HalcyonDB

Category: Axiety and Stress

  • How to NOT GET SICK

    How to NOT GET SICK

    Here’s how to avoid catching the common cold or whatever’s going around your office. And minimize how often you get sick.

    The body is always healing and good health is our default. Disease happens when something gets in the way of that default.

    The key breakthrough is taking daily Quercetin, Bromelian, and Zinc. But it’s important to note they rely on the healthy foundation habits below.
    If you compromise the foundation, the supplements won’t work as well.

    Breakthrough:

    Take Quercetin, Bromelain, and Zinc daily. These work like a virus shield – pretty amazing.

    Foundation Habits:

    Lay the foundation for optimum health with these habits:

    Get enough sleep:
    For most adults, we want to get at least 7 hours of sleep per night. Less then that makes us susceptible to getting sick, having hypertension (high blood pressure), and even developing some cancers.

    Minimize stress:
    Realize that stress doesn’t come from any outside situation, it’s actually our internal response. So we have a lot of control over stress and can retrain how we handle stressful situations most of the time. If we’re not paying attention we take shallow breaths. Instead, belly-breathe full breaths (through your nose). When you do stress, breath and workout. Check out my article on Dissolving Stress for more info and practical application. I also recommend Replace anxiety with relaxed vigilance (parasympatchetic activation) since this goes hand-in-hand with Stress response.

    Massage toxins out of feet regularly:
    Gravity helps circulate blood down to our feet, but it also interferes with the return flow so things tend to pool in our feet to some degree. If our cell drainage system gets stuck or backed up, disease forms. Even a quick 30-second foot rub moves the toxins and waste that accumulate out of your feet and into your circulatory system to be dealt with properly. I like to use a fascia scraper. Scrape the bottom of your feet from toes back towards your heel (encouraging flow in that direction).

    Get sunlight:
    We need much more sunlight than most of us are probably getting in modern society. Get outside regularly. Open windows and let light in – we need full spectrum light.

    Sunlight is good for our eye health and our body. LED light isn’t great. Natural sunlight is best (open the blinds, work near a window), but if you can’t work near a window use incandescent or full spectrum (Chromalux) bulbs and go outside for walks regularly.

    Take vitamins:
    They act like an insurance policy for key elements missing from our diet. Here’s my recommended stack.

    Minimize ultra processed foods and seed oils:
    Aim for at least 80% clean foods. What to eat.

    Don’t drink to excess:
    Alcohol impacts sleep quality and dehydrates you. This may go without saying, but avoid smoking and drugs as well.

    Positive mindset:
    This dovetails into minimizing stress, but worth noting the very real and measurable placebo effect. Our mindset and positivity have a measurable impact on our health.

    It’s critically important we realize the reverse is also true. The “nocebo effect” is defined as “a substance that causes undesirable side effects as a result of a patient’s perception that it is harmful rather than as a result of a causative ingredient.” This means that if you think you’re getting sick you can make yourself sick. Don’t let negative or cynical people influence you here – keep a healthy frame of mind and know your default is good health, especially if you’re following these tips.

    Try these out and let me know about how you’ve avoided the bug that’s going around the office (or kid’s school). How long are you going now without getting sick?

    If you do get sick, can you now pinpoint which of these caused it? Was it because you didn’t get enough sleep or stressed out? Knowledge is power (and health) 😊.

    In good health,
    -Ira

  • Dissolving Stress

    Dissolving Stress

    Stress is a fight or flight response. Our body gets ready to either fight or run away. In modern society this mis-fires and we don’t do either.

    Our body responds to stress by releasing adrenaline and cortisol. The fastest way to dissolve these is to exercise! So rather then stewing in these fight or flight chemicals, a 2-5 minute run, jumping jacks, push-ups, or burpees are a great way to burn up these chemicals in our body and literally dissolve our stress.

    For longer term practice, create a habit of slowing down and breathing deeply whenever finding yourself starting to get in a stressful situation. We tend to take shallow breaths. Practice taking deep “belly breaths”. You can use stress as a reminder to breathe deeply.

    Have baseline anxiety? Or want to retrain your body to response with relaxed vigilance instead of stress? Take a look at this article: Replace anxiety with relaxed vigilance (parasympatchetic activation)

  • How to: Replace anxiety with relaxed vigilance (parasympatchetic activation)

    How to: Replace anxiety with relaxed vigilance (parasympatchetic activation)

    Root Cause

    Being stuck in “fight or flight” response. Body/mind builds a reflex habit to react from a place of fear/worry/stress instead of calm

    Approach

    We can retrain/replace our habit of dealing with stress/anxiety with relaxed vigilance – nervous system self regulation.

    We accidentally train ourselves to hold stress in difficult situations. Instead, we just need to train ourselves to maintain a calm nervous system in difficult situations. It’s what medical professionals and emergency responders train to do. 

    When you calm your body, you send a message through your vegus nerve to the brain to calm your mind as well. 

    Another pro-tip: Retrain to recognize being “nervous” to being “excited” instead. It’s easier to recognize and have the positive frame of excited, and drop it quickly too.

    What we want: Parasympathetic response as our primary response. Our parasympathetic response slows things down and calms the mind and body, otherwise we get stuck in fight or flight. When stuck in fight or flight relaxation doesn’t resolve the underlying issue, it just distracts us but issue stays there and causes us anxiety. 

    Tips to default to parasympathetic response

    A paramedic commented that the best advice he received in paramedic training was: “Your patient’s emergency is not your emergency. Skill saves, not emotions.”

    Keep that in mind, avoid getting wrapped up in other people’s stressful situations and avoid taking the emotions on personally. You’ll be far more able to help from a place of calm and steadiness.

    Watch the video below from Emma McAdam, LMFT. There’s a great practice at the end as well. Then come back and read the rest of this article.

    Practice:

    Soothing body throughout the day so your body isn’t stuck in fight or flight.
    (Also known as “being present” or “presencing yourself”) 
    Ask yourself: “Is this really a threat? Am I safe enough right now?”
    Recognizing that in this moment you’re actually safe enough turns on parasympathetic response as your primary response 

    Use a grounding skill. Willingness. Be present. Be open. Ground yourself on acceptance first – not force. 

    Practice/check-in every 15 minutes for first week until it becomes habit:

    Breathe, check in. Take slow breath.
    Or yawn
    Or tense up, then relax
    Or tell yourself “I am safe enough right now”

    Reflection

    As my close friend John reminds me: “Stress is a choice.” We have a false view that if the outside situation is stressful, then we must be stressed internally. But is that actually true? It’s not. We generate a stress response inside our own bodies. And that’s where we have power and control. And if it feels like we NEED to be stressed, or it’s dangerous not to be. Know this:

    It turns out we generally perform better if we’re relaxed. We make better decisions, and can even respond faster.

    World-class athletes perform best by being as calm as possible. I heard about an interview with olympic gold-medalist and champion runner Florence Joyner (AKA “Flo-Jo”). Flo-Jo was asked what she’s thinking when she’s in the lead and needs to keep out front of the runners right behind, breathing down her neck. Turns out, it wasn’t stress keeping her in the lead. She was thinking: “Lord help me stay relaxed!”

    Stressing would have caused Flo-Jo to lose her lead. Relaxation helps us perform at our peak.

    We don’t need to take stress inside of us. Be busy and vigilant while maintaining a calm nervous system. Practice relaxed vigilance. 

    For more on relaxed vigilance, check out The Essential Skill to Regulate Your Nervous System – Relaxed Vigilance vs. Hypervigilance 21/30 by Emma McAdam, LMFT.