Stressed – Time For A Break
STRESS – the single factor linked to over 90% of all disease
Taking a moment to reflect, it has been quite a year and interesting times I think you would agree!
We are living in an age of toxins, stealth pathogens, tight deadlines and little time to breathe (quite literally at present with a good portion of the East coast ablaze).
Linked to everything from the common cold to anxiety to cardiovascular disease, STRESS causes the body to lose its ability to regulate inflammation. And it is this unregulated INFLAMMATION in the body that ‘fans the flames’ and drives a seemingly unending list of diseases.
How does that work?
Our stress hormone cortisol normally plays a role in regulating immune cells, but when stress is ongoing and becomes chronic, these cells lose their sensitivity to cortisol and inflammation goes unchecked. This in turn leads to altered blood sugar levels, blood pressure changes, high cholesterol and any number of other risk factors and predisposes for disease.
The upside and silver lining to this sorry state of affairs is that we CAN do things to reduce stress and its pro-inflammatory effects on our health. By taking restorative and preventative action, dis-ease can be overcome and avoided.
What’s to be done?
While eating a nutrient-dense diet and ensuring plenty of movement are most definitely a great starting place (under-pining the foundations of our well-being and playing their own part in decreasing stress on the body), we also need to find time for reflection, slowing down, and cultivating purpose.
Things like meditation, deep breathing, yoga practice, taking an Epsom salt bath, getting close with a loved one, having a massage, walking barefoot on the grass or on the beach are all enjoyable and easy ways to help calm the body and mind.
Unfortunately, in challenging times we can be become so overwhelmed by circumstance that our normal regulation processes are unable to keep up despite our best intentions throwing us off balance (resulting or expressing as disease).
Fast track your recovery!
This is when contemporary support therapies like hyperbaric oxygen, hyperthermia and pulsed electromagnetic fields assist in repairing our foundation stones. By providing a ‘re-charge’ or ‘kick-start’ to functions and biochemistry that has become blocked or overwhelmed, we are able re-instate the normal self-regulatory capacity of your body and point it back toward homeostasis, balance and health.
And get ready to do it all again next year!