HH564: Encore Presentation-Stress: It Weakens Your Immune System

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Welcome back to another episode of health hacks

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as I start a whole new theme now for the rest of this month,

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focused on stress. Did you know that 90% of all doctors visits

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are due to stress, and 65% of all disease are caused by

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stress, and as a result, I just want to take you through a

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myriad of different ways that stress is impacting your health,

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and steps that you can take to do something about that. When it

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comes to stress, we have different types of stress in our

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life. We've got work stress, we've got family stress, we've

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got, you know, children's stress, we've got stress coming

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at us from what seems like all directions. And there are some

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things where we can impact and reduce our stress, and then

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there's some areas where we don't have as much control. And

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so it's all about focusing on the areas where you do have

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control in order to be reducing the stress in your life. And the

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body is all interconnected. And so when I said earlier that 90%

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of all doctors visits are due to stress, and 65% of all disease

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are caused by stress, I also want to know is what is causing

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that stress, so that we can then address the areas that we have

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control over in order to lower that stress. So let's start off

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with stress weakens your immune system, and I know you don't

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want that because, of course, you want a strong immune system

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to be able to fight off illness and infections, and yet, when we

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are living in a place of chronic stress, it is suppressing our

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immune system, and that's because our immune system takes

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a lot of energy to operate. And when we are in that place of

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chronic stress, all our brain can think about is that we are

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in fight or flight. We have to get away from the lion or the

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tiger. So we need energy in order to run and get to safety.

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And so all of the body systems are going towards producing more

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cortisol, more adrenaline in order to allow you to do that,

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and it will shut down other systems that take energy, such

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as your immune system, your digestive system, etc. And so

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this is why, when we are under high stress, our immune system

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gets shut down and suppressed, and then that can make you more

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susceptible to illness and infection. So what can you do?

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Well? You can practice deep breathing. And I know that might

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sound too simple, too easy, we have our breath with us all the

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time. We absolutely take it for granted, and yet we shouldn't,

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however we do, right? And so one of the things that I want to

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share here is the fact that we can absolutely use our breath in

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order to just calm ourselves in the moment, in the here and now

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as we feel our stress level rise. And my favorite way of

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doing this is something called 557, breathing. And I have done

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a whole health hack on this in the past, and I will link it up

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in the show notes below, so that you can also check out that

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episode. And basically, what you're doing is you're inhaling

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for a count of five, holding your breath for a count of five,

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and then exhaling for a count of seven. And you do that for 10

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cycles, it takes you less than three minutes. And it is

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incredible how when you do that, it just calms your entire

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nervous system and you feel the difference. You truly feel the

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difference. And as a result, that is one way that you can

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very easily, anytime, anywhere, and it doesn't cost you

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anything. Just calm your nervous system when you feel your stress

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level going up, so that you can control what you can control,

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and that is your breath and bring your stress levels down to

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get back into a place of more calm in order to protect your

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immune system. And over the course of the rest of this

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month, I'm going to continue sharing ways that you can

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mitigate your stress as well as how stress is impacting your

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health, so that you have an understanding of that

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correlation between your stress today and your ongoing stress

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that you live in every single day, and how that is impacting

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your long term health, along with the tools in order to be

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able to take small, simple action steps to mitigate that

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stress and calm yourself so that you don't end up with a.

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Diagnosis of disease at some point later in life. So keep

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tuning in throughout this month as I share all of these tips

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with you.