfold within a prolonged interval of almost-but-not-quite stress, a state in which the body is neither fully in crisis nor fully at rest. This essay examines what follows when the autonomic nervous system occupies that interval for years: chronic activation constrains vagal tone and heart rate variability, the brain ceases to register tension as tension, and a person can lose access to the lower half of their own regulatory range without ever collapsing.