The contents of these lessons are for informational purposes only and are not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. These presentations do not provide medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition.
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Stress in the 21st Century
75-90% of all physician’s offices visits are for stress-related conditions
Lifetime prevalence of an emotional disorder is over 50%
Prolonged stress contributes to obesity, diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure, depression, anxiety, asthma, IBS, infertility, headaches, muscle tension and premature aging.
Stress motivates. It can paralyze or motivate. But the regular stress can become toxic.
In addition, mental illness has existed across time. Melancholia was used to described depression 4000 years ago.
Priests treated depression, physicians treated illnesses of the body.
Romans and Greeks used to treat it with massage, diets, physical exercise, baths, music, herbs, distraction, marriage, drink of milk and poppy.
TODAY: strongly emphasize biological explanation for depression and anxiety. Very little focus on physiological, nutritional, communal, social & spiritual aspects of life.
So, let’s talk about the connection between stress and metabolism.
The autonomic nervous system is responsible for digestive activity. There are two branches: The Para-Sympathetic and the Sympathetic.
The Parasympathetic is also known as the rest and digest response. This is the optimal state for digestion. When the parasympathetic is activated our metabolic power goes up.
The Sympathetic is also known as fight or flight. This is our stress response. When we are stressed out our digestion shuts down. The classic textbook example is that if a lion was chasing you after lunch you wouldn’t be concerned about digestion your sandwich. The sympathetic nervous system would act effectively to shut down digestion, direct blood flow away from the belly and out to your arms and legs for quick moving and up to your brain for quick thinking.
This is a brilliant mechanism in place for our survival. While most of us do not have to confront lions on our lunch hour, we do encounter stress. On a physiological level your body doesn’t differentiate between a lion chasing you and your boss yelling at you or getting tense in a traffic jam. One is life threatening the other is not, but guess what…on a physiological level they are the same, they both trigger the body to shut off digestion and store fat. This decreases our metabolic power.
You may have heard of a hormone called cortisol. This is the hormone that is released when we are stressed out. Studies show that increased cortisol in the system leads to fat accumulation.
People who tend to gain weight primarily around the belly, likely experience chronic
low level stress, as excess cortisol production has this strange effect of fattening up the belly. Make sense?
What are 3 common stressors you experience and how does your body respond to stress?
If the body is in even a low level stress state most of the time then you may lose a few pounds here and there but ultimately no amount of calorie counting or tread-milling will get you where you want to go. Your task is to do something of great difficulty: RELAX!
Some people use anxiety and stress to motivate themselves to lose weight. For example, if I don’t lose 8 lbs I’m not going to the reunion. If I don’t go to the gym 4 days this
week then I’m not going to get a massage. Does this work? No!
The point is, worrying and stressing about weight loss (or healing xx) is totally counterproductive.
To boost metabolism you must RELAX and stop producing so much cortisol.
The #1 way to stop producing so much cortisol is to slow down:
• If you eat breakfast in five minutes, make it 10. If you normally take 10 min, bump it up to 15.
• Give yourself at least 30 minutes for lunch and dinner.
• Optimize your home and work schedules as best as you can to provide yourself with more time. Commit to providing yourself the gift of more time at each meal.
• As best you can, enroll your family, co-workers, and boss in creating more time and relaxation with meals.
Remember in session #2 I think it was, where we practiced chewing? Notice when you chew your food you automatically slow down.
The good news is that it takes less than two minutes to de-stress the body and move it into a maximum nutritional metabolism. So you can eat stress-free anywhere at anytime and tap into your metabolic power instantly.
How do you do this? We’re going to trick your central nervous system. The shortcut to turn off stress and activate a physiologic relaxation response is conscious breathing.
When we are in a stressful state, if we consciously adopt the deep and rhythmic breathing pattern characteristic of the relaxed state we fool the Central Nervous System. The brains says something like, “Hey, I thought I was a nervous wreck but I’m breathing like a relaxed person, I must be relaxed!” The result is a shift from a state of low digestive activity to full digestive force.
I’ve watched many people cure heartburn, IBS, constipation, fatigue etc by regularly using this simple technique.
At every meal or snack, any time food is about to pass across your lips ask yourself, “Am I
about to eat under stress?” If the answer is yes, pause. Then take 10 long slow deep breaths.
2. Experiential Exercise Related To Content: The “5-5-7 Breath” COACH: Let’s try this now: This is what I call the 5-5-7 breath. You’ll inhale for 5, hold for 5 and exhale for 7. So the exhale is a bit longer than the inhale.
Sit in a comfortable position, spine straight, feet flat on the floor. Eyes can be opened or closed. Inhale for 1,2,3,4,5 filling your lungs to 2/3 capacity. Hold for 5… Exhale
for 7,6,5,4,3,2,1…As you continue this conscious breathing, steady rhythm, scan the senses. The scent of the air in your nose, the red and oranges of your eyelids, your taste buds, the feeling of your butt on the chair and your feet spread wide on the earth, the sound of my voice. Inhale… hold… and exhale.
Keep breathing and scanning, tuning into a heightened awareness. Repeat 10x. How does that feel?
| Nervine Relaxant Mild | Nervine Relaxant Moderate | Nervine Relaxant Strong | Nervine Tonic |
| Chamomile | Ashwagandha | Cal. Poppy | Milky oat seed |
| Cramp bark | Black cohosh | Hops | St John’s Wort |
| Damiana | Motherwort | Kava | Skullcap |
| Lavender | Vervain | Passionflower | Saffron |
| Lemon balm | Valerian | Jamaican dogwood | Eleuthero |
NEXT: Markets that help you test your immune strength