Stress is unavoidable, however many of us are in such high stress within our everyday life right now, that we must turn to a holistic approach to avoid the compound effect that chronic stress has on the body.
How do you know if your body is experiencing stress? Most of us know, and based on roles, responsibilities and not knowing how to change, we start to normalise how our body is behaving, whether it is affecting our sleep, our digestion and even our skin and body weight. Stress can easily ramp up from healthy stress to dangerous stress.
Feeling the weight of stress? Here are some simple changes you can make at home.
Stress & You and how you can turn to a holistic tool kit to help reduce the compound effects of ongoing stress.
There is so much happening in the world right now that is stressful and over-stimulating to our nervous systems; our Sympathetic Nervous System (SNS) in particular - the fight or flight response that produces adrenaline and prepares us to run.
But the thing is that most of us have been in a switched on fight or flight state long before COVID or the current world wide protests.
The world is falling apart, but it is also coming together. We need to look beyond what is fear driven and look where we can lead in this hard and challenging times, with love. But that is for another day.
Right now, I am seeing so many clients in a deep state of nervous system burn-out.
They have been in the over-stressed, over-worked, not-enough-sleep, doing-too-much state for a long time, and even though we have lockdown which removed a lot of responsibilities and running around, it switched on another layer of stress - unknown survival.
When we are in a state of unknown and we don't have the tools in which to turn to that can provide some relief and suppression of the wired, but tired state (and therefore leading us to our Parasympathetic Nervous System (PNS), then we start to compound that stress and create further states of system and organ issues in the body.
Ongoing stress burdens the body, the adrenals, our gut health, the way we digest and metabolise food, our sleep and our hormones.
The knock-on effect, if left unattended, takes longer to 'unpick' and repair when we finally reach out for help.
So, what happens when my clients arrive in this stage?
We unpack what is happening - where did it start, what is continuing to make you feel that way, when was the last time you asked for help, what are you eating, what are your historical patterns in lifestyle and health - it is a deep dive into you so we can start to apply the steps to lead you back to yourself, feeling like yourself again.
The tools I turn to are the ones I have, and continue to, use on myself to get myself out of adrenal fatigue and gut dysbiosis caused by compound stress and not applying the tools I had to combat it in some way.
And here is the thing, sometimes the stressful thing is not going away, so we MUST start looking at how we are thinking and feeling and the actions we are taking from our lifestyle and nutrition choices to be able to reduce the impact.
This can be:
Mindfulness practices - the art of slowing down so we can intentionally choose and be in the moment.
Mindset practices - the art of awareness and witnessing our thoughts, feelings and actions so that we can start to see patterns, uncover repetitive stories and start the journey of self-exploration and rewiring with journaling, affirmative statements and consistent review and reflection.
Nature led practices - from a Naturopathic standpoint, we need the sun, water and nature regularly in our life. There is now plenty of research coming out that shows the impact of being in a nature setting in comparison to being indoors all the time. It may sound funny if you have not yet experienced it, but forest bathing (or bush bathing I guess it would be called here in Australia) has a significant correlation to reducing stress in individuals.
Herbal Medicine - I cannot stress enough (and not from my SNS kinda stress) how impactful a bespoke herbal formula is for your nervous system. This is where I believe herbs are our greatest ally. I use them in combination and synergistically for all systems, but nervine-tonics and adaptogens really need to be in everyone's daily tonic right now. And if you don't like the formulas, a bespoke therapeutic blend of organic herbal teas can be just as powerful!
Nutrition - food is medicine and food and mood is real. Think about it, when you eat too much food or too much processed or take away foods, you feel less energised, and it probably impacts your sleep, your skin and your motivation. We all do it (yes, even me), so the key is to firstly, not beat yourself up about it, but to be aware of the correlation of the food you are taking in and the way your body feels after - the body doesn't lie and once you start to connect the dots, you will see that you feel much more relaxed, calm and even (with mood and energy) when you have balanced meals that have variety and whole foods.
Most of these you can start to implement for yourself at home, but if you do want the support and a bio-individual plan just for you, then let's talk!
And before I sign off, I have been sitting with how I can make some changes to my business structure to fit the current climate so that there are variable price-points to suit everyone.
Firstly, if you don't know what you want or if my work can help you, book in a Free Discovery Call so we can talk (LINK)
Book a Free Discovery call
If you are worried about how much it will cost, I have got your back - check out the latest Whole Health Package that I have created that can be paid in full or via a really reasonable ($102 per month) payment plan (LINK).
Invest in a Whole Health pre-paid / payment plan package.
And, at the top end is the whole kit-and-kaboodle with the next LIVE 12-week program, now called,The Whole Health Project!
The Whole Health Project covers mind, body and self-love work and is delivered by a combination of pre-recorded videos, PDFs, handouts, lessons and LIVE Q&A Zoom calls + a Private Facebook Community to connect you with everyone on the 12-week journey with you PLUS, you get a free welcome call with me AND I have addes some seriously amazing BONUSES which you can check out with all of the the information about the program and various payment options here (LINK).
The Whole Health Project: the next round starts on the eve of the New Moon (of course) 20th July!!
EEEK! I am so excited for all of this!
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