Hysteresis in Plain English

If you knock a billiard ball across the table and it rolls along for a while and then stops, and then you hit it exactly the same force at exactly the reverse angle, it should come back to exactly the same spot and take exactly the same amount of time to do it. That's not hysteresis: the paths just reverse themselves. But if you break your leg and want it to 'come back to the same spot' more work will have to be applied than actually went into making the break, and it will take longer to heal than it did to break. That is hysteresis. It is a 'you can get back from here' effect, but with 'and it will take longer and cost more' added on. And the 'cost more' isn't just the reknitting of the bone, it is the gait and the way the posture changed from using crutches, and it is the changes to your interoception—the nervous system, immune system and endocrine system in particular.