I would guess that a majority of the people on this planet identify themselves first and foremost as their physical form and what it can do.  That’s our work IN today. We’re going to talk about our perception of our physical form, the annamaya kosha and how that perception can create calm or chaos in our stress response and overall health.

What can I eat that will lower stress? I got this question once in a nutrition presentation. My answer at the time was “nothing legal” But what this person really wanted was what we all want when we’re uncomfortable in our own skin. A quick fix. Lower stress really just means better resilience from the inside out. The truth is double edged. No, there's not one thing you can eat to lower stress. But yes there are lots of things. AND how you eat matters. Today we’ll look at how appetite and hunger are connected to the nervous system and stress response. And some ways you can eat that will calm you from the inside out.

Ideally we would all get everything our body needs to function optimally from real, whole food. Theoretically if we did that then we wouldn’t need to count calories. Or even watch portion sizes because the body has built in on and off switches for our appetite and is brilliantly designed to find the perfect energy balance. Sadly I think we can all agree that the standard American diet is deficient on many levels.

Our modern life of convenient hyper palatable food consumption has disrupted that delicate balance and led to food addiction, gut dysfunction and metabolic disease. Today, the lack of nutrition awareness and just basic general activity in modern life and you see most people deficient in many micro nutrients, using food as therapy on some level and desperate for a quick fix to fill in the gaps. That’s where supplements come in.