stress management

All Stressed Up For The Holidays

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stressed out

The mere suggestion of holiday stress evokes memories of the past and anxiety of what’s yet to come, robbing us of our health and what should be a happy holiday season.

When we think of stress, we think of the emotional kind that comes from too much to do and so little time to do it.  But that’s only one form we need to be aware as there are three types that can keep us from showing up as the best version of ourselves during the holiday season.

Physical Stress

Physical demands simply multiply during the holidays. With long days on our feet shopping the malls, wrapping, lifting and running around.  Add to that, sitting at a computer all day and perhaps being overweight which all contributes to weakened postural support.

Chemical Stress

Probably the greatest holiday stressor – you’re eating habits.  Overindulgence in food and drink.  Smoking and excess alcohol.  High blood sugar levels… and what about the medication you take to settle all that discomfort.  The ongoing exposure to chemical stresses over the holiday season wreaks havoc and “wear and tear” on your entire body, right down to the cellular level.

Emotional Stress

Now we’re talking;

  • Meeting deadlines
  • Relationships
  • Memories
  • The perfect gift for that special someone
  • Credit cards stretched to the limit

And on and on…

Click here to learn,”5 Natural Solutions For Coping With Stress!”

types of stress

How Can We Handle It All?

The best way to cope is first be aware of the three forms; physical, chemical and emotional.   Learn how they can affect your health and how to respond to them.  Don’t let it leave you dis-empowered.  Be disciplined and take control by striving for optimal physical, mental and social well-being.  Particularly over the holiday season when temptations lurk around every corner.

The Effects On Our Body

All three forms of stress affect your nervous system.  It will show up where we are most vulnerable.

  • Our neck
  • Our low back
  • Tightness between the shoulders

Stress can also increase the frequency of headaches and compromise our sleep.

Chiropractic care, with its purpose of reducing neurological stress, can be helpful.  Of course chiropractic care can’t eliminate it, but it sure can improve your ability to tolerate it.

Regular chiropractic care now, especially with holiday stress around the corner, could be a wise investment for a healthier version of you.

From all of us at Family Health Advocacy, we wish you a happy and healthy holiday season.

5 Natural Solutions For Coping With Stress!

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coping with stress

Stress is often the result of daily life experiences and can negatively impact women’s bodies, minds and emotions.  But, what exactly is Stress Syndrome?  Stress Syndrome is often the result of chronic stress due to the effects of modern-day life or poor work-life balance.  As such, it causes the body and the mind to begin demanding rest.  Coping with stress can be a challenge but is doable.

Life is filled with positive and negative challenges.  Your mindset, past conditioning and beliefs can determine how you perceive these experiences.  Click here to read, “How Our Perceptions Affect Our Pain”.  In addition to what level of stress they may cause.  However, all stress is not bad stress.  Click here to read “Effects Of Stress – Stress Can Be Good For You?!”  

How Do Stressors Activate the Stress Response?

When stressors like long work hours, family responsibilities or toxic relationships compound, the stress response is activated.  The amygdala in the brain sends a distress signal causing the hypothalamus to send signals.  This is done through the autonomic nerves to the adrenal glands, which in turn, activates the sympathetic nervous system.  Click here to view “Four Types of Stress You Have to Know About and How to Avoid Them”.

The adrenal glands respond by pumping the hormone epinephrine (also known as adrenaline) into the bloodstream.  Several physiological changes occur as epinephrine circulates throughout the body.

Be Aware Of The Symptoms

Most people are unaware of these ongoing, subtle changes.  They can become physically and psychologically drained over time by a chronic stress response.  As a result, your body will begin to exhibit general, biochemical, emotional, cognitive or behavioral symptoms.

Examples of these include:
  • exhaustion
  • insomnia
  • irritability or anger
  • headaches
  • panic disorder
  • hypertension
  • pain
  • sadness
  • anxiety
  • nervousness
  • decreased memory
  • poor judgement
  • poor appetite
  • inability to focus
  • frequent colds or infections
  • weight gain or loss

Stress Syndrome is not just the result of a stress response, but it more frequently is a result of adrenal fatigue.

Is Adrenal Fatigue The Underlying Cause?

Over time the adrenal glands, which sit on top of your kidneys, become depleted due to stress.  They are responsible for releasing hormones to regulate energy function, your immune system and muscle.  However, adrenal fatigue occurs when these glands are so exhausted they cannot respond to high stress levels.

The hormone production of DHEA and testosterone decreases.  Therefore, resources needed to produce these sex hormones are diverted to production of stress hormones like cortisol.  After months or years of chronic stress, these hormones become so low that the adrenals become severely depleted.

Women most often experience extreme difficulty waking up in the morning.  Also, high levels of exhaustion throughout the day.  Dark circles under the eyes, dizziness when standing and a weak immune system.  Also, uncontrollable cravings for salty foods.  Click here to read “Adrenal Fatigue? 7 Tips to Fight Back Naturally”.

Natural Techniques & Remedies For Coping With Stress

1.  Be Physically Active

Exercise is known to increase release of the ‘happy’ brain neurotransmitters called endorphins.  Regular physical activity also increases self-confidence, relaxation and can help reduce anxiety.  If you haven’t exercised for some time or are just beginning a new exercise routine, consult your doctor if you have health concerns.

2.  Healthy Eating Makes A Difference

Make sure to eat lots of dark green leafy vegetables, fermented foods, berries, nuts and seeds.  Sugary, starchy and processed foods can increase stress.  A great tip to bring the thyroid and adrenals back into harmony is to include non-soy collagen protein blended with a handful of berries and a pinch of salt.  This combination will calm the nervous systems and stabilize blood sugar.

3.  Calming Music Calms Your Mind

Studies have shown that listening to music modulate anxiety levels due to the experience of stress.  As such, music has also been shown to beneficially affect stress-related processes of the mind and emotions.

4.  Biofeedback Brings Back Balance

Biofeedback is a method to measure the body’s physiological responses in real time, using computers or machines.  The tools and process of biofeedback help to eliminate problematic symptoms and return the body and mind back to homeostasis.  It does this by regulating a person’s stress response and increasing relaxation.  Often deep breathing, visualization and meditation techniques are utilized.  Click here to read how to “Put A Little Namaste In Your Life.”

5.  Take Your Supplements

A daily dosage of B-complex is beneficial.  These vitamins, including thiamin, niacin, biotin and folic acid.  Each play a key role in brain and nervous system function.  B5 and B6 are food sources for the adrenals and B12 supports energy production.  Also, add to your diet a liquid trace mineral.  Up to 10 drops per day and a probiotic help to improve mood and protect the gut.

Healthy and stress-free living IS possible.  The first step to coping with stress is to take a holistic approach to eliminating stressors.  Diligently committing to incorporating techniques and lifestyle changes that will boost your adrenals, relax your body and calm your nervous system. Fight stress syndrome naturally and reclaim your life.  For further information click here to read “9 Steps To Heal Adrenal Fatigue Naturally”.

Effects Of Stress – Stress Can Be Good For You?!

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stress can be good

Yes you read that right! Stress can be good for you!  As a Naturopathic Doctor, I spend a lot of time talking with patients about stress.  Usually, we’re talking about how to best manage and reduce stress as it tends to be an aggravating or even causal factor in so many ailments.  But what if the solution to managing stress is actually stress itself?  I know, it sounds counterintuitive right?  How can you reduce stress with more stress?

Acute vs Chronic Stress

Well first, I want to make an important distinction between acute stress and chronic stress. Acute stress is the body’s short-term response to something stressful.  For example, if you were going to an important interview or giving a big presentation, acute stress would be that heart-racing, sweaty palms, nervous feeling you might have before or during the presentation.  This happens because your sympathetic nervous system is activated and your body goes into fight-or-flight mode.  However, once the presentation is over, things calm down and your parasympathetic nervous system is activated allowing your body to rest and recover.  This is your body’s normal response to stress and usually doesn’t cause any long term issues.

However, issues arise when your body is not given time to rest and recover.  This is where we get into chronic stress.  Chronic stress happens when you are repeatedly exposed to stressful situations.  For example, an overburdening work schedule or a stressful home environment.  This is the stress that lends itself toward many of the health issues that have been associated with stress.  Click here for more information on Stress Symptoms, Signs, and Causes.

Acute Stress Can Make You Cope Better

It turns out stress is not necessarily a bad thing.  It’s more about how we cope with stress that affects our health.  Research has shown that experiencing tolerable levels of that acute stress we talked about can actually lead to an improved resilience to stress overall.  What does this mean?  It means experiencing small stresses that don’t harm us can actually make us better able to cope with the inevitable stress that life may throw our way.

For example, choosing to do more things that force us out of our comfort zone.  Like giving that presentation or going to that interview that makes us nervous, can make us better able to cope with bigger life stresses.   The stress of a loved one falling ill or the stress of losing a job.  The key is to make sure we’re giving our bodies time to rest and recover in between stressful events.

What Can You Do With This Information?

Build your resilience to stress!  Try stepping outside of your comfort zone once in a while. Maybe make it a goal to try one new thing that makes you a little nervous every day. Challenge yourself while remembering to take time to rest and recover.  Click here for 5 Tips You Must Know to Destroy Stress Today!

Check out this month-long “Step outside your comfort zone!” calendar for ideas.

calendar

Sources

1. Oken, B. S., Chamine, I., & Wakeland, W. (2014). A systems approach to stress, stressors and resilience in humans. Behavioural brain research, 282, 144-54.

Top Tips To Manage Your Emotions

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anxiety

For most people the holidays are a time to take a break from the hustle of every day life and a time to spend with family and friends.  It is a time that people observe special religious festivities and a time of gift giving and merriment.  A great many of us will make new year’s resolutions to either give up something that is detrimental to our health or add something to our regimen.  Like something that will help cope with things like depression and anxiety and bring us closer to health and happiness.

But now it’s January.  You’ve just realized you have overeaten, overdrank, overspent, and indulged in a great many behaviours that you normally wouldn’t have if it was any other time of the year.

When it comes to spending habits in Canada, one in three Canadians said they ended up spending more than they meant to last year.  (1) It’s easy to fall into despair, disarray as well as frustration and fear as a result of our actions during the holidays.

According to motivational speaker Tony Robins, “Gratitude is the solution to anger and fear.”  (2) In other words, you one cannot hold feelings of anger/fear and gratitude simultaneously.  This is good news if we are searching for methods to cope with the aftermath of the holidays when all festivities have concluded, all the gifts are opened, and perhaps some anxiety about our credit card bills start to arrive making us ever so reluctant to pay a visit to our post office box.

For more on Tony Robbins, click here for THE 5-STEP PLAN TO AN EXTRAORDINARY YEAR.

How To Manage Your Emotions

Here are some tips you can use to manage your emotions and transform your state of being into a healthy and positive state.  This exercise is the HeartMath Institute’s Heart-Focused Breathing® Technique and I would like to share it with the reader as it is entirely possible to calm both our nervous system and our overactive mind.  In other words, attempt to turn down the frantic fight or flight sympathetic nervous system and turn up the parasympathetic system.

Over activity of the sympathetic nervous system will cause our breathing and heart rate to increase as well as release stress hormones like cortisol into our bloodstream to help prepare us for a fight or flight scenario.  This is innately programmed into our nervous system as a protective mechanism. By calming the sympathetics and shifting to the parasympathetics, which control our resting, relaxation and digestive responses, we can put ourselves in a state of ease. The good news is that we can do it relatively easily with this simple exercise.  Click here to read about A Scientific Validation Of Your Emotions.

Step by Step Instructions:

Start with sitting in a quiet place, in an upright posture and begin breathing through your nose and exhale out through your mouth.

Focus:

Focus your attention on your heart area, and breathe a little deeper than normal, in for 5 or 6 seconds and out 5 or 6 seconds.

Breathing:

Imagine breathing through your heart.  Picture yourself slowly breathing in and out through your heart area.

Remember that you are not breathing from upper chest region that uses more accessory muscles and body part and is usually the pattern of breathing of someone suffering form anxiety or anxious state but rather from the heart.  There is a difference.  If this is difficult to visualize try diaphragmatic breathing where your belly expands as you draw oxygen in.  It’s ok if it looks funny and makes the belly look larger than usual.  Nobody is watching remember you’re alone?  Hehe.

Feeling:

Activate a positive feeling as you maintain your heart focus and breathing. Recall a time you felt good inside and try to re-experience the feeling. Remember a special place or the love you feel for a close friend, relative or treasured pet. The key is focus on something you really appreciate.

Conversely, you can attempt a more meditative method and practice NOT thinking about anything other than your breath.  I’ve found both methods effective.  The key is to make sure your exhale is slightly longer than your inhale.

Practice this for at least 5 minutes and observe your mood change in short matter of time.  Click here for 4 Tips to an Abundant, Joy Filled Life

Yes folks, it is literally that easy.  You are in complete control of your mood and emotions.  The mind is a powerful entity and each of us has the capacity to alter our state of well-being should we choose to.  Harness the feelings of gratitude and appreciation.  Appreciate yourself and others.  Be grateful that you are alive.  My wish for you is that this exercise will help you reduce emotional stress and improve your health.  Blessings to you all.

Reference:
https://globalnews.ca/news/4671068/2018-black-friday-canada-holiday-spending/
https://medium.com/thrive-global/tony-robbins-gratitude-is-the-solution-to-anger-and-fear-c3fa819825c
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