Wrap Up Resilience: building a buffer to stress
We’re all shopping online these days. Ever gotten a package that looked like it’d been kicked across the room and then dragged behind the truck to get to your doorstep? Maybe 2020 has left you feeling a bit like this?
Did you hold your breath as you opened it only to find the item inside, safely packed in foam or bubble wrap, had survived without a scratch?
That’s resilience. You’re the special order, life is the delivery truck and resilience is the bubble wrap. It’s there to cushion the blow, not to prevent the blow. The stronger your resilience, the thicker that buffer around you, the easier it is for you to recover from being kicked around the back of a truck or tossed on the front porch.
If this year has taught us one thing it’s that we need to learn to handle stress better. And we could all use a thicker layer of that bubble wrap. Let’s face it we all just want to take a pill and make it all go away. No more stress, no more tension, no more traumatic memories.
Unfortunately, that isn’t realistic. Everyone experiences stress because that’s life. It’s made up of a series of triggers, good and bad. Some of them help us succeed, others knock us sideways. Our unique life experiences mixed with this particular time in history, shaping how we see the world and what we see as stressful. You and I are experiencing the same event and still we may not experience the same stress response.
FACT: Prolonged exposure to toxic levels of stress can set off a cascade of physical and mental health issues including autoimmune dysfunction, dysbiosis of the gut and brain injury. Nothing ever happens in isolation in the body. Every reaction is interconnected and complicated but whether stress is the cause, the result or a contributing factor, lowering the body’s stress response can and does improve overall health and well-being.
I know this to be true because I experienced some serious measurable health effects from excessive stress levels several times in my life. Crazy blood work, hormone disruptions, gut dysbiosis that took years to heal and panic attacks that came out of the blue. My body didn’t recognize any of my rational explanations for what was happening in my life at the time. It's only concern was my physical survival. It reacted to make me do something that would help keep me safe from threat, even if that meant dialing 911 because it felt like I was having a heart attack. (FYI panic/anxiety attacks present the same symptoms as a classic heart attack, DON’T ignore them.)
So what can you do if our reaction to stress is unpredictable and irrational? You can start with some simple daily habits that work by strengthening your baseline state of calm and slowing down the extreme reactions to triggers. Building up a buffer of resilience takes time but it’s well worth the effort.
There are several amazing doctors and researchers that have offered overlapping advice to help protect the brain and improve that bubble wrap of resilience. Neurologists and authors of the Alzheimer’s Solution, Dr.’s Dean and Ayisha Sherzai and Dr. Mithou Stroroni, author of Stress Proof, as well as Dan Buettner, founder of Blue Zones and Dr. David Berceli, author and trauma therapist and creator of TRE®, have fantastic books that highlight simple daily habits and evidence-based advice that can help you live a longer, healthier and more stress proof life.
Get Woke
Wake up, take a big drink of water and then get moving. A brisk 20-30 minute walk before breakfast, preferably outside, to expose yourself to daylight. Movement and exposure to sunlight first thing in the morning helps the body naturally shutdown it’s melatonin production and resets your circadian rhythm for the day. Movement and exercise triggers a release of cortisol which is one of your stress hormones. Cortisol tells the brain it’s time to get up and get the day started. The light exposure in the morning improves your melatonin levels at night. Melatonin opposes the stress response and helps you sleep. How you wake up determines how well you sleep and the better you sleep the better your stress response.
I understand that in certain times of year you might be limited in the hours of sunlight available. Consider investing in a lamp that simulates sunlight and experiment with it in the morning. Or try using an alarm clock that has light therapy options.
In order to sleep well at night, you need melatonin to be produced and reduced at the right times and in the right amounts. Exposure to blue light from electronics, screens and phones can disrupt your body’s natural melatonin cycles. Limit the use of screens before bed or if you must use technology in the evening, try blue light blocking glasses.
Pardon the cliché… But you are what you eat
It should go without saying that we could all stand to eat a few more fruits and vegetables. When your intention is to build a stronger buffer to stress it’s even more important. Your gut is a critical checkpoint for your immune system function, sense of well-being and stress response. The gut is where important neurotransmitters like serotonin (your feel-good hormone) are produced. Changes in the gut microbiome have been shown to affect mental health, anxiety and depression.
Chronic stress, poor diet, medications and even intense exercise can disrupt the intestinal barrier causing an inflammatory response. That inflammation triggers the sympathetic nervous system (fight or flight) and leads to higher risk of anxiety & depressive symptoms which then leads to more stress in both the body and the brain which causes inflammation. It’s a vicious cycle.
But, because you can influence the gut with food, you can influence your stress response with food. Everything you eat eventually affects every system in your body. A whole food, plant-based diet has been shown to have a protective influence on the gut and the brain.
The gut and how well it works (or doesn’t work) depends on the diversity of the bacteria that live there. In order to have a big diversity of those bacteria you need a big diversity of different kinds of foods. Increasing the numbers of different types of fruits, vegetables, whole grains and legumes, nuts, seeds and fermented foods has a profound effect on the health of the intestines, preventing dysbiosis and building a robust immune system. They are great sources of pre- and probiotics that support that healthy balance in the gut and certain strains of probiotics have even been shown to lower anxiety.
Limiting or eliminating alcohol in the presence of stress is important as well. We know that alcohol kills bacteria. It does the same when it hits your gut. If you’re straining the gut microbiome with chronic stress, adding alcohol can speed up the damage.
Breakfast should be the largest meal of the day. I know this isn’t true for most of us and I’m just telling you what the research says. Your gut bacteria are optimized to operate during the day. They work on the same circadian rhythm that you do. So, if you eat a large meal at night, in the dark, and then go to sleep with a full stomach, the bacteria in your gut isn’t as efficient (because it’s night time).
As your day progresses, meals should get smaller. Eating a light meal early and dimming the lights helps reset your body clock and ramps up melatonin as you get ready to sleep. When you eat, insulin is released to help store energy and balance blood sugar levels. Melatonin and insulin don’t play well together. Melatonin opposes insulin. It basically prevents insulin from regulating your blood sugar. This may be why sleep quality can be linked to obesity and insulin resistance.
Move it!
Chronic stress builds tension in the body and exercise is a great way to release it. Moving every day is important. But as I mentioned earlier, intense exercise can cause stress induced damage to the gut, keeping you awake. Exercise produces cortisol and adrenaline which keep you alert. The higher the intensity the higher the levels of stress hormones. The body sees this type of exercise as a physical threat and it responds as if there is a tiger in the room. I know, it’s not rational, nothing about this is.
Try to exercise in the morning or early in the day, especially if you do high intensity. Lower intensity movement that doesn’t cause pain or strain on the joints is better for a stress buffer but there’s a place for higher intensity training. Keep high intensity bouts short and allow yourself enough time to fully recover, both between HIIT sessions and between the exercise and bedtime.
If you listen carefully, your body will tell you when you’re exercising too much. One of the first symptoms is fatigue. Exercise in the right amounts will energize you. If you think it’s normal to run around tired all the time, it’s not. Chronic pain or being sore all the time is another message from your body that you need to back it down. Ignoring those messages can easily lead to overuse injuries that will force you to stop. It’s not possible to be at your peak all the time…that’s a plateau.
Movement is a great way to learn to safely self-regulate the stress response. I teach this in my courses and memberships. Using titration, stop and rest you can take any movement or exercise and help the body release deep tension and stress.
Shake it off
One of the best ways that I’ve found to build up a resilience buffer is to practice TRE®. TRE stands for Tension/Trauma Releasing Exercise and is a sequence of exercises developed by Dr. David Berceli. The process allows you to learn to safely self-regulate the stress response and release deeply held tension using the body’s natural tremor mechanism without the need to relive the story. It’s simple, easy to learn and accessible for literally everyone no matter their size, shape, age, or condition.
You and I live in a culture of stress. Our society and technology are advancing quicker than we can adapt. We have effectively socialized out even the simplest daily habits that could help us handle everyday stress and stigmatized the overwhelming mental health symptoms when we can't.
Need a plan to shake off 2020 and rebuild your bubble wrap in 2021? Kinetic Grace is a year long resilience program that incorporates trauma release exercise + yoga to support healthy lifestyle transformation. Membership is OPEN NOW!
My name is Ericka Thomas and I’m a Certified TRE® Provider, Trauma informed Yoga instructor and Health Coach. I believe in the human capacity for connection and transformation that goes beyond what the eyes can see.
I help people just like you shake off stress, anxiety & tension to find balance between real health and real life and I’d love to work with you!
I offer customized corporate packages, individual programs and private sessions.
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