WELLBEING - How To Reduce Stress Naturally

(Subscribe on iTunes, Stitcher, Spotify, iHeart or TuneIn)

Summary - 

In today’s fast-paced society, our ability to return to relaxation doesn’t happen easily and whilst we are running around in panic mode, chronic stress is a growing concern for an alarming number of people. Finding ways to activate the relaxation response has never been more vital than it is now and in this episode, you’ll learn how to do that naturally and with minimal cost, time & energy. 

Things I Mention - 

  • What is positive and negative stress and how do both types of stress impact your health?

  • How to go from “fight or flight” to “rest and digest” in less than 1 minute

  • Why emails, text messages and even grocery shopping could be increasing your stress

PLUS, I share 7 effective ways to reduce stress naturally to live a less-anxious, more relaxed life. 

Links & Helpful Resources - 

Make sure you hit SUBSCRIBE so you don’t miss out on any of my practical tips & tricks and if you enjoyed this episode, please leave me a rating and a review? Thanks! 

Today’s topic was inspired by the wonderful Libby Weaver who I must credit for a lot of my knowledge regarding women’s hormones and stress. Without her passion and drive for helping women with their health & wellness, I wouldn’t be able to share and pass on the valuable information that she’s taught me too. 

Stress is a normal reaction to exciting events like falling in love, getting a new job or buying a home. This is what is known as POSITIVE stress. Stress is also a hardwired survival technique built into the body as a means of protection. When triggers arise, the body naturally signals the “fight or flight response”. The issue with this is that your body doesn’t know the difference between a bear chasing you and general day to day anxiety (eg. work-related). The body’s stress response is perfectly healthy when there’s a real emergency (eg. a bear chasing you), but if the body is constantly getting stress signals triggered  by everyday events, you’ll inevitably burn out over time. This is what we call NEGATIVE stress. 

Unfortunately, our ability to return to relaxation doesn’t happen easily in today’s fast-paced society. Whilst we are running around in panic mode, chronic stress is disrupting the natural balance required for optimal health, speeding up the ageing process and increasing the body’s susceptibility to illness. Finding ways to activate the relaxation response has never been more vital than it is now - a concern for all of us as it impacts both our physical and mental health if left untreated.

Short term exposure to stress can suppress your immune system, increase inflammation, disrupt sleep and cause fatigue, increase appetite, create blood sugar problems and increase abdominal fat. Prolonged periods of short-term stress can lead to physical symptoms such as digestive issues, autoimmune conditions, depression, anxiety and disease.

Our sympathetic nervous system (SNS) is responsible for turning on the “fight or flight response”, just as our parasympathetic nervous system (PNS) turns it off. The PNS helps the body conserve energy and rest. As you can see, the ability to go from “fight or flight” to “rest and digest” is critical for our wellbeing. So how do you dance between one and the other? First things first, you need to know how to downregulate your SNS and upregulate your PNS and I’ll share a few proven ways to do that now -

Upregulating the PNS is so ridiculously simple. The problem though, is that it’s almost too simple that we don’t take it seriously and we certainly don’t do it enough. You can fire up your PNS through diaphragmatic breathing - the longer & slower the exhalation, the better the PNS engages. So if you breathe in for a count of 3, you want to exhale for at least a count of 6 - double the length of time it took to inhale. Today, most adults are running around shallow breathing meaning that our chests are the only part of our body to expand when breathing in. If you stop and watch a baby or child breathe, you’ll notice that their belly inflates as they inhale - this is diaphragmatic breathing. Their breathing patterns are much deeper, slower and therefore more effective than most adults. 

There are many ways to essentially downregulate your SNS. The 2 most effective are 1). by limiting your caffeine intake (yes, I’m sorry, I absolutely hate hearing this as well) and 2). to explore your perception of pressure. 

We all experience scenarios or events in our life differently. For one person, the idea of running late could cause a tremendous amount of negative stress within the body whilst for someone else, it might take a life-threatening diagnosis to reach that same amount of negative stress. This is why it’s important to take a good look at your own perception/ idea of pressure and perhaps determine how it stacks up compared to pressure that occurs with real emergencies. We’ve made emails, replying to text messages and even the grocery shopping pressure … is this really pressure though?! Can you change the way you view these things and perhaps switch your mindset to see that being able to communicate easily and instantaneously with other people is such a privilege that so many before us weren’t able to experience or that being able to grocery shop means that you have an abundance of fresh & ready to eat foods that you can use to nourish your family with?

So the next time, you feel your cortisol levels rising, try these. Further to these though, you can also try -

REPLACING COFFEE WITH MATCHA

As I’ve just mentioned, although it helps to wake you up in the morning, coffee also elevates the stress hormone - cortisol. Try replacing your morning coffee with a cup of Matcha Tea. Matcha contains l-theanine - a rare amino acid that promotes relaxation, supports the adrenal system and the way your body reacts to stress.

EAT AN ANTI-INFLAMMATORY DIET

Stress causes inflammation in our body, so eating a diet that's rich in anti-inflammatory foods can help reduce this impact. Nourish your body with plant-based foods, lean proteins, healthy fats and support your diet with good supplements such as turmeric, ginger, vitamin C and probiotics.

SWAP HIGH INTENSITY WORKOUTS FOR GENTLE EXERCISE

High intensity exercise causes stress and strain on the body, so the length and intensity of your workouts can have a big impact on your cortisol levels. Try swapping these workouts for walking, Pilates, yoga or tai chi. To reduce your cortisol levels after exercise it's important to prioritise enough time for your body to rest and recover. Listen to your body and allow it the chance to recover properly before your next workout.

UNPLUG

Switch off devices and unplug from technology, if only for a few consistent hours throughout the day. Unplugging is one that can have the greatest impact as we use our devices every day. The constant texts, emails, phone calls and notifications actually release cortisol by keeping our brains on “high alert” and increase your feelings of distraction which I’ve just shared is a type of perceived ‘pressure’ for a lot of us. 

GET ENOUGH GOOD-QUALITY SLEEP

Research has proven that our adrenal glands recover best when we go to bed between 9 and 10pm. This helps to avoid the late evening cortisol spike which makes it harder to fall asleep and receive good-quality sleep.

TRY MINDFULNESS

Yes, meditation is the most commonly prescribed, however I personally find meditation very challenging and therefore more stressful with such an active mind. Thankfully, there are many other ways to try mindfulness and I’ve recorded an entire episode to those. You’ll want to listen to episode #51 for those. 

TIDY UP

Again another form of perceived pressure for a lot of women is an untidy environment. Organise work & living spaces to be clutter-free. Remove some of the load from your brain. Plan your week ahead using a planner, prioritise your tasks & aim to focus on one at a time. Finally, ensure you are delegating tasks if ever feeling overwhelmed. We are simply not designed to do it all. 

There is so much for you to soak up from today’s episode. The key takeaways for reducing stress naturally are to ensure you are upregulating your PNS through diaphragmatic breathing as often as possible throughout the day and deregulating your SNS - first and foremost by limiting caffeine and exploring your perception of pressure. 

Elisha CasagrandeFEEL BE LOOK, Brisbane Health Coach, Womens Confidence, Adrenal Fatigue, Chronic Stress, Caffeine, Matcha Tea, Dr. Libby Weaver, sympathetic nervous system, parasympathetic nervous system, diaphragmatic breathing, ANTI-INFLAMMATORY DIET, perception of pressure