How Stress Impacts Your Body | Ep 185

Melissa Deally: 00:00:06

I imagine getting up every day full of energy as if you were in your 20s again. What would that be like? What would that be worth to you? What is your health worth to you? Think about it, your health isn't everything, but without it, everything else is nothing. And yet too many of us are taking it for granted until something goes wrong. No one wakes up hoping to be diagnosed with a disease or chronic illness. And yet we've never been taught how to be proactive in our health through our school system or public health as a registered health coach and integrative health practitioner, I believe it is time this information is made available to everyone, combining new knowledge around your health and the ability to do my functional medicine lab tests in the comfort of your own home will allow you to optimize your health for today and all your tomorrows. Don't wait for your wake up call. Welcome back to another episode of The don't wait for your wake up call podcast. I am Melissa Deally, your host, and I am starting out a whole new month on the topic of stress, because unfortunately, we all have stress in our daily lives, and for some of us, it is causing a myriad of health issues. And so it's a topic that I like to bring to the forefront on a fairly regular basis, to let people know that there are things that you can be doing to support your stress levels and therefore your health, and to have you understand how stress is impacting your health. And so that's what today's episode is all about. And this whole month, as I bring in other guest experts to talk about stress. So wherever you're at, I invite you, whether you're walking, driving, sitting down with a cup of tea to tune in. Breathe, relax, listen and learn. And I also want to let you know that I am reducing the stress on my life with this episode as well. Because this I'm reusing a previous episode from several years ago, because the the I went back and listened and the information is just as relevant today as it was then. So rather than put stress on my life of recording a whole new episode, I am choosing to take the less stressful route and reuse an episode. Because as much as I love all of my dedicated listeners, even if you heard this episode three years ago, perhaps you haven't retained all of it, and it's time for a re listen, and for new listeners, you've probably never gone back to those first few episodes back from 2021 and therefore this is an opportunity for you to capture that information. So thank you for your understanding in me reusing content. I'm simply setting the example of creating less stress in my life by doing so enjoy the episode. Welcome back to the don't wait for your wake up call podcast. Melissa dealey here your host of the show, and this is the first of four episodes on the topic of stress. And stress is such an important topic because we all have stress in our lives, but right now, the world is the most stressed out it's ever been, and that is even pre covid. And we look around and we see everyone else just as stressed as we are, and we discount it and consider it normal, but the level of stress that we're all functioning under due to our busy Do, do, do and go, go, go lifestyles is actually negatively impacting our health. And so I want to talk to you about this today, because when we know better, we do better. And this may be something that you're not familiar with, all of the different ways that stress is negatively impacting our body and our health. And don't get me wrong, there is good stress. What we want are healthy levels of stress, not to be stuck in a state of chronic stress. And good stress is that stress that you feel when you're standing at the starting line ready to compete in a race, or maybe you're sitting down at a piano, and you've got an important concert and an audience out there, and you're going to be playing for them, that stress that those butterflies in your stomach, that's a good stress. And there are stresses in our lives that can bring us joy, but they are still packing on or stacking the stresses into our daily lives. For instance, planning a wedding, very. Very, very stressful, but it's leading towards something joyful, but in the moment of doing all of that planning on top of everything else, it's stacking stresses onto us, and our stresses do stack. And you may not feel stressed out, but your physiological body can be showing signs of stress, and we can run lab tests to determine that. And as I get into this month of the series on stress, we will be talking more about the physiological body and the signs of stress that we see. So first of all, I just want to start off with, did you know that 90% of all doctors visits are actually stress related. So stress is actually breaking down the health of our gut, and 70% of our immune system is housed in the gut. So if our gut health isn't there, our immune health is weakened, and therefore we get sick, and so 90% of all doctors visits can be traced back to stress. We also know that 77% of people are struggling with physical effects of stress daily. So whether that's how stress is impacting the brain and creating poor memory recall or brain fog, or maybe it's physical pain in the body, you know, lower back pain, or other types of pain in the body triggered by stress. 83% of people are stressed at work. That number is pretty high. I really, truly wish more people loved what they did. We work hard. We work generally, 40 hours a week, if not more. Finding something that we love is obviously going to be lowering the stress that we're experiencing at work. But so many people don't love what they do. They feel stuck in their role that they need to stay there in order to earn the income, in order to live the lifestyle that they want to live, and they don't love the work and that, in and of itself, can be very stressful. We also know that 60% of all diseases are caused by stress, and as I mentioned just a minute ago, stress breaks down the health of our gut, and 1000s of years ago, Hippocrates said all disease starts in the gut, and what he said all those years ago, modern science is only just proving to be true in recent years, in the last decade. So when our gut isn't healthy, we are more prone to diseases we have inflammation in the body, and that inflammation triggers cells to turn on disease, diseases that we're predisposed to through genetics, but that don't have to be turned on unless we create the environment inside our body to trigger those genes to be turned on. And that happens when we have inflammation, triggered by stress, but also triggered by toxins that I talked a lot about, and poor sleep and antibiotics and other things as well, but a big part of that is stress. Stress causes degeneration in the area of the brain responsible for self control. And I find this really interesting, because we all know the term road rage, and may have experienced road rage. I haven't experienced it directed at me, but I've witnessed it, and at the time, it kind of made me wonder, is that person behaved like that all the time, or was it the straw that broke the camel's back that triggered them to behave that way. And invariably, it is likely that it was that stress that tipped the believer and had them absolutely lose it, and afterwards, I'm sure they went away regretting it, couldn't believe they behaved that way, because it's not who they are all the time.

Melissa Deally: 00:09:03

You also know that stress affects your ability to get good quality sleep, and it's a bit of a catch 22 because poor sleep makes us less resilient to stress, and higher stress results in poor sleep. So let's talk about the types of stress that we encounter in life. There's three primary stresses daily life stresses, for example, those are the stresses that you encounter just getting up and getting out the door to work and getting your kids off to school and getting meals on the table three times a day, seven days a week, etc, etc. So those are your daily life stresses. Then you have major life events which can cause stress. I mentioned weddings a few minutes ago. But it also includes changing jobs, moving cities, towns, countries. It includes funerals. It includes. Um, the birth of children, right? These are all major life events that, in many cases, are joyful. Obviously, funerals are not. But we can also celebrate the life of whoever has passed, but they are stressful in and of themselves. And then lastly, we have physiological stresses. That's the chronic pain in your body that you may feel, gut problems, hormone imbalances, thyroid imbalances, food allergies and intolerances and our toxic load. And we have four ways people experience stress, so there's biological or chemical stresses in the processes of the body we have mental and emotional stresses in our thoughts, our beliefs, our feelings, as well as spiritual stresses in our sense of connection to others and something greater, as well as structural stresses, the stresses that we feel in our muscles and our bones, particularly, you know, when we walk out, work out and we're exercising, etc, we're much more aware of these structural stresses. So let's talk about the effects of stress on your body. When the body is under stress, we have increased cortisol production, and this can be associated with weight gain, especially in the belly, at plus the inability to lose weight or gain Muscle and premature aging, we also have decreased nutrient absorption when we are under stress, and this is due to the fact that we when we're under stress, we're in our chronic stress state in our not in our parasympathetic nervous system is our rest and digest state, and our sympathetic nervous system is our chronic stress state, and in that when we're in that sympathetic nervous system, our body does not need digestion. In that moment, our brain is charged with keeping us safe, and it wants us to have the ability to fight or flee or freeze, and it's going to start ramping up the production of adrenaline and cortisol so that we can do that. But in order to ramp those up, it has to shut down other systems that aren't needed in that moment. And so it will shut down our parasympathetic nervous system, our rest and digest system, because in that moment of having to get to safety, we don't need or care about digestion, and we don't need or care aboutprocreation, so we've got the

Melissa Deally: 00:12:58

increased cortisol production happening in order to get us to safety, as I mentioned, and then we have digestion shut down, which is why we have decreased nutrient absorption, because the body is not producing enzymes in order to break down food, the stomach isn't producing stomach acid in order to break down food, and we have decreased bile flow from the gallbladder, because, again, digestion is switched off, and we have decreased oxygenation and gastrointestinal blood flow as a result. But how many times have you eaten on the run? Eating under stress means we're putting food in but the body is not actually able to break it down well, and therefore, the food that we're eating for energy isn't actually benefiting us to the extent that it should, because the body isn't able to break it down properly, to take all of those nutrients and get them into the bloodstream and into the cells to provide the energy that we're looking for. And so what can happen there is we end up eating more often because we're trying to get the energy, but eating in the stress state that isn't working, which is why weight gain can happen. But the weight gain can also be happening just because of the way that our body is working in that stressed out state that it's also shutting down hormones that help us break down or burn fat for energy, etc. So with stress on the body, so far, we have increased cortisol production. We have decreased nutrient absorption. We also have increased nutrient excretion. So because the body is not breaking down those nutrients well enough, we're losing those nutrients through our urinary tract. So we're losing really. Important minerals that the body needs, such as calcium, magnesium, potassium, zinc, chromium, selenium and various micro minerals. And so under the stress, we are losing these minerals that are needed, and then the body can get imbalanced there as well. And again, we have an excellent lab test. It's just a snipping of your hair. You send it into the lab, and it shows me what all of your mineral levels are, and not only whether you're depleted, but also whether they're in balance with one another, which is really important as well. We also have decreased gut flora populations under stress. So as I've said, a couple of times high stress is breaking down the health of our gut microbiome, and that's happening because healthy intestinal bacteria are destroyed by stress, and that can lead to immune problems, because, as I've said, 70% of the immune system is housed in the gut, as well as skin disorders further nutrient deficiencies and further digestive distress. High stress can result in increased salt retention, which can lead to increased blood pressure. It can also result in decrease in our thermic efficiency, that's our body's ability to burn calories is diminished under stress, again, under stress, our digestive system is not even switched on.

Melissa Deally: 00:16:33

We also have a decrease in thyroid hormone production, which can lead to a further decrease in our metabolic activity throughout the body, which can then lead to the body holding on to more calories and not burning them, because it's thinking that it has to save them for later. It's getting into survival mode, and it's trying to stretch out the time over which we have energy, so it's saving some for later that results in us not burning enough calories compared to what we're putting in and further weight gain. High stress can lead to an increase in blood cholesterol, and stress, by itself, will raise LDL levels, and we don't. Obviously, you know some cholesterol is good, but it's always everything in balance, we can have an increase in blood platelet aggregation, which is a major risk factor in heart disease. We can also have a decrease in sex hormones, as I've talked about, when we're in that chronic stress state, we're shutting down procreation, which can result in lower sex drive, low energy and even decreased muscle mass. We have an increase in inflammation that I've talked about, and this is the basis for many significant ailments, including brain and heart disease. Like stress. We have a healthy level of stress and we have chronic stress that we don't want inflammation is the same. We can have a healthy level of inflammation, the inflammation we need to heal a sprained ankle, a cut finger, etc, and we can have chronic inflammation. And we do not want chronic inflammation, but chronic stress can lead to chronic inflammation. Again, the body wants everything to be in balance. We can also have under stress an increase in gastric emptying time. So again, because digestion isn't turned on, the gut isn't happy, this can actually lead to constipation, and that is also a risk factor, because our bowel movement is helping our body get rid of whatever we don't need from the food as well as our toxins. And when we don't have past bowel movements, we end up having those toxins stay in our body for even longer than necessary. And nobody wants that, right? So Constipation is a real health issue and something that needs to be addressed and not ignored. But on the flip side of that, for some people, high stress can result in an a decreasing gastric emptying time, meaning that everything moves through us much more quickly and comes out as diarrhea. And again, nobody wants that, and is a clear sign that the digestive system and our gut health are not happy, and that is what's triggering either the constipation or the diarrhea. And one area to look at as being a root cause of that is the stress level in your life. High stress can leave lead to an increased swallowing rate. And so you've probably experienced that as well, that nervous stress of, again, before competition, before some kind of, you know, even speaking to a public audience, you may notice that you swallow more often. And so that is. Line of higher stress, and it can also cause digestive upset. And then high stress can also increase the number of food sensitivities or intolerances or even allergies that you are coping with, because again, when digestion is shut down and the gut isn't happy, the toxic load is high. We hit a tipping point, and the body's kind of like I'm trying to cope with all of this. I can't keep coping with this food that you keep putting in as well. So you hit a tipping point, and then it shows up as an intolerance as your body is speaking to you and trying to get you to do something differently. So in a nutshell, it means that stress is affecting your brain, your hair, your muscles, your lungs, your heart, your stomach, your bones, your sex drive, your digestive system, your skin and your immune system. It's affecting all aspects of your body, and so it's something that is really important to be addressing, because if you don't, your body will really start talking to you in with symptoms that start to slow you down and start to have you unable to function at the level that you have been, and you start to feel crappy. And there is actually seven stages to burnout, and there's a lot of people who suffer burnout. And this burnout is basically HPA axis maladaption, and the HPA axis is the hypothalamus and the pituitary gland and the adrenal gland not working well together, causing this maladaptation of this axis and leading to a State of burnout. And so I just want to share the states of burnout for you so that you can understand it. Stage one is called the initial alarm stage, and it's where we have high cortisol. Remember that chronic stress state, the body's starting to reduce cortisol and high DHEA, which is another of our sex hormones, they're both high, and the body is ramped up in response to this initial stress on the body. Now, at this point, you're probably actually feeling really good and full of energy, and so it's really rare to see somebody going to the doctor or complaining about how they're feeling. In fact, in this state, you feel like you can do anything but be careful, because this can lead to the next stage, which is known as ongoing alarm. And in this stage, you also have high cortisol, but now your dhe levels have dropped down to normal, and the body is starting to show the first signs that it is not able to keep up with the ongoing stress. The third stage is called chronic alarm, and this is where we have high cortisol and low normal DHEA, and the body is really starting to slow down with and not able to keep up with this chronic stress, and you may be starting to realize something's going on, and I need to go and see a doctor or a naturopath or an integrative health practitioner to get some help, because something isn't quite right. At this stage, you're feeling potentially feeling tired and wired. So you're tired through the day, but then when you want to go to sleep, you're wide awake and alert, so you're struggling with sleep issues. Now there may be some anxiety creeping in. Weakened immunity is happening. You're getting sick more often, and there's highly likely estrogen imbalance or estrogen dominance as well as exercise intolerance. So you're getting more tired doing the exercise that you used to do. You can't do as much as you were doing before, and there's definitely inflammation in the body. Then we go into stage four, which is the initial resistance stage, and now we have normal cortisol levels and low DHEA. And in this state, the body is really not able to keep up. And it's quite confusing this state, because, you know, again, people aren't feeling quite right, but it can be hard for doctors to diagnose based on your symptoms. And again, that's where lab testing can come in, so that we can truly see what's going on with all of your sex hormones, all four cortisol markers throughout the day to see what's up. This person typically has cortisol that is pretty much the same from noon until bedtime, because the body is just not keeping up anymore. And very often morning cortisol is quite low. And so waking up, you feel like you just don't have any energy at all, and you will have symptoms of exhaustion, fatigue, anxiety, and for sure, sleep issues at this point.

Melissa Deally: 00:25:30

Stage Five is called ongoing resistance, and it's the state where there's low cortisol now, because the body isn't able to produce enough cortisol anymore, right? And then normal DHEA, and this is where the body is no longer even attempting to try to keep up and adapt to chronic stress. It just has no reserves left. They've been used up. And again, this is a very tired and wired state, where during the day, you are feeling tired and exhausted all day, but at bedtime, you're feeling wired, and again, in the morning, you have low cortisol. And we normally we need cortisol in the morning to give us that energy, but your body's not producing it, so you're waking up and you're still feeling exhausted. Then we go into stage six, which is called The Last Stand. And this is a state also of low cortisol, and then high or high normal DHEA. And in this state, again, it's fairly rare to see, but the body's last stand. Effort to combat chronic stress is happening, and that's why the DHEA is actually going up now. And there's emotional stress, there's toxins on the body, there's pain, there's inflammation, there's lack of sleep for quite some time now, this can often be seen in new mums, just because adapting to life with a new baby that isn't sleeping can put the body into this state, and you might also be feeling more anxiety, overwhelm, irritability, sleep issues and a host of other inflammatory issues in the body, and then stage seven of burnout is simply called exhaustion, and this is where we have low cortisol and low DHEA, and the body's HP axis has actually shut down, and neither DHEA or cortisol levels are being elevated enough to meet the stress demands on the body. The good news is, is that we can come back from this, from this state, the human body is incredible. It is designed to heal. It wants to heal, but we have to create the environment for it to be able to heal. And when we do that, and we very gently guide the body back to full health, and it is a gentle process from burnout, because the body is just so exhausted we can't just do everything at once. It's too much for the body to be able to cope with, so we have to take it on a step by step basis to guide the body back for all of our hormones to be back in balance, and at the same time, we have to be addressing those chronic stress triggers to lower them and mitigate them, because otherwise we can never get the body back to a state of balance. But again, running labs to see exactly where things are at for you, and then figuring out the right protocol to gently guide your body back into balance. Absolutely can be done. So don't ever believe someone who tells you that you can't heal. You absolutely can heal from this. I'm not going to tell you it's easy. I do highly recommend a guided journey and to take it slowly, so that you're not putting the body into more overwhelm by trying to do too much at once. So thank you very much for joining and see you next week. And if this episode is something that you feel you could help someone else by sharing. I do invite you to please do that. Thank you for investing this time with me on the don't wait for your wake up call Podcast. I'm so glad you joined in. If you can take two minutes to share this episode with someone you think can benefit and have a positive impact on their life. That would be wonderful. Please leave a review by going to your favorite podcast listening app and let me know what you enjoy or would like to hear more of it. Will support me in my effort to bring the possibility of natural healing to a wider audience and help disrupt the sick care. System we have today and make human health a global priority. Health is your true wealth.