Welcome back friends
For those of you who have been here for a while you know that this podcast is dedicated to small actionable bites that can change your physical, mental and emotional wellbeing.
As I mentioned last week we cannot separate world affairs from our health and wellbeing and world affairs are stressful right now.
The question is how can we hold the despair and find a path forward?
On today's HealthBite I want to talk about just this. Stress, what is its effect on our bodies, our desire to eat and soothe, and offer you scientific evidence-based practices and mind-body skills on how we can manage it.
Welcome back to Healthbite, I'm your host Dr Adrienne Youdim. I am triple board certified as an internist, obesity medicine and physician nutrition specialist and I help people redefine nutrition to not only eat well but nourish themselves physically, mentally and emotionally. I’m really feeling this this week so let get into it and dig into this weeks bite.
So I wonder if you are experiencing some of these symptoms right now. Palpitations, jitteriness, heat,, blurred eyesight digestive issues, fatigue, numbness, paralysis. (I don't want to minimize any potential organic cause so let me just say that this could be a sign of something more important and you should speak to your doctor or even go to the ER if these symptoms are acute and you feel unwell)
But these symptoms can also be a sign of stress.
Our bodies have a single soundtrack when it comes to stress and it is based on survival. Historically, stress meant tigers chasing us in the wild and our bodies developed mechanisms to respond to that threat- fight or flight or freeze and fawn.
Flight or flight makes sense right, the body has to rev our to protect itself and get our of harms way so we get pumped with adrenaline and cortisol that gives us the mojo to fight it our or flee.
This is associated with a jump in our heart rate, a rise in our blood pressure, our pupils dilate so we can see better/more, our digestion shuts off because who cares about digestion when there is a tiger. This is all good and fine when there is an acute short term stress- tiger- we run- end of story. but not so good when the stress is prolonged, pandemic, followed by social injustice, political strife, family and friendship feuds over just mentioned, regular life stuff like parents who get sick, children who are falling behind in school, or even the littler stuff like when you get cut off on the freeway or have a tiff with your mother in law. Haha just had to throw that one in- but I actually adore my mother in law. (love you helenie)
Aside from the bodily sensation of stress there is a systemic effect as well. As our bodies pump out these and other stress hormones it causes activation of the immune system- chronically- this means that our immune system poops out and is not able to respond when it needs to making us more prone to infections. Did you know that stress even impacts our ability to build immunity in response to vaccines- wild!
These surge of stress homones and cytokines which are basically proteins that excite our bodies immune reaction causes inflammation in the body. We know that chronic inflammation is associated with so many other medical conditions including metabolic disease for example and that wears down the body in so many ways.
And finally, It has also been suggested that the flood stress hormones and cytokines and inflammation may also contribute to cancer and perhaps impact our bodies repair mechanism.
Remember short term stress, is beneficial- long term stress- not so much.
So what can be done. Remember this is healthbite by me Dr. Adrienne, and I am never about doom and gloom. Not because I am an eternal optimist, because I am not, but because I know how freakin resilient we are. How our bodies are so responsive to our care. I know this scientifically. I know this through personal experience and I know this in the work that I do with my patients every day.
So lets shift gears to what we can do.
- First step is to allow yourself that care. Given all that is going on so many of us feel guilty about taking care of ourselves. I get it. I feel like that myself. But then I have to remember that caring for ourselves is a form of advocacy, it is a form of gratitude. It is saying I recognize that in this moment am privileged. And I am going to take advantage of that privilege, of my blessing by doing my very best for myself. It is a show of gratitude, an acknowledgment of how precious and sacred life is; and it is a form of defiance. So number one is give yourself permission to care for yourself.
- Mange your consumption. We are glued to our phones to the news to our feeds and if that was not enough our whats app is filled with links to anything we may have missed. TAKE A BREAK. I know its hard. Its hard for me too. But we must set boundaries and limit our consumption of all the noise to maintain our mental and emotional wellbeing. You may say that you need to be informed, I get it. Find a balance between being informed and being well.
Now lets talk about the simple tools that we have at our disposal to reduce stress.
- Nature
- Next dance! The truth is that any kind of movement will offer an energetic outset even merely shaking our body will
- stimulate the release of accumulated stress hormones, including cortisol
-dancing and shaking allow us to release our unexpressed emotions in a cathartic way.
- movement causes a release of endorphins, dopamine, and serotonin that enhance your mood.
- dance is also a form of creative expression, creativity itself in any form has benefits to stress reduction
-dance can be done in the community - another stress-relieving quality.
-In fact dance is so effective that it is a psychotherapeutic approach to healing trauma. So get up put on some music and move your body, it doesnt need to be graceful or coordinated or just shake, shaking your limbs, your trunk, do it vigorously for just 5 minutes and see how librated and exhilarated you feel.
- last but not least- my absolute favorite is breathing. For those of you who don't like to or feel they cant meditate, a breathing practice, I find, is such an easier lead in to a meditative state. Breathing….sympathetic….
I could go on, but I have already been in your ear for a while now. As I said, I recorded this episode in response to so many asks out there So I hope it is of benefit.
Please take heed to some of these suggestions on managing stress.
I promise you they are effective AND you deserve it. Well that it for this week. If you found this of value can you leave us a review, we all can use some lovin right now.
And share it with someone you love! I will see you again next week.
Until then, stay well out there my friends.