As we acknowledge Stress Awareness Month, we unpack the complexities of the HPA axis, cortisol's impact, and why those sweets seem so irresistible when we're under pressure. This episode explores hormonal health and how stress can change hormone balance.
Learn more about how you can empower yourself by checking your hormone balance at this affiliate link (I may be reimbursed if you make a purchase, but not if you click the link): DUTCH Hormone Testing from Your Lab Work
High-quality aromatherapy can enhance your resilience to stress. During this episode, I recommend Vibrant Blue Oils to support hormonal health and stress resilience:
Nourish your body with the right foods and supplements from a source you can trust. I invite you to join my Fullscripts Dispensary: Dr. Charlyce's Fullscripts Dispensary Not all supplement suppliers are equal. I trust Fullscript because it ensures you get safe, effective products that are stored and shipped to maintain purity.
Join me live for the Harmonize Your Energy Group Healing Experience on April 13th 2024 at Noon CST: Harmonize Your Energy Group Healing Program Recordings and bonuses will be available after the program if you can't attend live.
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Hello, this is Dr Charlize and thank you for joining me for this week's episode of the Art of Healing podcast. During today's episode, we're going to discuss stress awareness. April is Stress Awareness Month and it's always good for us to know what our stress levels are, what the stress may be doing to our bodies and action steps we can take so that we are more adaptable and more resilient to stress. I'd like to make a few announcements and disclaimers before we get into the meat of this podcast episode. If you are wanting to try Reiki and wanting to try distance Reiki in the comfort of your home, there will be an opportunity to experience a live group Reiki or healing session on April 13th 2024 at noon, central standard time. During this session, we will connect. All you have to do is plug in your listening device of choice, tune in and you can experience the healing power of Reiki during this session. So if you are interested in experiencing this, and even if you sign up and you cannot attend the live event, the recording will be available to you. Your show notes will take you to the link where you can sign up to participate. Also, I have a self-guided Reiki journey that is launching, so if you would like to start your own Reiki healing program. There are several guided Reiki sessions and there are also several meditation prompts to take you through several days of your own healing journey that you can tailor to your own needs. So also check the show notes there. Finally, during this podcast, I will be sharing some affiliate links. The importance of these links is that I may be reimbursed a small amount if you click on the link and actually make a purchase, and this is to support the cost of the podcast, because, of course, all things that we produce cost money and the podcast does cost money to produce and to run. So just wanted to make that known. Okay, let's get started.
Speaker 1:
April is Stress Awareness Month in the United States and in Canada. According to the American Institute of Stress, april was declared the Stress Awareness Month starting in 1992. And this was created to raise awareness of stress, the effect that it can have on our bodies, awareness of stress, the effect that it can have on our bodies, the physical, psychological, emotional changes that we can feel and, of course, just to help us build our resilience to recognize it and be able to know how to help ourselves. According to the American Institute of Stress and their posts, which you'll be able to find the link in the show notes. There are common reactions to stress once we have them, which can run the gamut from shock, disbelief, feeling numb, to feeling sadness, frustrated or helplessness, having trouble concentrating or making decisions, physical symptoms such as headache or stomach problems, and then, of course, relying on distracting methods such as abusing substances, overuse of alcohol, smoking or other addictive behaviors.
Speaker 1:
There are many types of stress. There's physical stress, emotional stress, financial stress, community stress, but the stress is what it is because it takes us beyond our normal perceived capacity. When most of us are saying stress, we're referring to the psychological stress of chronic worry, chronic overthinking, chronic rapid thinking. But stress can also be physical stress, such as having to lift a heavy object or run or move faster than you normally would. Stress could be intellectual stress stress that you might have if you are working in your education and you're studying for a test. Stress isn't always a bad thing. We, as humans, were designed for a challenge and that's what stress is. So whenever we perceive something as being stressful, we are being challenged and, in terms of being a good stress exercise when we're trying to build muscle, that's a physical stress that leads to a good outcome. As I mentioned before, if we're studying or we're trying to obtain new knowledge, reviewing lots of information that's new to us is an intellectual stress, but it leads to us having a deeper understanding of whatever that topic is. With stress, it is beneficial if there can be a period of recovery after the stress, so you have whatever the stress load was lifting, running, studying, singing in front of a crowd, whatever that was Then there needs to be a period of rest and recovery.
Speaker 1:
If you're watching the video, you will see an image from Fullscripts that gives us an idea of what the HPA axis is. The HPA axis starts with a gland called the hypothalamus, which is in the brain. The hypothalamus takes signals from the operating parts of the brain that process our cognitive thoughts, our perceptions. Sensory information what's called the cortex, so the thinking part of the brain. Information what's called the cortex, so the thinking part of the brain. A hypothalamus has several neural tracks that will eventually lead to it that are processing what's going on in the environment. The hypothalamus releases CRH, which communicates with the pituitary gland when it senses that there is a high level of stress. So the hypothalamus is gathering electrical signals from the brain and gets the overarching message that something's going wrong. So your mind and body need to be prepared for a threat. So the pituitary gland begins to produce what's called ACTH, and the role of ACTH is eventually to make its way to the pituitary glands, which will then produce the hormones cortisol and cortisone that help our body respond to stress. That help our body respond to stress.
Speaker 1:
So, while our bodies are designed to handle short bursts of stress or a little bit of stress for a little bit of time, if we're responding to that stress all the time and our cortisol levels are remaining elevated, that's when we start to not feel very good. So when cortisol levels remain elevated for a long time, they impact how the metabolism works. Cortisol is going to encourage the storage of sugar. Cortisol also encourages you to crave sugar. It changes how your pancreas works as far as insulin production. So the sum total of what you feel is that, with chronic stress, carbohydrates start to take a really big role in your life, craving sweets, and there's a link between that and carbohydrates possibly being the building block for serotonin. So your body's attempting to make a self-correction. When we make too much cortisol, we also start to notice that the content of our body isn't optimized so that we start to have more fat storage, particularly around our midsection, because the body's getting the signal from the brain that something's not right. Stress levels high. Something may be very wrong in the environment. So begin to prepare for a period of starvation. It's built into our genetics for our body to prepare for worst case scenario. So we'll have less muscle, we'll start to store more fat. Those cortisol levels stay a little bit high for a long time. It may cause our sugars to start to stay elevated a lot of the times, to the point that we might have sugars that are high enough that we begin to have signs and symptoms of diabetes.
Speaker 1:
Chronic stress can impact pretty much any part of the body. So if the brain is experiencing chronic stress and is perceiving chronic stress the tendency to go from a state of rest and digest to what's called the fight or flight, which is changing the autonomic nervous system it's much easier to's called the fight or flight, which is changing the autonomic nervous system. It's much easier to slip into the fight or flight, which, again, that can be a good thing, because there's times that we need our hearts to race and we need the adrenaline, but we don't need it all the time, especially if we're trying to rest or we're trying to eat or digest our food. Chronic stress can change how the heart operates. When those cortisol levels are staying elevated, they tend to cause other hormonal changes within the adrenal glands that raise the resting heart rate, so that it rests when you're sitting and you should feel calm and even the heart will beat faster and harder, to the point that you may perceive palpitations. And chronic stress is absolutely a source of high blood pressure or hypertension. Having those stress levels high all the time, on a daily basis, causes changes in the system in which the blood pressure begins to go up and then it stays up.
Speaker 1:
Chronic stress changes our breathing, either by habit or, however, we begin to take short, shallow breaths rather than long, fulfilling breaths, which those short shallow breaths actually drive our stress more. And when we are stressed we don't digest our food very well because of that fight or flight mechanism. Our blood flow doesn't get to our digestive tract, so food gets in the stomach, doesn't get processed very well In the intestines, we don't extract the nutrients that we need. In the colon, the food may pass through too quickly without us extracting all the water we need, which could be diarrhea or could not pass very well at all in a staying put, which could be constipation. Stress also causes changes in our reproductive system, so if you're wanting to have a baby or get pregnant, that might be harder and, of course, change or loss in sex drive or libido.
Speaker 1:
So when it comes to dealing with stress, one of the first things is simply having awareness of what your stress levels are. That we often forget. If it's become part of our lives, we just simply stop noticing that our heart's beating really fast or that our palms are clammy quite a bit or that we're queasy. If those symptoms are there every day, it's completely understandable that we would start to not notice them. So the first step is simply knowing or have the awareness of could you be under chronic stress? Is your body starting to respond to chronic stress?
Speaker 1:
When I'm working with my patients and we're at the point where it is time to adjust stress depending on their symptoms, we'll review digestive patterns, how they're sleeping, physical symptoms, particularly joint pain, muscle pain. Of course, we'll want to dig deeper into autoimmune diseases and, taking all of that information, one of the tests that we can use that's been immensely helpful is what's called a dried urine and saliva testing, which is an extensive hormone panel that's been branded as a Dutch test. So part of the membership in my practice is that at some point during the one-year journey we will measure an indirect measure of stress levels by assessing what my patient's hormone levels are, particularly assessing cortisol, cortisone and then this test generates a lot of great data. It tells us melatonin levels, it tells us DHEA levels, it tells us the progesterone estrogen levels. Just an immensely helpful test, especially for my patients who have had chronic stress, and it's been chronic so long they just simply don't notice it anymore. But as we start to review that information and start to go over it piece by piece, it's often a big point of discovery, of realizing oh, I have been really stressed. I know, when I did my own Dutch test, I was surprised to learn how low my melatonin levels were, and it was just a culmination of several things where I had come to accept a chronically stressful way of living and actually just thought I didn't need as much sleep as other people, when in fact, because of chronic stress, my production of melatonin was very low, meaning that I didn't get sleepy at night as much as you would anticipate and I woke up very easy.
Speaker 1:
So if you are curious about doing the biochemical impact stress movie having on your body, there are a few action steps you can take. You can schedule a call with me, because I am licensed to practice across many states and you can learn about my membership program and what would be involved in having your hormone testing checked, as well as many other testing checked. You can also, if you don't have access to a functional medicine physician, there are several great services in which you can empower yourself and you can actually order your own test. The test does come with an interpretation which will take some time and some patience to read, but you can definitely walk away from doing your own Dutch test with some action steps or know what to do. As far as seeking some additional help or working with your own doctor, I will put a link in the show notes to yourlabworkcom. In that link it will direct you to a way that you can order your own Dutch test and check your own hormone levels if you're wanting to know stress is impacting you.
Speaker 1:
If you are also ready to take some positive steps as far as building some resilience, I have a free resource called nine ways to ground your energy. It's an ebook that'll guide you through nine very simple mindfulness exercises that you can use daily. I created it to be used really at any time of day. Keep a copy on your phone, you download it and you can start to work with some exercises that, within two, three, four minutes, you can lower your stress levels right away. Nine Ways to Grind your Energy ebook I created a few years ago and it's remained one of the most popular tools that listeners have requested from me and it's one of my favorites that listeners have requested from me and it's one of my favorites Simple exercises. Even if you're suffering from high stress levels, it can really help you.
Speaker 1:
Along with using these mindfulness techniques, you can add essential oil or aromatherapy to help improve your resilience. Aromatherapy works in two ways in terms of helping us manage stress the mechanical inhalation, so whenever we're near oil and we want to smell it, the deep inhalation encourages us to slow down, and when we inhale deeply, it encourages our heart rate to slow down. The chest wall expands, more oxygen comes in and the action of the diaphragm actually has opportunity to talk to the vagus nerve, which sends the signal back to the brain that everything is okay. The second way, of course, is how the essential oils work, which is to the part that vaporizes and enters the air, enters our olfactory nerve and then can cause some biochemical changes. I recommend Vibrant Blue Oils. They are a company that makes oils with lots of intention. They make oils to be used for specific issues. They make several oils that really could help with stress, but in particular I'm recommending the Detox Kit, which has a combination of oils that you would apply topically. It'll come with directions on how to use those. So if you check your show notes you'll see a link that you can start to explore that brand, see if it's right for you and have a look at that Detox Tool Kit.
Speaker 1:
So our brain health, physical activity can help us manage our stress and naturally, nutrition and what we consume can add to our stress or can help lower our stress. So the foods that can potentially worsen our response to stress are probably some of the ones that you're aware of. So excessive sugar consumption, as we were discussing earlier in the podcast, that when we have chronic stress due to hormonal changes, sugar cravings are actually a part of it. We anticipate that we'll have sugar cravings. Best that you don't answer those cravings, if possible, because when we consume more sugar it's going to drive more of that cortisol production, drive the sugars up, drive the insulin up and when insulin levels are high we actually will tend to have a higher pulse rate, feel more anxious, feel more thirsty. So, avoiding excessive sugar.
Speaker 1:
What I recommend to my patients is, when they're having sugar cravings, balancing that out with a different answer. So water, staying well hydrated, because many times what you're perceiving as a sugar craving is needing water and consuming something that's high in protein. So having a handful of nuts, which will get protein a great source of omega-3s inside of you and will also give you some other trace minerals and things, hopefully it'll just distract your brain a little bit so you won't crave that sugar so much. And then something savory. So if someone's having lots of sugar cravings, I usually recommend eating something savory. If you're not on a, if you can't have, dairy cheese can be a good source of that, or a high quality meat could be a good source of that. Of course, a vegetable with a vegetable hummus could be a good source of that as well as well. Just anything not to answer that sugar craving. And a lot of times, once you answer with something else, the craving goes away and you'll begin to forget.
Speaker 1:
For many of us, stress that's chronic leads to anxiety and requires medical treatment because that anxiety is impactful and is causing symptoms. So prescriptions can play a role when stress has rolled over into anxiety. But for the rest of us we may be experiencing stress. It may not be as severe enough that a prescription would be necessary. So supplementation can be beneficial. Supplementation with adaptogenic herbs can be beneficial, and then supplementation with things that help your brain balance without overly overwhelming it scripts that if you go into your show notes, you'll see the link where you can have access to view some of the frequent recommendations I make for supplements that can help with the stress response. Some of these are good to keep, for instance if you'll be traveling, because they'll help calm your nervous system without overwhelming you or making you too tired. Some you can use to help relax in the evenings at night tired. Some you can use to help relax in the evenings at night.
Speaker 1:
So we will conclude here. I hope that this episode was helpful for you and I hope that you were able to maybe pull a few resources to help with your stress. Don't forget, if you want to connect live, we'll be live April 13th 2024 for a group healing session. And also don't forget, if you heard quite a bit that you liked and it was helpful for you, if you sign up for my weekly newsletter, all of this information will come to you by email. I send out a newsletter once a week, so check your show notes to sign up for there, and all the resources I mentioned will be in the show notes as well. So good to see you. See you next time.
