I love learning.
Last week I shared a success with you.
A participant in one of my programs who improved her blood chemistry, decreased pain by 90% and reduced inflammation…all by focusing on one thing: reducing the over-activation of the autonomic nervous system.
I want to dive further into this concept of an over-activated nervous system and share my school notes with you.
Lesson #1 – How Our Stress Chemistry Works
There’s a signaling mechanism for stress chemistry.
Let me explain:
When the body notices it is secreting adrenal substances* (because of a stressor, a threat etc…), the body simultaneously secretes the substances that break these substances down.
[*Adrenal substances are: adrenaline and noradrenaline. (aka: epinephrine and norepinephrine)]
This means if you don’t secrete more of these adrenal substances, you stop stressing yourself.
In other words: don’t release any more adrenaline and noradrenaline, and you stop stressing yourself into more adrenalized states. You stop scaring yourself.
Do this long enough, and the body starts to heal, for real.
It starts to regenerate the cells of gut* and other body systems.
(*But the gut is key because this is where our nutrient (carbohydrate, fat, protein) & micronutrients (vitamins and minerals) absorb into our system to give us the fuel we need for regeneration processes.)
The immune system then comes back online in a positive way.
Anti-inflammation exceeds inflammation.
It’s a beautiful thing.
The Bottom Line Is This:
- Learn how to know when your system goes into alert mode because if you don’t feel it, there’s no cue to stop the stress and allow the system to come down.
- Let the system come down and do its job.
- Then you won’t keep scaring yourself into more stress.
- Less scaring yourself means more healing and long-term vitality.
Helpful Tips
1 – Dehydration & Stress
Being in high stress creates by-products in the body (some might call these toxins, but they aren’t really toxins, they’re just the by-products of metabolic reactions of a stress response).
Next week, I’ll be getting into what is toxic to the body.
The breaking down of these stress chemicals means we need to move them out of our system.
If we don’t consume enough fluids, we run the risk of dehydration.
So if you’re under a lot of stress? Drink a lot of water.
In my opinion, I think the need for humans to drink a lot of water is less because we are active and exercising, and more because we tend to live in a 24/7 adrenalized state.
2 – Learn to recognize when you are IN a stress response state
According to my mentors and their studies/research**, it takes about 8 minutes for this adrenalized response to fully come down and wash out of your system, granted you don’t keep scaring your physiology with MORE stress (more harmful thoughts, stressful actions, habits, relationships etc…).
This means it’s essential for us to learn the language of our stress responses and our nervous system so we can get out of this response when it mounts.
I know I make this sound real easy and it isn’t always so. When we’ve been caught in a cycle of stress and being scared (in fear) 24/7, and for many, since birth as a result of early trauma and adversities, it can take some time to rewire these patterns of stress activation.
But, it CAN happen.
If you haven’t taken advantage of my 7-Steps to De-Stress eBook, now would be the time.
In these free resources I teach you how to pause and wait, and pause some more, so that eight minutes goes by fast.
* * *
In part two, which you can read here, I’ll dive into the stress chemical, cortisol.
I’ll talk about why this stress chemical gets released when an adrenalized stress response becomes the norm. Something we do not want!
If you’re someone who works with people who are struggling with more severe health troubles such as chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia, autoimmune diseases and/or you struggle from these yourself, you’ll want to read Part 2 of of this short series on How To Live Longer With Less Sickness.
This second part, on cortisol, is rarely talked about in the healing communities.
** Check out the work of Kathy Kain and her life’s work Somatic Practice HERE. Kathy’s work has been a major influence in my private practice, online programs and in my own ability to keep a high level of activity in my pro and personal life, without succumbing to burnout or sickness.
