A quick post this week as I have now had a few clients who have been under a lot of pressure of late. Without initially realising, their poor bodies have gone into over-drive and they have found themselves with either low energy, poor bowel habits, back pain or other such symptoms.
Our bodies are so attune to stress, so much more than we realise and little things can gradually grow and it isn’t until you are noticing changes in your body, skin, bowels, sleep, anxiety that you may feel a bit out of control.
We are so affected by our hormones – so when stressed out adrenal glands can become dysfunctional or depleted – and feel totally run down, emotional or energy-less.
How about you? What symptoms do you begin to get when you are stressed?? We are all different and our bodies react differently so have a think about what little or major things affect you when stressed and then look at the few little things to calm you down and help a little.
So, we have just had a wonderful holiday in Japan , however our last 30 hrs or so were incredibly stressful due to the not knowing what was going to happen with the typhoon which was hitting mainland Japan. For me, though I really tried to stop my brain and thoughts running away from reality, my body reacted to those hrs of a stressful situation.
It was so much of the ‘not knowing what to expect’ which caused the stress, as when the typhoon really hit it actually was not as bad as we were expecting. The damage for me was done in the run up to it – not wanting to eat, bowels not working properly & general anxiety. Now 4 or 5 days late my eczema kicks in and a niggly back – both of which I know is delayed stress!!
What can you do about it???
1st is to work on that good old relaxed breathing. I did this a lot during the typhoon – at times it was quite hard to slow it down and really focus on breathing into the ribs, but actually at the time it did help me relax a bit.
I have talked about relaxation breathing before – literally try and breath deep into your rib cage, feel it slowly expand for 3 – 4 seconds then a relaxed slow exhale for 4 secs.
2nd – try and notice the symptoms you get – notice if every time you get a bit stressed you get the same sort of symptoms. Write them down and then speak to the GP or if it is something you can manage then acknowledging them is one of the 1st things to do.
3rd – are you taking probiotics?? Our gut is highly sensitive and during stressful times, the more we can try and feed our gut with good bacteria then it can support our body and help the defense mechanism. If travelling and your bowels start going haywire, increase the amount of probiotics you are taking & keep drinking LOTS of water.
4th – if you are peri/menopausal or pregnant or have recently had a baby and are still breast feeding then acknowledge that your hormones are a little all over the place. When this happens you may feel more anxiety or run down. I really would go and get your iron levels, Vit B levels & thyroid levels checked.
Most importantly – be nice to yourself and acknowledge how you are feeling and actually do something about it!
