Feeling wound up and reactive lately?
In this week's episode of Health Bite, Dr. Adrienne Youdim dives into the science behind reactivity and shares practical ways to manage it.
Tune in for valuable insights on how to regain control over your responses.Listen now for tips on creating space between triggers and reactions, nourishing your body for better responses, and setting yourself up for success.
Don't miss out on this empowering episode!
What You’ll Learn From Today’s Episode
- Reactivity and its Impact: Learn about reactivity and how it can affect our relationships, workplaces, and homes.
- Biological Response to Stress: Determine the biological basis of reactivity and how our bodies respond to stress.
- Strategies to Manage Reactivity: Learn strategies to create space between triggers and reactions to manage reactivity.
- Mind-Body Connection: By naming and acknowledging these physical and emotional reactions, you can begin to manage and reduce your reactivity through techniques like deep breathing, nourishing your body with balanced meals, prioritizing quality sleep, and engaging in movement to release nervous energy.
"...if I were to give an analogy for us collectively right now, it would be of a slingshot.
Just like a slingshot, we're all charged, wound up, and ready to react." - Dr. Adrienne Youdim
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Connect with Dr. Adrienne Youdim
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If I were to give an analogy for us collectively right now, it would be of a slingshot. Just like a slingshot, we're all charged, wound up, and ready to react. And it strikes me that this feeling of reactivity is not much unlike a craving. an intense feeling to act or in this case to consume that is so strong that we feel like we don't have agency or the power in ourselves to choose otherwise. That nervous energy feels so present to me right now. And unchecked, it plays out in our relationships, our workplaces, and in our homes. Reactivity and science-based ways we can manage is the topic of this week's Health Bite. Welcome back to Health Bite. I'm your host, Dr. Adrienne Youdim. I'm a triple board certified internist, obesity medicine, and physician nutrition specialist, And I help people redefine nutrition to include not only the food that we eat, but all the ways that we can nourish ourselves physically, mentally, and emotionally. So I don't know about you, but my alarm goes off at 545 every morning, and immediately I reach for my phone. The first thing I see is my newsfeed and I am already agitated by what I read. Then I head over to Instagram where I find more discord and divisiveness or a sequence of all the women without any cellulite and my agitation grows. Then I look into my inbox and find emails from a patient, for example, who's angry because his medication was not covered by insurance. And I feel defensive by 6 a.m. I'm so reactive that I feel like I'm going to jump out of my skin. And I know I'm not alone. On the drive to work, people honk when it takes a second too long for the driver to let go of the gas. And then at Starbucks, the lady behind me huffs and puffs as someone in front of me counts change to pay for her coffee. Patients share that they're yelling at their partners and snapping at their kids. And I think we've become so reactive And really, who can blame us? Ever since the pandemic, it has been one thing after another, after another. And now we're all expected to come back into our offices and interact with other humans again. How's that going to work? And you know, this reactivity, it's been hardwired in our biology. As humans, we have evolved to react and respond to acute stress as a mechanism of survival. Otherwise, our ancestors, the hunters and gatherers, would have been eaten in the wild. Think about it. Back in the day, these hunters and gatherers were out there living in the wild with animals and predators that could kill them. And so if a lion were to present itself, the mind and body had to have a way to react quickly, immediately, in order to avoid the threat. And so our bodies have developed ways of responding to this acute threat. Heart rate goes up so that more oxygen gets pumped to the muscles. Respiration goes up also to deliver more oxygen throughout the body. Pupils dilate so that the vision can be more attuned to detect a threat. The liver releases glycogen stores. Basically glucose in the form of energy is released into the bloodstream so that the body has the energy to run. At the same time, the systems that are not necessary for survival, like digestion, like reproduction, like certain types of critical thinking, shut down. so that the body can respond to this threat. Fast forward thousands of years later and our bodies are still responding to stress, still responding to threat in the same way, except that the stress no longer is acute. The stress is chronic as we go from one thing to another. world affairs and pandemics and financial situations and family crises our bodies end up being in this constant state of fight-or-flight and It makes us reactive and this reactivity is harmful. Not only to the body but also to the mind and and to the way that we live our lives. It infiltrates, as I said, our relationships, our workplaces. Basically, it infiltrates everything we do, making us less clear, less intentional, less tolerant, and less able to live our lives in the way that we wish for ourselves. The good news is that there are ways that we can manage this reactivity, that we can manage this very innate and biological way that we respond to threat. And that is to create a little bit of space and a little bit of pause. Think about our reactions. Think about it in terms of our cravings. So you're sitting in bed, watching Netflix late at night, and all of a sudden, out of the blue, you have a thought for something in the refrigerator or something in the pantry. That trigger signals or elicits a craving, this desire or feeling to react. Now, you may not respond to it immediately, but you may find that as you think about it, the intensity, the energy behind that desire, behind that craving grows and grows and grows. And before you know it, you feel like you have no other choice. You are compelled to react. Most times, the time between that trigger or that thought and the reaction, getting up and walking to the pantry is really very, very short. It's the same for the time between receiving that email that feels insulting and reacting by writing your own response, or the guy who honks at you in the street and your desire to honk back or cut him off. That space between the trigger and the reaction is really the space in which we can hone our reactivity and also more importantly to find freedom from that feeling that we have no other choice. So how do we cultivate that space? How do we create space between the trigger and the response? The first is just awareness. If you're mindful, you'll notice that you feel this reactivity in your body. Just like the example of being chased by a lion, Even if you're not being chased by a lion, you can feel this reactivity bubbling up inside you. You may feel your heart rate go up. You may feel tension in your jaw, in your throat, in your fist. You may feel the flutter in your gut. You can feel the reactivity in your body. So the first step is to be aware and then to name what it is you're experiencing in your body. One of the most interesting things is this concept of name it to tame it. The moment that you acknowledge what you are feeling physically, you already set into motion the process by which you start to release that feeling. you start to manage that reactivity physically in your body. Once you do that, once you manage what's in the body, you're better able to manage what's in your mind. Primarily because it is often those physical feelings that are driving the emotions and feelings in the mind. So again, name it in the body, Then move over to what you were feeling or experiencing in the mind Name that too. Is it anxiety? Is it tension? Is it frustration? Is it just fatigue? Is it anger? Naming that emotion, again, frees you up from its effects. Next, sit with it. Sit with that sensation, but do it in a way that helps regulate your nervous system. And we've talked about this before. Initiating some deep breathing right there and in the moment helps you physically manage and regulate your nervous system. Remember that our stress response is the fight or flight or the sympathetic nervous system. The very thing that triggers your heart rate to go up, your respirations to go up, your digestion to shut down. This is managed by the sympathetic nervous system. But if you can initiate some deep breathing, taking deep breaths in through your nose, allowing your belly to soften so that you can fill your lungs up, not only in the tops of your lungs as when we engage in shallow breathing, but the bottom of your lungs as well. That's where the parasympathetic or the rest and relax receptors of your nervous system live. Breathing into the belly allows you to initiate a cascade of ease. Basically that change in pressure in the belly with your deep inhale in and prolonged exhale out sends a signal through the vagus nerve to the heart And within a few breaths, the heart rate starts to come down. Blood vessels dilate so that the blood pressure starts to come down. When the body experiences this change in the cardiovascular system, it relays that information to the brain, that sense of ease and relaxation, which is captured and then sent back to the gut. So you see that the body has its own way of starting its own form of reactivity a chain of Relaxation that responds the moment you take a breath So use this strategy Slowing down, feeling what you are experiencing in the body and naming that experience. Acknowledging what you are feeling in the mind, your emotion, and naming that experience too. And then engaging in a few deep breaths. you will find that you will in doing so bring yourself out of that state of reactivity, whether it is a craving to food or a craving or a reaction to the chaos around you. Now that is what we do in the moment. But how do we set ourselves up? Because the truth is that if we're primed and all wound up to react, if we're drawn out like a slingshot, or another analogy I like to think of is those toy cars, you know, the ones that you roll back and then let go and spring forward. How do you create a situation in your body so that you're not so poised with this kinetic energy to react? Well, that brings us back to our mind-body skills and strategies. And the first is how you nourish yourself. The food that you eat is very much linked to how reactive you're going to be. Take, for example, our sugary breakfasts. Have you noticed that so many of our typical breakfasts are just pure sugar and there is no worse way that we can start out our morning? Because that sugar, that processed or simple carbohydrate gets broken down into sugar quickly in the gut. That's why it's called simple. And so now you have a situation where you have a acute and abrupt rise of blood sugar. The body responds to that by releasing insulin, and then your sugar levels will plunge. That sugar crash, like we call it, is what sets us up for irritability, reactivity, brain fog, so that we're not thinking as clearly as we should, which then just makes us more reactive, and feeling lack of energy. As opposed to having a more balanced meal, that gives us a more sustainable rise and fall of energy. This kind of food like complex carbohydrates mixed with proteins gives us sustainable energy so that we can think clearly, so that we can act in a way that is more aligned as opposed to being reactive. So the food that we eat, it really is important to how we act and react in the world. The next is sleep. When we are sleep deprived, we are reactive. We are more likely to snap. We are less likely to think critically. And so being intentional about getting adequate quantity and quality of sleep is critical to managing our reactivity. Getting the right quantity means shooting for at least seven hours of sleep. I know for a lot of you that feels like a moonshot, but it also means getting the right quality of sleep. That means not having the screens next to us, which literally amp our sympathetic nervous system. Studies have shown that having a phone next to you raises your heart rate and your blood pressure, merely the presence of a phone, much less the content that we may consume in it. It also means limiting stimulating substances like caffeine, like nicotine. It means reducing alcohol, which impacts REM sleep and prevents us from sleeping soundly. So adequate sleep and creating an environment for good sleep is critical also to managing our reactivity. I'll also say that starting or initiating sleep time or bedtime with a soothing activity, maybe reading a book or a meditation or taking a warm shower or a bath to get your body conducive for sleep. These are all ways in which we can manage our reactivity. And the last is movement. This is so critical to enabling us to manage that reactive state. This nervous energy can be metabolized through movement. I think of movement and exercise as a spiritual gasket valve. It allows us to release that energy in a way that is productive and not counterproductive. So how can you do that in your day? And it doesn't need to be something intensive like going to a gym or getting a trainer. Maybe you do a brisk walk in your neighborhood Maybe you engage in a quick video or even go down into your garage and do a hundred jumping jacks Maybe it's lifting some weights or engaging in some stretches Moving the energy through your body is a critical way to help manage your reactivity So I want to leave you with just these three, three strategies that set your body up so that you are less inclined to react. I wonder if you can notice in this coming week, how reactivity may be playing a role in your life. Are you reactive in the way that you eat? Are you reactive in the way that you treat your partner and your family? Are you reactive in the way that you work? And are you reactive in the way that you engage in the world around you? Take back some of that power and put yourself in the driver's seat by noticing how you feel in the moment that you're triggered to react. Notice how you feel it in your body and how you feel it in your mind. And give yourself that tool of minimizing your reactivity in that moment. Give yourself a few deep breaths before you act on that impulse. And then make a commitment to yourself to set your body up, set yourself up for a circumstance in which you are less reactive. by committing to more wholesome eating, committing to better sleep and more movement in your day to day. And then I wonder, respond to me and let me know how that might change your reactivity and your sense of control over yourself. I look forward to hearing your thoughts and I look forward to seeing you here again next week on Health Bite.