Stress and I are no stranger. In fact, I have had chronic stress for most of my life accompanied by anxiety and depression. And the way I coped with stress was to eat chocolate. Lots of chocolate.
Now I know that eating chocolate isn’t the best coping mechanism for stress, but only perpetuating the chronic stress cycle. Because after I binge on chocolate, I stress about having ate it, if I’m going to gain weight, and on and on with negative self talk.
It wasn’t until after I did “all the things” to lose weight and get rid of my bloated gut to no success that I discovered that stress was causing my body to live in survival mode and its need to hold on to every thing I eat to protect myself from famine or death.
Can you relate?
I want to share with you what is stress and how you can relieve it with habits and lifestyle changes that you can do anytime to live a more stress-free life.
What is Stress?
When people experience challenges in life they will experience a physical and emotional reaction called stress. When your body is under stress, your body reacts by releasing hormones that produce a sympathetic response (a.k.a “fight or flight”). Your breathing rate increases and becomes shallower, your heart rate and blood pressure goes up, muscles tense, and you sweat more.
Once the stressful event is over, your parasympathetic response (a.k.a “rest and recovery”) kicks on releasing different hormones that slows your breathing, lowers your heart rate and blood pressure, and promotes digestion. Your body enters a state of relaxation, and this leads to recovery. And the more time you spend in the “rest and recovery” state, the healthier you are.
This is what your body was designed to do. These systems were created specifically to handle occasional acute stress – like being chased by a bear. However, long-term stress (a.k.a chronic stress) can contribute to all kinds of health problems including headaches, sleep disorders, digestive issues, and more. Studies have shown that stress can worsen asthma and has been linked to mental illnesses like anxiety and depression.
Stress is Normal. Right?
Stress is a normal human response in mind and body, but not chronic stress. Our modern-day living skyrockets our stress levels and keeps us there for long periods of time. Not good…
Believe it or not, stress is a silent killer and could be the root cause of 90% of all dis-ease in the world.
Stress is compounded through limitless stimulation, activities, family obligations, work, and trying to keep up with everyday life.
There are internal and external stressors that affect your mind and body. Whether that stress came from trauma or being exposed to one of the 80,000+ toxic man-made chemicals in the environment – our body feels like it is being attacked.
This constant bombardment of stressors over a long period of time wears our bodies down, burns out the central nervous system, and locks us into “fight or flight” mode.
If we don’t provide time and space for our body to rest, recover, and rejuvenate then our body can’t heal.
We have to make a switch from the sympathetic nervous system stress state to the parasympathetic relaxed state. Otherwise, we will be fighting an uphill battle to get well.
Digestive Stress
So, whenever your gut is out of balance it adds to your stress load. Your gut could be inflamed from foods that you are sensitive to and cause an immune reaction. That means your body’s defense system starts to attack the food particles in your intestines causing inflammation and possible damage to your intestinal lining.
Your gut (aka second brain) has a direct line of communication to your brain via the vagus nerve. At this point, your gut tells your brain that something is wrong down there and your brain replies with signals of increased anxiety, nervousness, depression, fatigue, brain fog, etc.
Workouts and Stress
Exercise, like most anything, needs to be balanced. Some people believe that if a little is good, a lot is better, and going all out every day must be the best way to exercise.
The problem is that working out this hard causes even greater stress on your body and can raise cortisol, inflammation, and blood sugar levels as a response to trauma. Yes, it is traumatizing to your body to go hard every day.
Stress from Viruses, Bacterial Infections, and Toxins
Another major stressor is recurrent viruses, bacterial infections, or toxic overload.
These could be dormant until your immune system is thrown off balance switching on the virus, bacteria infection, or inflammation.
Thyroid Stress
There are many reasons you might have a thyroid issue including immune imbalance, food sensitivity reaction, leaky gut, and heavy metal toxicity. But those are not the root cause.
Your body was designed to slow the thyroid down in times of stress. This slowing allows you to conserve calories, gain weight in times of low food supply, and essentially puts you into a hibernation state.
The problem is that lowering the thyroid no longer serves us in this day in age. We must work in harmony with our hormones and find ways to lower our stress for a balanced thyroid.
Other sources of stress that wear down your body:
- death of a loved one
- infection (acute/chronic)
- repeated stresses
- smoking
- emotional stress
- allergies
- overexertion
- lack of sleep
- poor eating habits
- sugar + white flour
- drugs + medications
- wound healing
- toxins
- financial pressure
- negative attitudes + beliefs
- lack of relaxation
- psychological stress
- unwanted unemployment
- fear
- trauma
- marital stress
- nutritional deficiency
- caffeine
- too little or too much exercise
Ways to Destress
- Walking – what I highly recommend to everyone is a simple way to calm your mind + body. Try to walk outside (if you’re able), to breathe in nature, and swing your arms. Walking every single day is a fantastic way to reduce stress.
- Exercise – it can help lessen anxiety, depression, panic attacks, and other mood imbalances. As little as 10-20 mins of exercise a day can make a HUGE difference in reducing stress.
- Laughing – laughing out loud is not only fun, but helps to rebalance your nervous system, hormones, immunity, and longevity.
- Scream Therapy – (opposite of laughing) works really well for specific people. If you have a hard time expressing your feelings, speaking up, or feeling like people are taking advantage of your kindness, then screaming into a pillow or in your car (by yourself) works really well to release the frustration.
- Boxing + Martial Arts – they are exercise, but in a more primal way of getting aggression out. There is nothing like hitting a bag or sparring – feels so good!
- 5-minute Meditation – It works! It takes practice, but it works. Scientific studies have shown that meditation reprograms your brain waves calming your thought process and allowing your body to heal from a deep level.
- Beta + Theta Wave Music – deepen your relaxation by listening to Beta + Theta wave music. Usually nature base with undertones of binaural beats. I also listen to them while walking and work best with headphones.
- Dance – create a playlist with upbeat, happy beats where you can let loose and dance like no one is watching!
- Soft Massage – soft is the key. No need to add more stress with deep tissue massage to an already stress body. Add on foot reflexology or cranial sacral massage to take relaxation to the next level.
- Soft Arts – the opposite of martial or combative arts (hard arts). Balance your exercise routine for the week with a couple of days of the soft arts including yoga, Tai Chi, Qi Gong, and other calming practices.
Float Therapy – there is nothing more therapeutic than floating in isolation with no light and sound to stimulate you. Imagine 60-90 minutes of no sound, no light, and no distractions just floating in peace.
How Will You Destress?
Schedule time blocks in your day to destress. Find 3 anchor points in your day where you can fit 5-60 minutes of “me time” to recenter and calm your nervous system.
Like exercise, you need to commit and make it work. We all know we need to do it. Now it’s time to take action.
Which of the above ways to destress intrigues you? Maybe you are already doing some of them, how can you make them a habit?