Get the Stress Out of Here!
Stress. Even just reading the word is stressing me out! Stress is everywhere you look. There are stressors in the air we breathe, our water, the lotions, potions, cleaning supplies and clothing/textiles (bedding, carpet) that touches our skin, and the foods and supplements that we take most likely have toxins in them. What I have just alluded to, is more chemical in nature but the biggest stressors of all are the ones that come from inside of us. Our thoughts.
It's all in your head! Even though we deal with stress on a daily basis and sometimes that stress is good, say your son's wedding or your birthday gathering or a big promotion. We welcome that stress....briefly. The issue is that our brain perceives all stress as an emergency of sorts that we have to deal with. Stress is also good when you are driving and someone cuts you off; you need to respond quickly, or if you fell off your bike and broke your clavicle; you have immediate bodily stress in the form of inflammation. Acute inflammation is good for the healing that your body does naturally. When inflammation becomes chronic, however, then it becomes a stressor; holding on, thinking that it is keeping you safe.
Michelle, this article is stressing me out! I can't take anymore doom and gloom! I hear you. You first have to see the dirt to be able to clean it out. This is a brief understanding of what stress is and how it affects your body and the end message of this newsletter is that you are the CEO of your body and can make executive decision and use tools to be more proactive as opposed to reactive to a situation ultimately kicking stress (when it doesn't serve you) to the curb and getting better quality sleep. So stay with me, the best is yet to come.
Back to stress, stress is good to have. Stress is what got you here. If it weren't for stress then you ancestral lineage would have stopped a long time ago. How else would you know to be scared of a lion or snake. We were meant to react to a stressful situation quickly and then go back to a state of stasis. Let's go back to that car cutting you off this morning. To prevent an accident, you had to take action immediately but after that incident passed, you still have to drive with all of your attention; removing that event from your mind as it is not of concern anymore. This is being responsive. Did you do that? Or did you stay pissed off (a sign of fear) at someone's inattention and lack of consideration and poor driving skills? Did you carry that feeling to work with you and maybe take it out on someone else who had no idea what hit them? Did you yell and scream at that driver and tail them and give them the stink eye? This is being reactive. This kind of energy does not serve you well. The tools that we will talk about today will help fortify you to be able to act responsively as opposed to reactively.
Be the Zebra Think of yourself on the tundra with your buddies eating grass and frolicking about. You are in a relaxed state; in the here and now. Your heart rate is slow and steady (unless you are cavorting), your breath is deep and slow and your muscles are relaxed. Now you are thirsty; it is time to drink from the Nile. You and your buddies check the situation and clearly it feels safe ish to drink. You have to, so you do. All of a sudden a crocodile snaps at your legs. Without thinking, you jump back, your heart rate goes up, your muscles are tense, you restrict circulation from the extraneous part that are not critical for survival (sex organs and digestion) to the lungs, muscles and heart, your breathing is fast and shallow; I would also say that your palms are sweaty....but your still being a zebra. You are stressed. But you are now safe, so you finish drinking and then go back to the grasslands to eat as if nothing ever happened. This is also being responsive. Your breath rate, and heart rate are back down and your muscles are relaxed and you are able to digest food again. This is how we should behave to stresses in our lives. Respond and return to homeostasis. Be the zebra in your life situations.
We have more stress now and different stress, there are no more lions chasing us but there are deadlines, bosses, unkind coworkers, strained relationships, bratty kids (jk children, I still love you), health issues and the news for starters. If these stresses are constant and we can't get back to that calm peaceable state then dis-ease sets in. What are the symptoms? Well, we are so different with individual situations, I couldn't pin it down for you but think, sexual disfunction, digestive issues, mental anguish, anxiety, depression, sleep issues. If these sypmtoms and this stress continues unchecked, then it can develop into disease....a whole ...other...level.
One more note on stress before I move on. I have to say, our bodies are so facinating and marvellous; truly incredible. We think of our brains as grand central but let's consider the gut-brain connection briefly. We experience this connection when we have cravings for foods. Let's take sugar for example, if our microbiome is geared more to sugar loving bacteria, then messages will be sent to the brain to eat something sweet. Sometimes you don't even want that sweet thing but there it goes in your mouth. You see, the vagus nerve (the vagabond) meanders first down the tragus of your ear (the flap that you can close), behind your ear, down the back of your throat, below your lungs through your breathing diaphragm and throughout your vital organ area. Only 20% of the information travels from your brain down to your organs through the vagus nerve. 80% of the information is actually travelling up from your organs, lungs, throat, ear to your brain. So even though logically, you have a thought that you assessed the situation and logically it is safe, you have a gut feeling telling you something is not right. That is your gut informing your brain of external clues that our brain is not aware of. This is good news to listen to your gut but also great news, in that we can tell our brain what to think. We can manipulate our breath, our heart rate (eventually), and our thought patterns (with lots of consistent yoga breath practice) to change our minds. With the goal of reducing stress.
How DO I reduce my stress? Glad that you asked! The obvious is to remove as much stress in your life that you can remove. Start with healthy sleeping habits. Good sleep actually start the moment that you get out of bed. Backing up a step further, before you even get out of bed, instead of reaching for your phone and seeing the news or the things to do piling up; spend some time waking up, praying or meditating or being grateful. Your left brain is in problem solving beta brainwaves. You creative right brain is calm and is in the alpha brainwaves. As you fall asleep and when you wake up you pass through this relaxed and detached awareness state of the alpha brainwaves. It is like the conscious and unconscious bridge has been handed to you at these times. Utilize them.
It is important to look at sunlight with the naked eye for fifteen minutes. Cortisol levels should be highest in the morning and taper down throughout the day. Looking at sunlight helps to tell the body to get ready for the day, get that cortisol going. In opposition to cortisol is melatonin which should increase as the sun sets. This doesn't always happen when we aren't following the sun as if we were camping with no electricity. Sometimes stress throughout the day keeps that cortisol level high. Let's try to shed some of that excess stress.
The following steps can help keep that cortisol and your adrenals in check:
Turn off all blue light and electronics at least an hour before bed time.
Read a book instead of t.v. watching.
Take a hiatus from the news, especially anytime after lunch.
Stop eating at least two hours before bed.
Eat a diet with a variety of nutrient rich foods.
Remove inflammatory seed oils and vegetable oils from your diet, include healthy fats from coconut oil, olive oil, avocado oil.
Remove sugar (inflammatory) and most likely dairy from your diet.
Take a magnesium supplement most of us are deficient, and magnesium deficiency is linked to anxiety.
Get your vitamin D levels checked.
Check your hormone levels; one cause (of many) of consistently waking up every night between 2-3am could be low estrogen levels. It is worth looking into with a DUTCH test or blood spot test to find out what your levels are. Ask your functional medicine doctor.
Do your exercises and walk after dinner.
Do your morning and evening meditation, prayer, or gratitude journal.
Breath in all three categories of breath when appropriate. Bring awareness to now and here.
Listen to music that you like. Music that resonates with you. And sing, hum, or rock out! you can't be unhappy and sing. Try it. Crank up the tunes in the car. Try this: https://youtu.be/1TewCPi92ro for fun.
Consider taking a good quality melatonin supplement before bed.
Have light blocking shades and an eye mask for sleeping in complete darkness, Light, or lack thereof, matters.
try solfeggio frequencies: https://youtu.be/2rjko0htlJc
Decrease the amount of EMF exposure especially in your bedroom. Turn off your wifi. Unplug electronics around your bed and have your phone at least across the room or in another room, if you need to leave it on; or turn it off or have it in airplane mode. There is no need to have these stressors by you while you are trying to detox, regenerate and rejuvenate. Your body is hard at work when you sleep.
I didn't say that it would be easy but sleep and stress have a love hate relationship. If you have ever cared for someone who is ailing, very sick or the elderly, then you know how fast your diet changes due to lack of sleep. Stress affects your judgement and we go for the coffee, sugar in the morning and maybe alcohol and sugar at night which makes sleep worse and more stress to repeat the following day. Just remember, when caring for others, fill up your cup first, so that you have something to share. Fortify yourself. Caregivers often ignore their own needs but how can you share with an empty cup? It is okay to take care of you too.
Ok that was just sleep! Have a daily breath practice and meditation will help clear out the thoughts surrounding you that you have to work through. I mean the ones that you weren't able to abstain from. When you sleep, your brain shrinks by 40% so that it can clear out the toxins and bathe in the nutrients. It is part of your glymphatic system (like your lymphatic system but for your brain). If we are awake thinking about that meeting, that conversation, that email, we can't sleep and therefore, we can't detox and restore. So get that gunk out of your head before you go to bed. How? Breath work; do your homework, especially yoga breathing in water breath (throughout the day) or whiskey category breath (after a meal or before bed). The beauty of Yoga Breathing is you can only breathe right now; you can't breathe in the past or the future. So count and breathe. Treat meditation like dental floss. Wait! What? You use dental floss twice a day to clean your teeth. Use meditation twice a day as mental floss. Clean out your brains! That way you are not left to deal with everything (all those thoughts piling up) at the end of the day when it is time to sleep.
Use movement to clear out toxins and oxygenates your tissues every day. What is the best exercise to do Michelle? The one that you will do! For me it is hiking and biking. Maybe the best exercise is running but I know that I won't do that, so it really isn't the best for me. I do suggest a meditative stroll to forest bathe and a brisk walk. Walk like you are going to catch a bus. After dinner is best for a walk (maybe less brisk) as you will use those carbs in your belly first so that you don't have to store them.
When is the best time to exercise? When you will actually do it. Even though I said after dinner walks are great (which they are, especially for diabetics), they still might not be great for you. Maybe it is bath time for the kids or maybe you work afternoons or maybe you have more and better energy in the morning. Find a time that works for you. Find a buddy. 95% compliance happens when you have an accountability workout buddy. Get one!
Ok. Let's recap:
Stress sucks.
Your body doesn't know the difference between real and imagined stress; so get rid of what stress that you can and build up your resilience with meditation and yoga breathing so that you can recover from the stress that is still in your life.
Wake up with the sun and spend 15 minutes looking at the sun with the naked eye every morning.
Have an exercise buddy
Actually exercise.
Nose is for breathing and mouth is for eating (there are a few exceptions like exercise and a blocked nose). Ok I didn't talk about this one but nose breathing signals to your brain that you are calm and all is good. More on breathing in another newsletter, stay tuned.
Be aware of your thoughts to yourself. Are they kind? Is it time to reframe?
Try certain products to promote nose breathing as you sleep.
Start and end your day with an attitude of gratitude. What three great things happened to you today?
“What you think, you become.
What you feel, you attract.
What you imagine, you create.” - Buddha
I feel like this is the tip of the iceberg for sleep and stress information but it is a good place to start. As always, please share what you have learn so that I can share with this lovely community.
I will have a 7 day Breath Challenge at the beginning of June, stay tuned for that too!
May you sleep well tonight.
Namaste,
Michelle
Disclaimer: The information above is never intended to substitute as medical advice. Nor is this information USDA approved. If you need medical advice or medical care then go see a medical professional or a functional medicine doctor. I am a yoga instructor with a passion to learn. I like to share my findings. If this helps you jump start your rabbit hole search then I am glad to help. If you have any comments or input regarding the newsletter or questions regarding yoga or if you would like a personal yogic / breathing consult then email me. I am happy to help. GratitudeYogawithMichelle@gmail.com