The Top 5 Criteria that Chronic Stress is Seizing Your Health

Stress is the single common denominator in almost all health challenges. Even the National Institute of Health acknowledges that stress has a major influence upon our mood, sense of wellbeing, behavior, and health. 

But, strangely enough when it comes to discussing and taking action around the things that are harming our health, chronic stress rarely gets mentioned. Medicine is always looking for a medication to “cure” an illness but with stress there is no medication and there is no single illness. 

Here’s a recent post I made about STRESS

Stress is truly the silent killer and it is impacting us all. The world we live in is full of challenges to our nervous system that qualifies as “stress”. This results in a repeated daily activation of the Sympathetic Nervous System. We call this the “Fight-or-Flight” system because it mobilizes energy and resources for survival and sacrifices processes that support long term health and well being. 

Stress is not something you can or even should eliminate from your life. Some stresses actually support health, like exercise or a sauna. But, the repeated “Fight-or-Flight” state becomes the “normal” state over time. Activation of the “Fight-or-Flight” system causes…

  • Elevated heart rate and blood pressure
  • Impaired digestion
  • Increased inflammation
  • Poor quality sleep
  • Poor recovery and healing
  • Suppression of the immune system
  • Elevated stress hormones cortisol and adrenaline

It’s not healthy or normal to live in a constant state of fight-or-flight, with your stress hormones (cortisol, adrenaline) constantly elevated. This also causes a long term suppression of your Vagus Nerve. What’s the Vagus Nerve? It supports health and wellness by…

  • Lowering heart rate and blood pressure
  • Supporting healthy digestion
  • Supporting healthy restorative sleep
  • Lowering inflammation
  • Supporting a healthy immune response
  • Supporting rest, recovery, and healing

 Let’s take a deeper look at the impact of stress…

Top 5 Signs of Chronic Stress

As I’ve said, we are all exposed to stress daily. And, we all respond differently and at different times. For some of us we experience pain, others digestive challenges, some high blood pressure, others insomnia and anxiety. 

Sign #1: You are feeling overwhelmed and get easily agitated. Stress is exhausting and once it fatigues us and drains our reserves it can be difficult to navigate the daily challenges of life. 

Sign #2: Your appetite is diminished. Chronic stress can have a dramatic impact on the digestive tract from indigestion to acid reflux to nausea. For many people their appetite disappears. 

Sign #3: You aren’t sleeping well. The stress hormones counteract the sleep hormone melatonin. With elevated cortisol sleep becomes more challenging. Quality sleep diminishes and fatigue rises. Even though we are fatigued, it is difficult to sleep.

Sign #4: You experience regular headaches. The activation of the “fight-or-flight” system causes an increase in muscle tension and pain, especially in the neck and shoulders. This increased neck tension, restriction, and nerve irritation coupled with poor sleep results in headaches. 

Sign #5: Chest pain or heart palpitations. If this is happening to you, go to an MD. Heart attacks and strokes are long term complications of chronic stress. 

 Chronic Stress is Seizing Your Health…What to Do?

One thing you won’t hear from me is that there’s a quick fix. If you find people peddling a quick fix, run in the other direction and don’t look back. There is no quick fix for chronic stress! The very word chronic means that it has been active for months and likely years. 

Symptoms of chronic stress typically emerge after an intense period of stress followed by years or decades of stress. Or, they emerge slowly over time after years of low level stress. 

Managing stress will yield limited results as the vast majority of what triggers your Sympathetic Nervous System is completely out of your control.

Let’s focus on changing the things within your control. Here are the areas to focus on in your daily routine and then we’ll talk about more specific practices.

  • Sleep: this must be a priority as sleep is when your brain and nervous system gets a rest and a chance to recover. Focus on:
    • A consistent sleep schedule
    • At least 7-8 hours of sleep. Few of us truly thrive on less than 7.
    • Cool room
    • No electronics in the bedroom
    • Avoid caffeine, alcohol, and other chemicals for hours before bed
    • Stop eating at least 2-3 hours before bed
  • You time: make time every day to do nothing and relax. You might want to take a walk, take an epsom salt bath, or just relax.
  • Food: stay away from processed foods, foods with nut and seed oils (canola, peanut, safflower, sunflower, corn, soy), sugar.
  • Avoid Self-medicating: with alcohol, caffeine, cannabis, sugar

The overactivation of the Sympathetic “Fight-or-Flight” System has resulted in a lowering of the activity of the Vagus Nerve. To raise the activity of the Vagus Nerve you need to activate it on a regular basis. There are a number of ways of doing this. The more ways you use the better but it is also best to find a way that you can use easily multiple times per day. 

The categories of Vagus activation are:

  • Environmental: the best example is getting outside and being in nature.
  • Relational: spending time with those people you love and appreciate and trust and who help you feel relaxed and safe.
  • Embodied: touch, movement, breathing.

In my practice I find it essential to remove tension and interference from the Vagus Nerve. This involves balancing the Cervical spine and Pelvis. This has an almost immediate effect of reducing Sympathetic activity. 

I find that the easiest and most consistently powerful practice is conscious breathwork. Breathing is unique in that it happens without your conscious direction yet you can easily alter the pace, depth, and volume of air. Breathing has a profound impact on the nervous system.

Have you ever seen someone experiencing a panic attack? Their breathing is rapid and shallow and they are filled with terror. A first aid measure is to have them breathe into a paper bag for a few minutes. The carbon dioxide slows their breathing and relaxes them. 

The keys of breathwork that I start everyone with are:

  • Nasal Breathing: the nose filters and warms air and helps the production of nitric oxide. 
  • Diaphragmatic Breathing: breathing with the upper chest and shoulders drives activity of the sympathetic nervous system, perpetuating stress. 
  • Slow your Breathing: making your breathing slow and light will relax the nervous system.

There are other more specific breathing practices but in general slower and more prolonged exhales increases Vagus Nerve activity. 

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