Reduce Stress, Improve Your Life!
Many of the health problems we see today are driven by the lifestyles in which we choose to live. Often it is not cuts, bacteria, a virus or a tumor that is the source of pain, but rather the way we choose to live. Conditions are often exacerbated by the fact that we are super busy. For example, you wake up feeling lethargic after a poor night's sleep, rush to get the kids to school, juggle a very busy workload and home life. From the moment you open your eyes it's all go, go, go. Then when the kids are finally in bed you start working through emails or trolling social media absent mindedly. Often with the saying ‘I don’t have time to rest/relax’, ‘I don’t have time to exercise’, I don’t have time to cook’.
Cortisol surge
Cortisol is a hormone and a hormone is a chemical messenger. When we feel hungry, satiated, aroused, angry and so on it is because particular hormones are surging about in our blood streams. Cortisol has been identified as one of the principal stress response hormones. It is natural for it to rise and fall at different times throughout the day. Our cortisol levels surge when we are stressed. In short bursts, it can help us tackle a sudden problem head on.However, when we endure it for a sustained period, it becomes a problem.
Imagine how our bodies have evolved to handle stress. If we were attacked by a lion, say, that experience would be terrifying but it would also be short lived. Either we would have run away and escaped, or killed the lion, or the lion may have killed us. That’s the kind of stress our stress equipment is built to deal with.
Cortisol works by activating the sympathetic nervous system. This is our fight or flight response. What we see a lot of today (modern day problem), is that people are constantly in fight or flight mode. Spending their days with cortisol levels continuously ramped up, their sympathetic nervous symptoms activated. They’re not being attacked by a lion; they’re being attacked by life.
Two parts of the autonomic nervous system.
The autonomic nervous system regulates our autonomic processes. The things we do without consciously thinking like breathing and digestion.
The sympathetic nervous system causes the body to release stress response hormones like nor-adrenaline and cortisol. It causes your heart rate to quicken, your lung tubes to widen, muscles to contract, your pupils to dilate and switches off digestion. It helps divert energy away from processes in the body like digestion, that are not necessary for survival. It releases energy from muscles and lowers immune system function. In the short term this helps us deal with stress, but if activated long term this response can be problematic.
In the modern world this fight or flight systems activates when we are rushing to meet a deadline, getting stressed on our commute, leaving late for the school run or putting ourselves through a tough workout. This response can be managed, as long as we take steps to balance it out with rest and relaxation.
This rest and relaxation involve the other part of our nervous system, the parasympathetic nervous system. It works at a much slower rate. When activated our saliva production increases, digestive enzymes are released, heart rate drops and our muscles relax. It allows us to digest food appropriately, destress and sleep soundly.
To help us manage the stress of modern-day life we should be encouraging the activation of the parasympathetic nervous system (rest and relaxation).
See below for a few ideas for a few ideas you can try and implement.
Start a journal. Every night before bed, write down what you are grateful for, what went well (or not so well) that day, dump and thoughts, feelings in your head onto paper (trust us, this helps big time).
Practice stillness daily. Make time to practice stillness for at least 5 minutes daily.
Meditation. An umbrella term that can cover many things. The grey matter in our brains increases when we have regular periods of mindfulness, whilst meditation stimulates neuronal activity, aids sleep quality, aids concentration and lowers blood pressure.
3-4-5 Breathing. A simple exercise (best lying down or in a relaxed sitting position). Inhale for 3 seconds, hold it for 4 seconds, slowly exhale for 5seconds. Repeat. When you take a lovely big diaphragmatic deep breathis stimulates your parasympathetic nervous system (rest and relax).
Re-claim your dining table. Eat one meal a day at the table, in company (if possible), without your devices.
Stillness interventions you might like to try
Meditation with the guidance of an app like Calm.
Relaxed deep breathing exercises.
5 minutes of coloring in.
5 minutes of listening to music lying down, eyes closed.
Sitting in silence with full awareness of your senses (Ie feel your feet on the floor, the breeze on your cheek).
A digital detox.
Switch off push notifications from your phone, tablet or laptop.
Take emails (or work emails) off your phone.
Device box at mealtimes. They must go in before you sit down to eat.
Switch off all electronic devices 90 minutes before bed.
Try and have 1-2 hours a day when you are device free.
Sunday – live your entire day offline without any screens.
