Body Blitz Week 4: Stress Reduction
Posted by Jeanne M. Schmit, Pharm. D. on Sat, Apr 03, 2010 @ 07:42 AM
OMG, we're half way through our 6 weeks. 
Things are really starting to heat up (in a good way) as many of you have watched the videos and studied the Female Brain Gone Insane book.
Is your brain on fire?
I'm hearing how excited you are to discover answers to "mysterious" symptoms you've been experiencing....with seemingly no good answer..."you're getting old, you should just have more discipline, eat less, just think positive, etc, etc, etc".
We're finding answers to why we're tired, why we have mood swings, why we can't lose weight, why we overeat sugar and junk food, why we can't sleep, think straight...why we can't simply feel good!
Week 4 brings us a change of focus.
Stress reduction. Read pages 137-155 in Female Brain Gone Insane. We'll focus on stress buster and life improvement techniques. High stress will sabotage your efforts to provide good chemicals to your brain. High stress sabotages balanced hormones. Stress has to do with adrenaline and cortisol, your thyroid and adrenals. These glands are the providers of the hormones we need to run our bodies. They get WAY out of whack with chronic high stress.
Working too many hours (especially at a job you don't like) and sleeping too few hours leads to a depleted system. Experiencing high stress: divorce, death of loved one, financial, school, pain, cancer, serious illness, eating disorders, fast weight loss, accident, etc, often leads to depleted adrenals and subsequently depleted thyroid. Our brain chemicals suffer and we don't feel good and we're told we're just getting old and this is normal. It's not.
I'm bringing this up because I don't think people in general take stress seriously and understand how much it can harm health and affect brain and full body functioning. Some may not think they have the ability to change their lives to reduce stress and often don't see the dire importance of stress reduction, but yet, wonder why they feel terrible. All the supplements and a good diet will not work if you're burning the candle at both ends.
It's especially difficult for us to see and understand because most everyone we see on a daily basis is stressed out...it's accepted as normal... we're expected to be productive and working at something all the time. Everyone seems to be busy. I think it's more common here in the midwest with our strong work ethic. Heaven forbid we should take time to do nothing. Or worse yet, take a nap...every day!!
However, it's not necessarily about "doing nothing or very little". It's not that activity is bad. If you've always wanted to be an actor, and now you're doing it.....it's feeding you...not stressing you. Maybe you're busy with it, but you LOVE it. Spending time doing things you love reduces stress. How much of your day is spent doing things you love? It helps if you love your work. 
Another is reducing clutter. Is your desk a shamble? Can you barely see your kitchen table? Do you have piles everywhere? Clearing these spaces reduces stress.
For this week, lets look at our lives and see, first off, if chronic stress is a problem for us. If so, think about what YOU need to do to improve your situation. It's not usually as simple as take more bubble baths. It often takes some re-arranging of how you conduct your days, who you spend time with, what type and how much exercise you get, when you sleep, and a big one is your job...your life work.
Considering exercise for stress reduction ......
In the studio we've provided you with the opportunity to take Belly Dancing this week and Tai Chi/Qigong the following 2 weeks. We have a trip to the Old Log Theatre to see a funny comedy play. All planned to help with stress reduction and add a bit of fun and laughter. Qigong is incredibly restorative and healing, and you can do it on your own once you learn how.
Other studio stress reduction classes: BODYFLOW, Pilates mat, yoga and Nia. Depending on how you do it, the Foam Roller class can be stress relieving. If your body is not depleted, more intense cardio and weight training are stress relieving.
If your system is depleted, heavy exercise can further deplete you. If you feel energized by your workout (all day, not just for 30 minutes), the exercise is most likely good for you (but you won't know it if you're high on caffeine and sugar...keeping you jazzed up all day). If your exercise makes you feel more tired afterward, the exercise is depleting you, not helping you build. It depletes your brain chemicals and much more. Choose appropriate exercise for you.....but be sure and do something, preferable every day. The right exercise increases serotonin...your feel good brain chemical!
For many people, you really don't have a stressful lifestyle, yet you don't sleep well, you're anxious and maybe can't focus. Lifestyle changes don't work if you already have your life set up with low stress. For you, it's your brain chemistry making you feel stressed out and tired. Use the amino chart to find the calming aminos and use them! Those amino acids provide the necessary environment for your brain to function without anxiety. Another possible reason could be lack of progesterone, a troubled thyroid or adrenals.
Action Plan:
- Read pp 137-155 in "Female Brain....".
- Fill out pages 18, 19 in the same book (stress buster)
- If those pages aren't sufficient, make a plan for stress reduction, even if it's one thing.
- Continue your learning on aminos and brain chemistry. If you don't have contraindications to amino acids, start with one or two and see what they do for you. If you're afraid, remember that amino acids are found in food. For instance, one egg has 300 mg tyrosine, 3 eggs has 900 mg. The supplement dose you would start with is 500 mg tyrosine. You're already getting these aminos in food. The reason you would take them as an individual supplement is to assure that particular amino gets through to your brain and doesn't compete with the other ones (found in food). The target is the brain, and not necessarily muscle, bone, blood cell, etc development. A book that goes into much more depth on aminos is Mood Cure by Julia Ross. We'll have a supply of those books in the studio soon.
Photo curtesy of Linda Gavin on Flickr.com