Stress & Anxiety

Throughout my 12 years in practice as a Naturopath in Brisbane I’ve helped many people who are searching for advice on reducing stress and anxiety. There are many anxiety treatments out there and most people are looking for a simple and practical way to learn how to reduce stress in their daily lives.

Your body feels stressed when you feel threatened. Throughout evolution this response was developed to save your life in times of danger. The problem is stress has now become constant in many people’s lives – which negatively impacts your health. Taking steps to reduce stress will have wide reaching effects on your relationships, your health and your happiness.

The key to stress management is taking back control of your life – stress can be significantly reduced by learning how to take charge of your thoughts, your emotions, your daily schedule and the way your react to daily situations.

Stress and anxiety are worsened when you feel like you’ve lost control of your life. There’s usually a trigger eg work or a personal situation is causing imbalance in your life and then everything snowballs from there – you may not eat as well, exercise as often, take time out to enjoy life and generally you feel pulled in a million directions and like there’s a huge weight on your shoulders.

Treating stress and anxiety usually needs a multifaceted approach. You may need a team around you eg ask for help from friends and family and seek advice from health professionals such as Naturopath and a Psychologist.

We are a team of Naturopaths, practicing from Vibe Natural Health in Brisbane. Most of our clients have a degree of stress affecting their health and as Naturopaths, we have many tricks up our sleeve to help you feel yourself again.

As a Naturopath I see stress manifesting in so many ways in my clients – it may cause Irritable Bowel, poor sleep, low energy, skin problems, mood swings, hormonal imbalance and poor immunity to name a few. I attend many health seminars and it doesn’t seem to matter what topic the seminar is about, stress is often listed as one of the contributing factors to many major diseases and health problems. This is why I am passionate about helping people to keep calm and reduce the impact of stress on their lives.  Learning to relax and deal with stress can be the most important thing you do to improve your happiness and lower your risk of chronic disease.

• The fight or flight response – balancing the nervous system is vital.

The stress response is also called the fight or flight response. Its your body’s way of saving you in times of danger. Back in caveman times we faced threats from wild animals or marauding tribes. When your body senses it’s under threat – the fight of flight response kicks in. This vital response saves your life – by releasing the hormones adrenaline and cortisol, which help you to run fast, think under pressure and perform super human feats of strength to fight for your life.

This life saving response is really taxing on your body, just think of the last time you had a big argument with someone or nearly avoided a car crash or getting hurt. After you calm down (and finish being angry or swearing!), your heart is racing, your can feel shaky, shocked and teary or emotional.

Fight or flight is designed for short spurts of life saving action as it is so taxing on the body. The problem with modern life is that many people exist in this “running on adrenalin” chronically stressed feeling every day. The pressures of a big work load, raising a family, financial strain, emails, phone calls and juggling a busy life can keep you running in this adrenalized fight or flight state. This throws out the whole balance in your nervous system. Why? When stress hormones adrenalin and cortisol are high your sympathetic nervous system becomes dominant. This means that your “ON SWITCH” is always on, your motor is always running.

Your body is meant to have a balance between being “switched on” and “switched off.” If you’re always switched on and running on adrenalin, the parasympathetic nervous system can’t function properly This majorly affects your ability to rest, digest, relax and reproduce.

The calm side of our nervous system doesn’t work properly so digestion, sleep, energy, hormones, fertility and your ability to repair and rejuvenate your body suffers. You just can’t rest and repair if you’re constantly running on adrenalin.

When your body is under stress and you’re “fighting for you life” the last thing you need is to digest your food properly or sleep or be calm and running on adrenalin stops all these vital functions from happening in your body. You end up running yourself ragged and your health suffers.

So how do we fix this?

Herbal medicine is a powerful tool to rebalance your nervous system. Herbs can be used to increase the amount of “calm” hormones the body is producing. These herbs are called nervines and work by increasing the amount of calm brain chemicals we produce.

Herbal medicine with an adaptogenic effect can also be used to balance the adrenal glands. The adrenals produce adrenalin and coritisol the “stress hormones.” Adrenal tonic or adaptogenic herbs have been proven to help the body produce less stress hormones under stressful conditions. They improve stamina and boost mood.

These herbs are a cornerstone of my naturopathic practice because if your stress levels are lessened, your energy is boosted, you think clearer and feel happier. Who wouldn’t want that?

• Sleep quality

Often when we are stressed it’s hard to sleep. You may have trouble getting to sleep because your mind is racing, or you may wake up throughout the night or wake feeling tired, which means your sleep quality is poor.

Improving the quality of your sleep is vital to reduce stress and anxiety. Sleep is where we produce a vital hormone called DHEA which is antiageing and helps us feel calm, relaxed and is the “mother” hormone to Oestrogen and Testosterone production.

Developing a healthy sleep routine is vital. This involves going to bed before midnight if possible, avoiding computers/ iphone/ tv use in the hour before bed and knowing the best time to go to sleep. Catching the sleepy wave is the best time to go to bed. The sleepy wave is the timeframe which occurs roughly every 90 minutes when you find yourself zoning out a little, a bit sleepy or more “brain dead.” If you go to sleep at that time of the night, you will slip into a deeper and most restful sleep as your body clock is at its most relaxed.

You need to be ready for bed eg have brushed your teeth, locked up the house and as soon as you sleepy wave occurs go to bed straight away. If you muck around doing other things, the wave passes and you feel awake again with a second wind.

As a herbalist I find nervine herbs to be extremely valuable – these help the body and mind relax at night and improve sleep quality. I often give my clients a trial of a few different herbs to try for a few nights each – as what works for one person if often different to what works for the next person. These herbs don’t usually need to be used long term – often a 3-4 week period is enough – they assist you to relax and experience a quality sleep which re-sets your body clock and then you’re often good to sleep unassisted after that time.

Yoga Nidra

I recommend to my clients who are having trouble sleeping to download a yoga nidra to their ipods and listen to it as they go to bed. Yoga Nidra is a relaxation technique aimed at getting the brain and body into a deep state of relaxation. Listening to this while lying in bed will give you a deeper and more restorative sleep.

Listening to something as you go to sleep is like reading a bedtime story to a child – the ritual of it helps your body relax and get ready for bed. The added bonus is that it’s hard to worry and have a busy mind while you lie in bed if you’re distracted by listening to a relaxation.

Go to itunes or the app store and search for “yoga nidra.”  Preview a couple and make sure you like the sound of the persons voice and the music. Listen to it every night as you go to sleep. Even if it doesn’t work at first, commit to doing it for a week every night and see how it helps you over time.

• Grounding exercises

Many people benefit from a visualization called a Grounding Exercise. What this means is literally imagining yourself being grounded to the earth and connected in your body. The problem with stress is that it makes you feel disconnected from your body. Often we feel tight in the chest and our energy is all in our heads as we stress, worry and feel anxious. The mind and it’s problems become so important and we forget to connect to our bodies and slow down.

Grouding can be done by taking a moment to breathe deeply, imagine deep roots like a gnarly big old tree running from your feet into the earth.

You can also get out into the garden and do some gardening or walk barefoot on the ground, or sit and eat your breakfast or lunch outside in the sunshine.

There’s a great grounding visualization if you click here:

http://www.wikihow.com/Ground-and-Center

• Eating regularly

When we are stressed and anxious we run on the stress hormones Adrenalin and Cortisol. Cortisol increases the use of sugars in the bloodstream and also shuts down the body’s ability to digest food properly. Your appetite may change – you’re either hungry all the time and craving sugars or coffee or your appetite is very low and you don’t eat properly.

Eating regularly is a powerful way that you can take control of your health and influence your moods. Most people find it hard initially to focus on themselves when they’re stressed or anxious, but I’ve seen powerful results in my clients who focus on this. They can change their mood and energy levels dramatically in just 2 weeks by eating the right foods at the right time.

Your moods are directly influenced by swings in your blood sugar. If your blood sugar is up and down like a roller coaster from eating erractically or eating too much processed foods, your moods will also be like a rollercoaster.

The key is:

• eat a palm sized portion of protein 2 – 3 x day.
• Eat low gi carbs
• Cut out high gi carbs and processed sugars
• Don’t go for longer than 3 hours without eating – eat 3 main meals and 2 small snacks per day.
• You must eat breakfast – preferably containing some protein to balance brain chemicals and stabilize your mood.

For specifics on this, make an appointment to discuss your dietary needs.

• Healthy eating

When you feel stressed or anxious you often go for quick and easy foods. These can be heavily processed and devoid of vital nutrients. Eating a balanced diet high in vitamins and minerals will boost mood by influencing the metabolism of neurotransmitters. These brain chemicals affect our mood and nutrient rich foods such as lean protein, low gi carbs, fruits, vegetables and omega 3 fats assist in the production of balanced brain chemicals that stabilize your mood.

• Reducing stimulants – caffeine and sugar

Coffee and sugary snacks are often the stressed person’s best friend. Your body craves them. Ever wondered why? It’s because the stress hormones adrenaline and cortisol affect how your body processes sugars. Adrenaline gives you such highs and lows in energy that you crave stimulants to even out these energy swings.

There’s only one problem: coffee and sugar only give you a short term energy high, then you’re dumped right back down to where you started. Relying on stimulants is like flogging a dead horse and expecting it to run. When your car run out of petol , you don’t drive it like a maniac expecting to get to the next fuel station – you drive conservatively so the last bit in your tank gets you there. Cofee and sugar when you’re stressed adds extra stress to your body’s hormonal stress response and is like “driving with the pedal to the metal. “

• Avoid alcohol

Having a drink when you’re stressed or anxious often helps you feel relaxed, but this is short lived.

Alcohol affects our blood sugar, when then affects mood longterm. It also depletes vital B vitamins which play a huge role in helping us balance our blood sugars and manufacture happy brain chemicals called neurotransmitters. Alcohol also causes disruption in our sleep patterns and a more fitful sleep. The trap is that it can help you fall asleep faster which at first seems useful, but longterm it causes sleep disturbances and a less restful sleep overall.

• Exercise

Exercise helps reduce stress and anxiety by getting you in touch with your body, blowing off steam and it increases endorphins which make us feel good.

• Counselling

Verbalising your feelings and getting things off your chest is vital to help reduce stress. This can mean chatting to a trusted friend or family member or talking to a trained professional Psychologist or Counsellor.

Many of my clients have overcome their anxiety by gaining advice on techniques to use to reduce their anxiety. This generally involves identifying what triggers your stress/anxiety and changing your reaction to that stressor.  You may not have control of what happens to you but you do have control over how you react.

Psychology can be claimed on medicare if you are referred by your GP which makes it super accessible and affordable.

For more tips on techniques to cope with stress read this great article:

http://www.helpguide.org/mental/stress_management_relief_coping.htm great article

Want an appointment to reduce your stress and anxiety?

The Naturopaths at Vibe Natural Health offer appointments at our clinic at 210 Days Rd, Grange in Brisbane.
Visit our appointment diary on the top right of screen to book now.
If you have questions, please email us rather than commenting on the blog at info@vibenaturalhealth.com.au

Or phone us on (07) 3366 7970. We would love to help you!