Ep. 33 How stressed are you ?

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It'S just a reflection of what am I doing on a consistent basis. What are my habits telling me and reflecting back to me about the state of my, my, my body, my stress level.

Hello friends. You are listening to the All Things Good for you podcast. I'm your host, Brian Bowen, founder of.

Integrative Health Inc. And I'm Amy Christiansen, your co host and creator of Amy Christiansen Health and Wellness Coaching.

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Good morning. Good morning, Brian.

Hello and good morning to you, Amy. How are you this morning?

I am quite wonderful. It's a lovely cool entering into fall weather. I love it. I love cool mornings that are warm, sunshiny days.

Are you counting down to go check the leaves out in the mountains?

It is, yeah, we're coming up to that. I, I'm actually counting down to ski season, but yes, we'll look at some pretty leaves in the meantime.

I forgot, do you get the epic pass?

I, I normally do get the epic pass, historically, but this year I'm doing something a little different. I'm getting one that kind of hits some different, different mountains and then it allows me to go travel with some other friends that I haven't gone to to some different, different resorts that I haven't tried, but also one that includes my most favorite resort which I haven't got to go to in a while. So I'm gonna go back to a Beeson. I'm super excited.

Oh, nice. One of the first places I skied a little steeper than I thought.

I love it. Yes. It's such a great mountain. Such a group, great group of people that, that are always there anyway. Yes. So how about you? Are you, are you skiing this year?

We're going to. Yeah, the kids have definitely got into it More. That's why. Got to figure out. I was doing the math the other day not to get into this podcast and talk about skiing too much here, but on how many times you need to go skiing to make the epic Pass, pass worth it. So what'd you come up with?

What'd you come up with?

Well, if you want to get it down to, like, $50 every time you go, you have to ski. I think 18 times is what I came up with.

Yeah. Depending on the level you're getting the full epic.

Yeah. But I. We might have to do different things for each kid and me and the wife and figure it out.

I don't know.

I'm not going to stress about it. I'm not going to stress about it anyway.

Well, you know, Exactly. And it. It's all about a little bit of how you're looking at it. Right. It's like, this isn't something that we should be stressed about. Your perceptions are important about stress.

Absolutely. Mindset. It's all between the ears. Leading us in today's conversation, stress. So the question is, how stressed are you really? And I pose this question because, working with patients on a daily basis, I realize, first of all, we're in a really stressful world and it kind of keeps piling up, you know, and there's a compounding effect. But I feel like there's a lot of people when I ask stress, hey, what's your stress level, scale of 1 to 10? You know, there's some people might say a 3 or 4, which is awesome, but yet they have all these imbalances or symptoms going on in their body, like digestive distress or catching themselves sighing and variety of things we can get into later. And so really, what I learned for some people is they're actually more stressed than what they think they are. And either their coping mechanism or the calluses they've kind of built around that is allowing them to either not perceive their stress at a real level, and they're just kind of used to handling it. Kind of like being in a boxing ring. You're used to taking the punches, and so we don't want to. It is not healthy to remain in that state. So I pose the question to ask yourself, and we'll dive into it because we want you to. We want to help you become more aware of what your stress really is, to prevent disease and imbalances from showing up in your body. Because not all stress is good stress. So.

And not all perceptions are good, just like we. You were saying, alluding to it's like, all right, we can change our perception about something and be like, okay, this really isn't that bad. I've managed this before, I can go through this. We all kind of have different perceptions, but at the same time, ignoring an issue and telling yourself that you're not stressed when you are stressed is just as dangerous as constantly looking at stresses and everything in life as stress.

Yeah, you know, I, I think I mentioned this before in a previous podcast, but you know, years ago I had this emergency medical book that was meant for ers and it was a kind of a quick reference guide. This was before the advancements of technology that we have today where you can just plug something in. But if you looked up everything, like every symptom and you know, it would recommend like what labs you need or what possibilities that could be. But stress was literally like, you know, onset, you know, is one of the key, key activators or reasons for onset of this, these symptoms. And so, you know, we know, going back to a previous podcast about the parasympathetic and sympathetic state that when you're in a stress state, you're in more sympathetic. And unfortunately that's where, you know, long term sympathetic state, long term stressors, that's where a lot of stuff disease starts to, to imbalances, dis ease starts to occur and then we become symptomatic because stress finds your weakness. If your weakness is your neck, it's going to find it. If your weakness is your gut, it's going to find it. If your weakness is your stinking knees, it's going to find it. So.

Yep. And you know, the. I don't even know how to say his name. Hans Seely. I think saily in 1936 is the one that kind of coined the phrase and defined it stress as being a non specific response to the body, to any demand for change. Right. So when you look at it from that state, it's just, it's non, it's non specific. Meaning that.

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Your body does what it does, regardless of the type of change that's happening. There are certain times when your body's going to experience the stress and it's a good thing, or there's certain times when that's a bad thing. Right. It's just, it's that it. Stress is a. A state of reaction to a change of what you're experiencing. And it can be physical, mental, emotional. And it's again, levels like we. I know we went into this a lot in our early podcast about stress, but the different levels, you can have a creative acute, you can have episodic, and you can have chronic. And that's where you have to pay attention. Excuse me. And that's where you have to pay attention. And that's this. That's the word of focus today is, are we paying attention? And how are we paying attention? Like, are we really taking time to stop and pay attention to the signs and symptoms of our body? But are we also setting ourselves up in a regular space to do that? Because most, most people don't do it. They don't stop and pay attention.

I was going, I was walking with the wife, walking the dogs yesterday, and at some point I said, oh, my gosh, I feel like I have so much to do. And she said, well, you know, you shouldn't say that, because I feel like that triggers a sense of anxiety for you or whatever. So I just stopped and checked in, and I was like, I feel kind of calm about it. I don't feel. I didn't feel like I was in that place. But it definitely made me, like, her posing the question, you know, made me kind of check in with that. But today, this morning, she's like, I call her real quick to ask if she wanted me to leave the infrared sauna on for her to jump in shoes. I don't have time. I don't have time. I'm like, why don't you have time? She's like, I have so much to do today. And you can, but you could feel this, like, energy that was, like, higher up and, like. And so I tactfully just dipped my toe back in it. And I'm like, hey, remember what you said to me yesterday about saying the words, I have so much to do today? But regardless, the point is, is, you know, Pain, Even those triggers of things that like if you say oh my gosh, I have so much to do today. Do you catch yourself sighing? Do you catch yourself holding your breath? Do you have like a increase in your heart rate for a minute?

Right.

Those little clenching your jaws.

Yeah.

Let you know that that's a trigger. So what are like, how do we know when we're stressed? What does that feel like? But also what are some of those little things that were trigger, that are triggers? And going back to what you said about mindset and perception, how can we reframe that? How can we, you know, think about that differently? How can we utilize the knowledge we know of neuroplasticity and rewire our brain to not allow those triggers to happen? So it's just, it's interesting.

Yeah. And I think it's, I, I, I was unpreparing for this. I, you know, was re doing some research and reading and just some reviewing and of course my go to favorite scientist is Dr. Huberman. And so I went back, way back and one of his very early podcasts and relistened to his information on stress. But what I found interesting was that he is very thorough in setting up his scientific explanations and, and understanding like all the chemical processes. He gets very deep into the science of it. But he took an hour and a half to get to the final 10 minutes of his program where he's like, okay, now we're finally ready to talk about what I wanted to talk about today, which is your emotional content and how it affects you. And I'm paraphrasing obviously a little bit, but I found it intriguing because we have to get into an hour and a half of explaining all these different scientific and chemical reactions and studies about how this affects and that affects and all around the idea of stress and that it comes down to at the end. One of the biggest factors about stress is our emotional state. Have you ever watched that guy? What's, he's a, he's a very handsome African American man, but I can't think of his name. He's, he's well known, he's a well known Marine. And that's the only reason why I point out that he's African American is that he's well known for being a high level Marine and he's, he's, oh gosh, he wrote a really great book about you. You can't kill me or something like that. You can't break me. Anyway, very interesting.

I wish, I wish I could help you out there. I know, I want Me on your trivia team ever.

I, I, me either. I am so bad at the trivia. Remembering people's names and things, even if I think they're important, is not my skill. Anywho, he, he's continues to push himself in these physical extremes that he did while he was in the military. And one of the things that he was doing, he runs all the time, right? He does extreme running trains all the time. But one of the things he just did on his Instagram account was he tied his, bound his feet at hands and jumped into a lake to consistently make sure that he can perform a full above water dolphin move where he can swim and then come up and swim and then come up across a lake. And I was just like, no way, sorry. I mean I'll climb 14ers and do that kind of. But no, I'm not taking cold showers and I'm not going to bind my legs and jump swim in a lake. I get, I see the value in that. But it's just that comparison of like for him, emotionally, mentally, it's rewarding. It's a good thing for him to cause that kind of stress for his body. Where I am going, no, I will not. That is terrifying to me. I can't even imagine wanting to do that. So you know, our emotions and our state of mind have so much to do with our perceptions and about stress.

Mine just getting all the kids, all three kids off to school without having one meltdown like that to me it's like if I can do that, like I, when I wake up in the morning, I'm binding my hands and feet after my meditation once they wake up for school and then that's to swim through the mountains. And if I make it through, then.

Yeah, but it is, it's a lot. And so we have to like, I think, you know, when we're looking at signs and symptoms is like what are our true signs and symptoms of stress? Like your, your point being today is like what are, what can we look out for? Like when I watched that video, I was like holding my breath. I could tell my, I was tensing up in my neck and shoulders. I was just had this like achy gut feeling and I was just like, no, please don't ever make me do this.

Yeah, I want to go back. So when you were talking about all the science and stuff like that, I think that like all the science is great, but at the end of the day we are human beings, we experience the same stuff and so this is, you know, very experiential. From a human perspective that we have a lot of the same things that occur when we're going through the same, you know, when a lot of the same stress mechanisms are kicking in. Just like we all have the same fears and you know, to some degree we all have joy, we all have sadness, we all have these things. So it is important to like there is a good evolutionary tension type stress, which means sometimes it can suck for a little bit, but it's going to help you grow.

Right.

But it's again, that compounding of something that you said is like chronic. So if there's something that's not moving forward, a good evolutionary stress is a temporary stress. Right. And when that. Yeah. And when that stress becomes non temporary anymore, it's just like same thing with pain, right? If it's, if it only lasts for a week or two, you know, hey, great, did you do something about it? Did you change your exercise? Did you change a postural habit? What did you do to help your body repair? What did you do to give it a break? But then once it's gone on for 2, 3, 4 months, 5 months, 6 months, and then it becomes that chronic stress and the situation hasn't changed, then that's what it becomes, becomes a big problem. But so just, you know, recognize, you know something because so there's some people that will jump on that bandwagon. Stress is not bad. And it's like, well, okay, is it affecting your health? Is it affecting this? So there is, there is that balance.

Well, and then we can look at it like that. It's like one of the things like I work with people on, on a regular basis through coaching and health stuff is that transition of time in life where man, if you started doing stressful, heavy, hard exercise in your 20s and you're still rolling at it, or you're ramping it up even in our 40s. And it's not to put an age limit on anything, but there is some, there are some biological realities that, where our bodies are going to experience as we do age, wherever that aging happens, that you, you cannot continue to push yourself in the same level that you did at an earlier age. Right. And if you do, you end up with, you know, insufficiency of adrenal gland output and it causes a great amount of stress. That's not healthy. Whereas maybe in some bouts, in some ways at a younger age, it was healthy. Does that make sense?

Yeah. Oh yeah, 100%. I'm on board with you. I hear you. I hear you. I hear. And so Physically, absolutely. And then I just want to bring in that mental part again because I can't let go of it just because I'm doing some work on my subconscious brain right now. But we have our conscious and our subconscious brain. And I had a conversation with somebody about this the other day and they're like, oh no, I feel like I handled all those stresses, you know, from past or childhood or whatever. And I'm like, you know, I thought I did too, but really, like, can we dig just one more level deeper? And the point of that being not to get in subconscious and conscious brain is sometimes we still have these drivers or these emotions or these programs or whatever that are running, you know, all the time in the background that are still contributing to some of these patterns and stuff like that. So, you know, I just, again, if you say your stress level is a thing three, that's awesome. Congratulations, you're doing a great job. But just still ask the question, is it really a 3? And then check in with your body. You know, I've had people come in and they're like, oh, my digestion's fine. And I'm like, oh, really? And then I find out they're taking, you know, all these medications for their digestive systems every day, right? Yeah. So it's not fine. So just check in and check in mentally, physically. And if you are taking something on a regular basis to help something and it feels normal to you, but you're still taking something because you have to, then it's still not normal. Right. So just be objective with yourself.

And I think, you know, a lot of folks, we're getting more aware of this and how significant gut health and all this is. Not to go on a gut health tangent, but we're, we just didn't, we weren't made aware of how significant our gut health is to as, as an indicator to our overall well being. Not only do what you put in your gut affects how all your stress levels are in your chemical process. That helps us to manage things. Right. It's serotonin. All these different ways that what we eat affects us, but also how your body's ability to digest the things we eat based on the stress level that the body's in. You know, and we have all experienced some level of that where if you're super stressed and anxious, some people manage that by not being able to eat. Like the body is saying, no, we're not putting anything in the body because I can't digest it. And then some people, depending on the type of stress and how they work with stress and their perceptions of stress. Their management level is to eat food or have certain things to drink in order to manage that stress. And those are the signs we have to look at. If you are, you know, if you are overeating and eating a lot of poor food, you. You're more of an emotional eater. That is a sign. And it's not a judgment and it's not something to feel guilty or angry about. It's just an awareness of, wow, I'm, I'm, I'm managing stress in this way a lot. I'm drinking too much, I'm eating, eating too much. I'm eating poorly too much. I'm overreacting. Like, your emotional content can come into that but stick, you know, sticking with the gut process. It's like, again, it's just a reflection of what am I doing on a consistent basis. What are my habits telling me and reflecting back to me about the state of my, my, my body, my stress.

Level in Chinese medicine. Not to bring some Chinese medicine into this, but we, we might as well jump in here a little bit. But the spleen and stomach are associated to the earth element, and the earth element is very much about kind of nutritive qi and about nourishing.

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Grounding and stuff like that. But it's very, very, very much about nursing nourishing. So when you're craving certain, certain foods, well, and just craving foods in general or beverages and, and such, it is kind of a false nourishment. The earth elements, like, it's like screaming, right? Like, take care of me. I need to take care of it because it has to take care of everybody else. And so it's a false sense of nourishment to, to the Spleen and stomach. So just kind of a interesting little earth element, that kind of thing.

Yeah, I love it. I love all. I love the Chinese medicine. I just had acupuncture with Melissa. I think it was last week or week before. This is also a sign of stress when you cannot remember events from a week ago. Yeah, I've been a little busy. Yeah, so she, yeah, we. And, and as a, as such I've been really, really busy working on my, my retreat programs and kind of stepping up that level of. And then I was helping out some friends, traveling and doing this stuff. So by not by proxy like traveling, being in a different environment, kind of exposing myself to fun food, but also different foods. That maybe not is not my normal approach, but then just that also the stress level sleeping differently with the traveling. And she was taking my, my pulse, which I just love it when you guys do these things. And she was like, how's your digestion? I feel like it's a little low. And I was just like, yes, my digestion is very off, you know. So I love that she was able to kind of take the acupuncture Chinese medicine approach and address that. And what a gift we have to have all these different tools that it doesn't have to be let me put you on this medication or you know, let's ignore it and let the problem continue to be a problem where, you know, we deal with guts. It can be a compounding effect if it's not addressed and be worse and worse. So you know, and just knowing how to mitigate those stressful things. Like I've. I knew I had a bunch of things coming up. I had a new certification course that I was doing this weekend and so now next weekend I've. I'm taking a group out a bunch of fourteener first time fourteeners and doing a fourteen er. So I know the week after that I am scheduled some serious downtime, some serious self awareness time, some comfort time, slowing it down, saying no to some things, cleaning up my diet, really making sure that I am doing the things that I know I can do on a daily basis, frequent basis to just kind of prepare for that stress or recover from a stress episode. Right?

Good awareness, good awareness. I love it. So that, the digestive stuff just to continue with that thread. So a telltale sign. And when I say telltale, like everybody has a tell. So if you have something that always reoccurs with stress, just become hyper aware of that because then you can use that as your little sign. But we were talking about the cravings and overindulging and stuff like that. But we also have the digestive distress components of constipation, diarrhea, really brighamous, unsettled, curly stomachs, heartburn, stuff like that. So, you know, going from the stomach all the way down to the intestines, if there's an imbalance there, that can definitely be a sign of stress. And so we have patterns of that in Chinese medicine that we certainly talk about, but especially, you know, if it's chronic. Like again, stress is a big thing for digestive system as we, you've, you've mentioned and we've talked about in the past as it relates to the vagus nerve, the gut brain access again that parasympathetic. When we're super stressed, we're in more sympathetic mode, which is fight or flight. We want to be more parasympathetic, which is rest, digest repair kind of mode. So, so yeah, so just to stay organized in my brain, you know, if you are experiencing any sort of digestive distress, craving of food, overindulging or not eating, those can definitely be big indicators you're stressed.

And some people, I think you, we were prepping beforehand. You mentioned there's telltale signs in your skin, whether it's digestive stress or whatnot, and whether you're state of stress creates poor food choices. But we know that your skin and some people react very much through their skin to. To stress, whether it's rashes, psoriasis, eczema. Yep. Different types of histamine reactions, which is what I get when I have like gluten and dairy. My. I have, I have a huge histamine reaction. But other people, it's like even just breakouts in different areas of your face is very indicative of stress or de. Stress of the gut. But it can also just be a stressful situation. So you know, breakouts in the face. So paying attention to your skin, see dryness, you know, all of these things you got to kind of look at what is your. Remember whenever our very first podcast you gave like a car example. It's like what are the warning lights coming up on the dash. So that obviously weaken immune systems is another sign. And sleeping. Sleeping is one of the very first.

Can we pause before we go down that we're going to rapid fire that list off. But I just want to make sure I tie a couple links together. So back and back up to the skin. Skin issues and also digestive issues are very much related to it. Again, Chinese, Chinese medicine here, but metal element lung and Large intestine. But then you threw in the immune system, which is also part of that metal element too. So it's fun to see how things kind of tie together and group together. Oh yeah, a little bit. So, you know, skin issues very much are manifesting, like you said, from the gut, which thousands of years ago, lung, enlarged, intestine, the, the lung controls the skin. And then you know, the large intestine, obviously digestive issues and so forth, but still in the same wheelhouse. And then the lung is the weight here, the defensive qi, the immune system kind of component. So it's just fun to see how it's like, wait, all these things kind of tie together. So we have the earth element with our cravings overthinking and also, you know, not to jump ahead. Well, I won't jump ahead because I'm getting lost in my little list. I'm like, wait, wait, here, here, here. Okay, so, so again, to wrap those up, if you have digestive distress, craving, overindulging or lack of eating of food or beverages, you have any sort of skin issues and then you're starting to bring up the immune system. If you have any of those symptoms or signs, then you could be more stressed than what you think you are. So, and of course if you have all of them, then you're way more stressed. So jumping back into the immune system. Sorry. Hey guys, it's Brian. I just wanted to take a pause for a moment in the middle of this podcast to thank our sponsors, Ouch, who's helping to make this podcast possible today. Ouch believes everyone should enjoy what life has to offer without enduring pain. They are a pain relief company. Listen guys, I use their products a lot. Their proprietary herbal formula is built on top of a 2000 year old formula, giving it time, tested, effective results and I'm going to listen to that any day of the week. The combination of that with the founder having over 22 years of experience hands on treating actual patients for musculoskeletal pain makes Ouch a very special company. Ouch is made with the highest, highest quality certified herbs and CBD from organic hemp oil. Their ingredients are extracted with the utmost integrity to ensure the healing properties remain pure and concentrated to promote natural muscle pain relief and other benefits. I got to tell you, I appreciate that so much. As a consumer, I want to know what I'm getting is exactly what's being sold to me. So they take it a step further. They have a certificate of analysis for all their ingredients because before it goes into production and Then they also get a certificate of analysis after post production to ensure that you're getting what you're paying for. Listen here guys. Don't settle for a lesser version of your best self when you can feel your best. Today, check ouch out at Ouch Shop, that's spelled Outch Shop for a full line of their products. They're an amazing company. I use their products on a daily basis. Assist. Check them out.

Yeah, no, I just, I think it's important to kind of like because we, we all kind of show it in different ways. But if you are, you know, the jaw clenching, the muscle tension, immune system effects, I'm just kind of over, over brushing over a lot of the signs and symptoms of what your body is telling you as that you have stress. You know, obviously chest pain and heart racing and constant ache and pain in the body, the lack of drive, you know, and mental clarity. All of these things indicate that your body is stressed, that you're stressed in an emotional or physical state. And then chronically those things will lead to longer term issues. Like you were saying, like the disease, it affects your immune system. Over time you're going to be more susceptible to catching cold, colds and various things like that. But it'll also go to more depression, anxiety, sadness. You're going to be more hyper aware to fear, hyper aware to pain. So if we look at all of that, and I know that and even just listing all these things can be stressful for people. But what we're trying to say here is what is your body's indication? You may have one, you may have five people get used to, I like the way you put it, like the calluses, right? They build a callus or they build a, an awareness where they're just. Or a lack of awareness. They just become used to this high level state of stress that they think is just normal. Aches and pains don't have to be normal. You know, aches and pains don't have to be your normal life. Anxiety, upset stomach, stomach, lack of sleep, lack of sex drive, lack of clarity. People who come in with muscle tension that cannot relax. Those, those are, these are common situations. But I would not say that these should be your normal.

Absolutely. Totally. Yep. Sign is a big one. It's that we call it a hallelujah symptom. So if you catch yourself sighing a lot, that's a hallelujah something meaning you're stressed. So some people don't even think about that. Another weird little one is eye twitching. So if your eye twitches that's a big stress sign. So. But going back to if you don't mind me pedaling backwards, some of the anxiety, irritability, impatient feeling of overwhelmed. Yeah, I think it's super common. Common that you know it almost, almost like if you told somebody you looked at somebody and you're like do you over mentally chew on stuff? Do you overthink a lot? I feel like 9.5 people out of 10, I don't know where I'm getting the other 0.5. But like the majority for sure are going to say yes. How did you know that you know. And unfortunately it's super common. And so when we overthink or over mentally chew on stuff that leads to a sense of over overwhelmness and a sense of anxiety and unease and. And then we catch ourselves sighing.

Right.

And our brain takes energy to operate. And so you know, if you think about your brain needing carbs and your brain needing fuel and we're burning it up thinking overthinking about all this mundane stuff, it actually takes energy from other places. It needs it. So you can you go into again that decrease energy, right. Decrease willpower. Because we don't not saving enough reserves for where is really needed and where it's important. So you know like athletes train very specifically to maximize every stroke, to maximize every movement, to maximize, to become more energy efficient. And you know, we as operating in daily life need to do the same thing like how can we be more energy efficient? And clearly if over mentally chewing on stuff and not having boundaries around our thought processes and the times when we work, the times where we do all these things lead to inefficiency and it's a trickle down effect for sure.

Well and on that level, I mean since you brought in the athletic the I mean train, it's not that we can't have stress.

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We're going to have stress. And as we pointed out stress can be very positive. It's very, you know, your stress is what Motivates you a lot of times. And you, the trick is to create a routine that allows your system to be able to understand and handle the ups and downs and I guess modulate and mitigate some of it, but modulate it. Get used to being able to go the ups and downs of stress. Your body needs to be adapted to train to handle certain types and levels of stress on a regular basis. So if we will recognize, you know, it's like the endurance athlete, right? They, they push themselves so hard that there are points where they, I mean, if you've seen those guys that do the, like the desert running where they run for days and then most of them quit because of a blister, you know, or.

Yeah, yeah.

It's like they've, they, they've trained so well for their body to manage this extreme stress, but it's the one wear and tear that something like a blister, which even backpacking and hiking, I can tell you in a second, it just wipes you out. It is amazing. Like, it's like, I'm done, I'm out. I will walk barefoot and for miles rather than wear a shoe that is rubbing wrong on your foot. But it's like it's the one little thing. But they've trained their system to manage that. But most, you don't want to live like that on a daily basis. You don't want to live that for long term. And so training yourself to h, Be able to deal with intensity and not just like physically, like strengthwise, but you're also chemically wise, you're, you're pushing your body to a place where it's managing stress, but then you're decreasing stress and then you're also emotionally mentally developing the strength. And that's where I was thinking this, that guy that I cannot think of his name, where what he talks about is just keeping himself at a level of understanding the physical and mental stability and strength that he, he developed being a Marine and that he's working to keep that level of strength.

Yeah, I, I, yeah. Another thought about all of that that you said, which is awesome, is, you know, going back to overeating and over indulging at that level. That's what we tend to think about. But honestly, people sometimes who overdo anything, right, Even an athlete that's overdoing, what is this person running towards or what are they running from? Right? Because I know people who, they have to always be doing something actively to cope with, you know, helps manage stress. But you know, there are also, there's A lot of underlying stuff. Right. There's a lot of underlying stresses that they don't know how to deal with or trying to figure it out or aren't trying to figure it out, but just coping with the stress. So, you know, even sometimes things that look healthy and awesome can be fueled by. Fueled by something, you know, unhealthy.

Unhealthy. Yep. Avoidance or over training. I mean, over training is hard on, on the body. You cannot be in your sports season all year long. You know, again, working with people with nutrition and training, teaching them about periodization. You're not, you know, NFL football players are not in their, in their NFL season. All year long they're training and maintaining. But there's modulated. Right. They're up and they kind of come down. They'll go into. And bodybuilders train, you know, you go into a bulking season, a refeed season, all these different things, you're not going to be able to stay at a certain level of intensity all the time. Your body will break.

Yeah. And again, what's the driving issue? Where. We'll check in mentally. Where, where, where you at with that? Speaking of mentally, if you don't mind me throwing this one in here, because I think this is something like another simple telltale is when we get into memory and mental clarity issues. So you can have some, with stress, you can have some memory, mental clarity stuff. So if you have ever ran into the kitchen to grab something and you get to the kitchen and you're like, what the hell am I here for? That can be a sign that you're more stressed than what you think you are. It's a little, it's a little one, but I'd rather have a little one than be pooping my head, pooping my brains out, you know, because my digestive system is blasting so and back. Basically what's happening, you know, most likely at that point is your brain's trying to multitask and it's thinking of 20 things, right?

Yeah.

And it can't think, it can't, it can't process that way. And so if you catch yourself forgetting little things and you're having some mental clarity issues or some memory issues, again, sometimes your brain or your body's in a state of stress because it's trying to do too much stuff and you're not being energy efficient again. So so many, like the little things are kind of nice, like the sign and that, like, oops, what the hell am I in here for? Are very nice or like a little skin Like, I got a little skin rash. Okay. Versus some of the. Some of the bigger things. Right.

So, sure. I mean, hopefully you're taking these little. Little warning signs before it becomes big warning signs of your illness or body breaking down and disease processes. But the end. And I would add, you know, short temper, you know, that kind of thing. If you're. You're irritable and snappy. Snappy. That is a sign that something's going on. Right. Whether it was a one night of poor sleep.

What are you talking about, Amy? What are you talking about?

You know, and that reminds me of the other day when I snapped on the phone with you, and you were kind of like, up, gotta go. But I wasn't snapping at you. I was, like, yelling at the dog.

Actually, I think I was just. That was in. Just. Just to be clear, I think I was already in the process of saying that, and you threw that in there. So I wasn't bailing on you because you're yelling at the dog.

Okay. I was like, poor Brian. Like, my yelling just threw him over the edge, I think.

You know when you're, like, walking out the door and somebody tries to catch you, but you're already out the door and you just keep walking.

Yeah, I think.

I think I was in that. In that phase of my verbal. My verbal stride.

Oh, that's good. That's good. I love it. But we do have to protect ourselves from stressful situations. And I think not to, like, criticize or be a negative by, like, any means about, you know, what your wife was saying. Lovely Amy, who I just think is so wonderful, you know, her saying, well, it's not. You're looking at your next day and going, I'm a little stressed, or whatever. And you're like, I just have so much to do. Which is fine. I think we are lucky we kind of you. We kind of worked where we have put ourselves in a situation where we have a lot of things to do on purpose sometimes, you know, and it's the reframing. Like, what. What's. There's a meme or something saying going around. Like, something about being stressed about how full your calendar is is a sign that you've been blessed with all the things you've asked for, which may or may not always be applicable. But I think just reframing those. Those moments and saying, you know, it's not that I'm going to be stressed about all these things that are on my plate. It's what one where. What have I asked to have on my plate? And to what can I do? I need to build better boundaries? Do I need to take some things off of my plate plate? And then to your point, if I'm living like this on a regular basis, why do I feel the need to always have some so much on my plate and then to just be able to say, yeah, I've got a lot on my plate. I've handled it. You can have like a reframe of. I have lots of. I've had times where I'm stressed. I've managed it before. So this is manageable stress. So I don't have to make more fear stress about it. It's just, okay, I've been in this time of situation, we can manage this. And then recognizing, okay, I've had a few weeks of or months of stress and I need to schedule a, a break.

You know, you need a bucket. Do you want to know what that is before?

I. I don't know. I'm worried that we might have different. There might be different definitions of this. I'm not sure.

Yeah, well, sometimes you need a day, sometimes you need a bucket. Pardon my language. But to be real, it's so stress relieving to have a fuck it bucket versus I'm not gonna do this bucket. And so like today, for instance, I have a list. I have to do the lawn, I have to do some shower repairs. I got some stuff to do to adore. I got some video editing to do, podcasts that we're doing right now. So I can take that right off the list. Boom. I did my infrared sauna already.

Boom.

I gotta work out after this, meditate. I have to work on a couple other websites, I have to go to ups. I have to prepare for talk, prepare for a health fair, make a bunch of phone calls, write an email. And so anyway, my point is, is some of these things are going to my bucket today because I. If I feel. Start to feel overwhelmed, if I've scheduled too many meetings, sometimes I'll actually, actually call and be like, you know what, I overbooked myself today. I can remove this to Thursday or whatever. And they moved it then my. So my bucket isn't like, I'm never gonna do it, it's just not today. Or sometimes you might look at this and go, you know what, I'm gonna go the boat today and I'm not gonna do any of this stuff. So I have a day.

Well, and you can kind of. There's.

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Oh, there's a quad. The four quadrant manage time management of importance. There's. I don't remember who coined it. I think it was. I think Stephen Covey made it really important. But I think there's even an Italian time frame process that helps you manage that. But it's just putting things in your quadrants. Like you have things that are just crises, emergencies must do, can't not avoid this today and you know, prevention and planning or things that you don't maybe need to do necessarily, necessarily this moment or things that you know, somebody else can do that you don't have to worry about. And you know, then there's the other things of these are really just not important. They're not going to make or break my life. This is something I don't even actually have to worry about. So just taking like even just you running through your list of things can sound really stressful and create stress in somebody's life. They're just, you know, they might look at their day and just be like, oh my God. I, I just, I'm just gonna, I am gonna say screw it, I'm gonna take a day off because I can't get any of these things done. You know, I have so much to do. But if you really start looking at it, it's like these things take two minutes. You know, it really doesn't have to be that stressful. So you know, doing some actual mitigation of the stresses in your life, delegating, blocking, saying no to all these things are good. But it's also like, all right, how stressful is this and are these blessings in your life? You know, all of the reasons all the emails that you might have to respond to are a blessing to something that is a business related, that's going to bring profits and connections. So those are, you know, these are Good things to have in our life.

That's a good stress.

Yeah, it can be a good stress. It can be a bad stress. I'm about, you know, I talk a lot about this on, like, my getaways and when I'm going to be taking this group on a fourteener. And it is not the most optimal time to do a 14 either. It's going to be quite chilly. So there will definitely be conversations along the way that are changing or talking about mindset, talking about what's our interpretation of this stress? What's our interpretation of how we're handling what's coming up above in front of us, what are we focused on? All of that will come into play and then hopefully also bleed over into life experiences. I mean, it's part of why we do these little 14ers and little excursions is to build strength and stamina and. But also take those moments and apply them to real life. Like, these can be stressors, but they can be good stressors. A lot of it is what we are interpreting them to be. Where do we need to place them? But all of that goes back to just awareness. And are we taking the time to stop and be aware of all of the. Of sense signs and symptoms of stress in our life?

Yeah, and be aware of, you know, again, understand the sympathetic versus parasympathetic state. Right. So if you're. If you're aware and you have all this list, even though it's a good stress, but it's constantly, you're in this higher brainwave state in the sympathetic nervous system and you're not being able. And you're having these signs or symptoms, right. All this stuff showing up, then clearly, clearly you need to, again, like you said, change the mindset of what it is. Be aware of it being a gift and be grateful for it or just, you know, changing that mindset. So I'm just a recap because I know we're running. Running out of time here. So wrapping it up. So, so how. So if you. What is your stress level really? So just ask yourself that. How stressed am I really? What is my level? If you're doing a level 1 to 10, 10 being the most stress, 1, the least amount of stress possible, what is your real number? And start thinking about checking in with your body, right. If you're having any anxiety, if you're having any sleep issues, if you're having any irritability or impatience, if you're feeling overwhelmed, if you're having any digestive distress, if you're having any mental Memory and clarity issues. If you're having any skin issues, if you're sighing, if you're craving or overindulging or not eating the food and beverages, if you have decreased energy or libido, clench the teeth, biting the nails or nervous habits, the more of these, you can't sleep. Yeah. Did I put sleep issue? Yeah. Sleeping issues or over sleeping? Yes. That's, you know, depression, right? So if you have, the more of these you answer yes to, the higher your number is going to be, right? So if you say three now, but you're checking six of these boxes, six of these 10 boxes, then your numbers, you know, much higher than a three. So just be really objective. And then like Amy was talking about, you know, things of, of how to manage stress. One starts between awareness, starts with awareness of it and mindset, right. And changing and reframing. So you should listen to the reframing podcast and listen to the parasympathetic sympathetic podcast, the Nervous System one I think would be good. And then any other thing you feel like, I think, you know, Amy, can I know you? I know you got a bunch right now you want to like fire it off, so get to it. But we did, we did one, we did a podcast on breathing techniques, right? Meditation. So fire, fire, fire away, Amy.

Well, that, just that like what can we do on a regular, either daily basis? Hopefully if you can do this on a daily basis, it's better, but at least doing like weekly, monthly and yearly check ins with all these different areas of your life. So yes, meditation, it's one of the reasons why I think it's, it's growing in popularity and it's not just, it's not considered just a religious, spiritual thing and not so much a woo woo thing anymore because science is showing like man, if you can spend 10 or 15 minutes or even 5 minutes with some sun exposure and meditation where you're just letting your body and brain be quiet and rest and allow your system to just slow down for a second, then usually after that you can actually think about, well, what am I feeling? What am I really stressed about, what am I anxious about working into that daily process. Breath work is extremely important for a number of reasons. The, both the physical, the chemical, the mental control that happens with that and then your exercise quality, right? So every day you can take these little moments and then even if you just pick one thing and make an improvement, you're going to see a big impact over time. But so like you were saying, you know, checking in with all these like physical Emotional things. But, and we talked about kind of the quadrants as far as delegating importance. But you can also do like a daily check in or a weekly, monthly, yearly check in. Like, where are these areas of my life that are, how do I rate them into my perception of happiness or completeness? How do they rate? So you've seen these life wheels, right? And they might have like your physical fitness and your emotional content, your, your close relate, like your love, romantic relationships, your family and friends, your connection and social activity, your business performance. How are you doing with these areas? So they have this circle of these areas of importance. Where's your, how's your home environment? And then you, can you, you rate it on a number scale? And then you kind of step back and look at it and go, okay, man, if you're doing this weekly or monthly, you're like, man, for six months, my, my romantic boat is way down. Like, I, it's the numbers really low. I might need to schedule some time in with my spouse or my mate, my partner, to recreate a higher level of focus over there and make that number come up higher. If it's physical fitness, if it's sleep, and if it's job performance, all these things that are important to our lives, you kind of use these tools on a regular basis. It kind of helps you reflect and feel one in control and aware of where these areas are that you might be failing. You can do that on a daily basis with the physical state, right? All the little stress signs that we were talking about. Am I sighing a lot? How am I sleeping today? How's my poo going? You know, what's my diet like? Did I snap at people today? What was my mental thought? If, I mean, I'm very positive person, but I'm kind of like, if I. When I'm happy, I'm extremely happy. When I'm unhappy, I'm extremely unhappy. And I gotta, you guys gotta look at those things and see what's, what's your feedback. But using tools like journaling or using those little life circle wheels or just, heck, write it down in a notebook, you know, your calendar. Use those things as tools to help keep yourself aware and tracking how you're showing up in these things.

Yeah, all those are actionable things. And I think that taking action is a very critical element that a lot of folks have a hard time with. I think again, sometimes we can be overwhelmed and overthink stuff and not actually take action. And so whether it's changing, you know, putting actionable steps in place to change the environment that is supporting some of these stressors is, is critical. So I encourage. That was a great list of stuff. I just really encourage people pay attention how you're feeling. Are any of these signs or symptoms coming up? What's your real stress level? And then whatever it is going down the. The list of stuff Amy said or some other things, just make sure you're taking action and, and light that fire.

Yep, yep. Balance it out and don't get stressed over the stressy list. I know I always, I always do that. I like way over give but I always end with. It does not. If you're feeling stressed about the process, just pick one thing. It's like with my, my, my people that I work with on nutrition if depending on their goals and how they respond to the instruction, it's like some people want to make an attire like yes, I'm going full carnivore or yes, I'm going full plant diet. I can do this. I'm going to throw everything out. I'm going to change everything. But some people can't do that and that's okay. Sometimes it's just. Can you make a difference? Different meal choice one time a week. If you have a sugar addiction, can you switch from this type of sugar to this type of sweetener? You know, it's just pick one thing. It doesn't have to be an all in. You can just make one change at a time. And if that is waking up or sitting down at the end of the day and asking how your body feels. Perfect. Start there.

Awesome. Awesome. Don't let stress get you people. We have control. We have control. Take, take personal agency. We got this. We're the drivers. We, we're the captains of our ship. Get curious.

Yes. Get curious about what your body's telling you and what your days look like and take it one step at a time. And I like what you said. Or maybe we can. I'm. We're both very busy. But I like that you did a scale, like check the box on how many of these things are showing up for you. And if you're coming out with, you know, two or you're coming out with seven, that'll give you some feedback on maybe how much you might want to, you know, take your stress management a little serious or. Absolutely serious.

Seriously, really serious. All right. Please share this podcast with as many people as you can because we love doing it and want to always continue to do it. And if we don't have people listening, then we're still going to do it anyway. Yeah, it feels better if you're sharing this with people. Thank you, thank you, thank you. All right, all right. Goodbye everybody and be Safe on your 14er. Don't leave it no one. Leave no one behind.

Leave nothing and no one behind. You're right.

Nothing and no one behind.

Always.

Alright, be safe.

Okay.

Thank you.

Have a great one. Bye bye. Hey friends, thank you for tuning in to the All Things Good for you podcast. Please note any information, experiences, ideas or opinions discussed today are for educational and thought provoking purposes only and not intended as medical advice. If anything piqued your curiosity, please consult with your doctor or provide personal medical professional. And if you're enjoying All Things Good for your podcast, hop on over and leave us a five star review so we can continue delving in and providing great content. Thanks again and we hope you are inspired to stay informed and responsible along your health and wellness journey.

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