Stress Management Strategies

Foreign. Today's presentation on the impact of stress and interventions. I'm your host, Dr. Donnelly Snipes. Now, a lot of times we talk about stress and we kind of minimize it. We think, you know, well, you know, stress is just one of those things that everybody experiences. But stress, even low grade chronic stress causes that HPA axis to be activated. And if it goes on for too long, even low grade stress can contribute to HPA axis dysregulation and even structural brain changes. So we don't want to minimize stress. Stress is also a predecessor, if you will, to a lot more serious mental health issues, including anxiety, depression and addiction. So let's look a little bit more closely at stress and see what we can figure out. We're going to, going to define stress, eustress and distress, identify the impacts and explore sources of stress and intervention. Stress is anything that requires energy. It's not just distress. And too often we forget that. And we're going to talk about eustress and distress today. Eustress is good. Stress distress, well, we know what that is. Physical, affective and cognitive distress. Activate the HPA axis, you know, intensely and increase cortisol, our stress hormone, Glutamate, our major excitatory neurotransmitter, norepinephrine and adrenaline to help us focus and have energy. Dopamine to keep us focused and keep us going, keep our motivation high. Thyroxin, which is an hormone from the the thyroid gland. And that also helps us with energy and ultimately inflammatory cytokines. Remember, when the HPA axis is activated, it gives us the energy and resources to fight or flee. Unfortunately, know historically, after someone fights or flees, they often have injuries that need to be repaired. So the system just automatically sends out the inflammatory cyto kindes to float around the body and see if there's anywhere that it needs to, that they need to focus to increase inflammation to promote recovery. So inflammatory cyto kindes by themselves are not bad. They are actually, you know, hard workers. They're looking for breakdowns where they need to heal something. It's when they are excessive and persistent that it becomes a problem. When the HPA axis is activated, we have alterations in gonadal hormones, progesterone, estrogen, testosterone and even oxytocin, if you want to put that in with the gonadal hormones, serotonin and melatonin. Serotonin, remember there are different types of receptors, so some of them will go up that help us have a little bit more energy. And then the ones that are supposed to be Responsible for downregulating us may be suppressed. The ones that are responsible for our pain threshold, initially those may go up because we don't want to focus on pain while we're fighting or fleeing. That's why we don't feel as much pain in the heat of the moment. But afterwards, oh boy. And melatonin. Melatonin is made from serotonin. So if our calming serotonin is levels are low, then guess what, we're probably not going to be able to construct enough melatonin. And there's a reduction in gaba, which is our natural anti anxiety neurochemical. So we see a lot of these things. It makes sense. Sense when there's a threat, you know, we, it's not time to procreate, it's not time to chillax, it's not time to sleep. It's time to be hypervigilant and energetic so we can protect ourselves. However, in our society, in our culture, we too often experience persistent low grade distress, such as from fears about getting sick, from fears about the election, from fears about our own safety, from fears about whether we're going to be able to pay the electric bill because our socioeconomic position is not so great right now. There's a lot of things in life that contribute to low to moderate grade persistent distress. And I encourage you to think about Maslow's hierarchy and those things that are on the bottom. The lower they are on the, on the pyramid, the more significant they are in terms of promoting a stress response. Our foundation, if our foundation is crumbling, the house ain't going to stand. And so if we are not safe, if we're not getting adequate medical care, if we're in pain, if we're sick, if we're malnourished, if we are, you know, emotionally not safe, then we're going to tend to have more distress. We're going to experience more extreme distress than for example, if we are not self actualizing. So we do want to recognize that, you know, the lower levels of the pyramid tend to be more important for survival and tend to prompt a more intense stress distress response when those things aren't getting met. I think of stress as the gas pedal of the body. You only have so much energy in your tank and whenever you do something that requires energy, good or bad, it presses that gas pedal. Now what kind of gas mileage are you getting right now? Are, do you have the pedal to the floor or are you one of those easy drivers that comes out and slowly accelerates? I'm teaching my son to drive right now. And bless his heart, that boy, he goes from a stop to he, you know, speed limit in half a second. And I keep trying to tell him that's too hard on the engine. Same sort of thing for us. Impact of excessive stress. Whether it's good or bad, irritability, anger and anxiety. Excessive stress. Think about when. And we're going to talk about, you know, different types of stress in a minute. Even good stress when you are exercising. I know that makes me irritable sometimes. You know, there are. When you are spending too much energy doing anything, you may start feeling like you don't have energy to do the things you have to do. If you're spending a lot of energy doing the things that you want to do and that can contribute to irritability. There are times, for example, when there are things that I really want to do and go hiking and do this and that, but I know there are a lot of things that I have to do that, you know, like go to work and pay bills and do laundry. And the disconnect between what I want to do and. And what I have to do can contribute to irritability. So excessive stress can contribute to irritability. Excessive stress, especially distress, can also contribute to irritability. Anxiety, anger, you know, as the fight orf flight response, the HPA axis is activated, but also depression. We've talked about this a myriad of times in other courses that when that HPA axis stays activated for too long, the environment in the brain becomes neurotoxic. The brain recognizes this, and it says, all right, we can't run this hot for this long. We can't stay this activated. So the receptors start becoming less sensitive to threats in the environment. So it takes something that is more intense. It basically, you develop a tolerance, if you will, to cortisol. So we begin develop a condition called hypocortisolism. In that case, we start to feel depressed because those same chemicals that help us feel, have the energy and focus and drive and all that stuff to fight or flee are the same chemicals we need when, guess what? Over here, we want to feel elation and excitement. You know, there's some differences. There's a little bit more endorphin over here in the good stuff stuff. But, you know, you still need norepinephrine and dopamine and glutamate to get excited, happy, excited, let alone upset, excited. Reduced melatonin is associated with excessive stress. And they hypothesize that because it's constructed from serotonin that when we are under excess stress, our body recognizes that when our gas tank's running on empty, we're burning the candle at both ends. However you want to say it, whether we're doing something that we really enjoy or not, our, our serotonin levels become get unbalanced, which contributes to reduced ME melatonin levels. And that can be problematic in a variety of ways, primarily in, in relation to sleep disturbances. Let's talk about excessive stress and sleep. Remember when you were a little kid and Christmas Eve, you were so excited, all of those, you had a lot of stress. You were anticipating what was going to happen in the, in the ensuing hours when Santa Claus or whoever you believe in came. So you were so excited. Well, guess what? That kept that HPA axis activated, the norepinephrine going, the dopamine going, and the melatonin, not so much. Your brain was saying, now is not the time. We want to listen for, you know, hoof prints on the, on the roof. We want to listen for Santa's jingling, whatever you were listening for. So even good stress can contribute to sleep disturbances, obviously distress, anxiety, anger. That keeps that HPA axis revved because distress happens when, typically happens when we feel a threat. And we don't want to be relaxed when there could be a threat around. So we maintain this level of hypervigilance. And even though we may sleep, it's probably not restful sleep because of excessive stress. We can have inflammation, you know, that persistent level of stress, inflammation and autoimmune flare ups, reduced immunity, digestive issues, weight gain, increased pain because of the increased inflammation as well as the reduced serotonin and the reduced pain threshold, increased risk of chemical and behavioral addictions. A lot of times when people feel stress in our culture and we've seen that the level of drinking in certain populations has increased upwards of 40% during the lockdown. So increases in, in stress. Even if people aren't meeting the clinical criteria for anxiety or major depressive disorder or even persistent depressive disorder, people tend to self medicate stress with alcohol, marijuana, nicotine, those tend to be the big ones. Sometimes opioids, if they have them on hand, you know, and all of these can have very deleterious consequences. We have altered cortisol hormone and neurotransmitter levels when we're under stress. We know it alters our thyroid hormone levels, especially when it's persistent. We see, we see the beginnings of hypothyroidism as well as hypothyroid hypocortisolism. We See increases in norepinephrine and glutamate levels. People become infertile when they're stressed. Now occasion, everybody's going to have stress occasionally. What we're talking about is excessive or prolonged stress. And infertile infertility is also one of those side effects because the body says, if there's stress out there, guess what, now is not really the time to procreate. Interestingly enough, stress, especially significant stress, also is associated with preterm delivery. Social withdrawal, rapid aging and heart disease are also associated with excessive stress. So there's a lot of stuff. And Elsa points out domestic violence is also associated with excessive stress. When people become stressed, when that HPA axis is activated, they become more irritable, more agitated, and it takes less. They become more vulnerable to emotional dysregulation, which can lead to physical dysregulation. Okay, so let's talk about sources of emotional stress. Distress are things that make you sad, angry, envious, jealous, worried, anxious, overwhelmed, or just ruminating on things. And we want to address these. Recognizing that emotions are normal. We need them, they're natural. Having people think that I shouldn't feel this way, they're going to start struggling with that emotion and fighting against it, trying to convince themselves why they shouldn't feel, feel some way and using a lot of energy, getting entangled with it. It's important that people become mindful, recognize when they're feeling an emotion, acknowledge it and accept it non judgmentally and say, okay, this is how I feel. I feel envious today or jealous of so and so. All right, you know, it's not where I want to invest a lot of, continue to invest a lot of my energy. So what is the next best step I can take to address this situation? It doesn't mean I shouldn't feel jealous. It means I'm accepting that's how I feel. And I am deciding in the big scheme of what I want for a rich and meaningful life. What are the next best steps for me to take? Emotional eustress are things that make you curious, happy and exhilarated. And we all can remember, you know, times going to amusement parks or, or something, or even Christmas or holidays when we were just exhilarated about something. We didn't spend a lot of physical energy necessarily, but at the end of the day we were plum exhausted. Well, our body was spending a lot of energy being excited. And we need to recognize that it's important to infuse things that make you happy during the day. That's, that's Always helpful. But it's also important to give yourself a break where you're not feeling like you've got to be feeling something all the time, where you can just be. And that's where meditation can be super helpful to encourage people to focus, find a balance. Dialectics are super helpful for emotional stress. Recognizing that there is good and there is bad pretty much all the time. You know, in your life there are going to be good things going on, and there may be occasional rain clouds and, and recognize that. Recognizing that and embracing reality and, and figuring out how you want to approach whatever's going on. If you notice that there are more bad things going on, what are the next best steps you can take? Obviously I'm very cognitive in my approach, but we're going to get down to environmental things in a minute. But when we're talking about pure emotions, I'm not talking about other things yet, I'm talking about pure emotions. It's important to think of your emotions. You can think of it like a filter on, on your, on your selfies. You can make it warmer or colder or I like the, the analogy of a bath because I have difficulty with those stupid filters. Think of distress as being the hot water and eustress as being the cold water. And you know, you want to have a warm, comfortable bath. You don't want to be scalded and, and generally you don't want to be frozen. But recognizing in life there's always going to be warm water in there, so you're almost never going to be too cold. But it's important to make sure that you're adding in some positive things in order to balance out those neurotransmitters. Cognitive stress, depending on the situation, can be consider distress or eustress. Decision making, for example. Some people are control freaks and they love making decisions, but sometimes decisions are really stressful. Deciding where you're going to go on vacation, not so much. That can be really exciting. Deciding on, you know, how you're going to handle a major life event. And I don't want to get too, you know, depressing here, but that can be extraordinarily excruciatingly difficult. So decision making can be challenging. Planning and problem solving. Some people love it, some people hate it. What do you do when with these three things? Decision making, planning and problem solving. A lot of times they kind of go together, depending on the person. If it is something that is difficult, you know, getting social support, getting other people's opinions, getting help with it, asking people, what would you do? In this situation, getting information or tutelage from people who've been through similar things. Like if you're planning on going to graduate school, you may not even know where to begin to plan. So reaching out to a mentor can be super helpful. Problem solving, you know, the younger you are, the fewer experiences that you've had. Problem solving. It's important to recognize, you know, what can you do in order to make it something where it's more you stressful, where it's more exciting and challenging instead of oppressive and overwhelming. And part of it is how you approach it cognitively. If you see it as this huge, scary monster coming at you, that is going to evoke a lot of distress and a lot of threat response. If you see it as. And remember, our body gives about five times more weight and valence to distressful things. So that's it's going to be this really huge monster. Use stress. Generally, our body doesn't give as much weight to it, so it doesn't take as much energy to do things that make us happy, to do things that are enjoyable. My GREs I remember way back when taking my graduate entrance exams and you know, those are tests that you can prepare for, but you can't really study since it's aptitude, not achievement. And I remember, you know, going through the books and everything, but I was always excited to go in and take it, to see how well can I do, you know, what, what can I do this time on it instead of seeing it as something overwhelming or oppressive or seeing, you know, catastrophic things happening if I don't do well. And it's important to encourage people to try to look at things as challenges. And that's one of those criteria you remember in hardiness, commitment, control and challenge. Identifying all the things in your life that you're committed to, identifying the aspects of the situation that you have control over and viewing it as a challenge instead of a problem. Thinking and learning. Remember, the brain is one of the biggest consumers of blood glucose. So it's important to make sure that our brain is fueled. And it's important to remember that when we start to get sleepy, exhausted, tired, our HPA axis actually will jump into action. Dump some cortisol to let our liver increase our blood sugar so the a decrease in blood glucose can actually lead to physical stress because we are using so much cognitive energy, if that makes sense. Interpreting things can be stressful as well as concentrating, like while driving and filtering out extraneous stimuli. Have you ever tried to find somewhere you're lost and you Actually turn down the radio as if that's going to help you find it more. Well, it kind of can because then you're not having to focus as much on filtering out that stimuli. You can focus on your visual sensory input and you're not having that to filter out the auditory sensory input. But the more input that you have can be stressful. Introverts tend to find it very, very stressful to be in active environments where there's a lot going on around them. It can be overwhelming. Um, whereas extroverts, we tend to draw energy that's eustressful for us because it's fascinating. Um, so it depends on the person. And memories and prior experiences can also evoke feelings of happiness and excitement as well as, you know, sadness and distress. So we do want to recognize that there are good and bad. But no matter what you're thinking about, when you're thinking, when your mind is working, it's using energy. Physical stress, again, can be both eustress or good distress. Exercise, if you go in there and you're enjoying it, you're on a hike, it's a wonderful thing. You know, that's probably you stress and you're probably, you may be spending energy, but you're not also using a lot of emotional energy, hating being there if you are. I remember going to physical therapy and physical therapy is painful sometimes, so there was a certain amount of distress. Or if you overdo it with exercise, you can feel physical pain. Daily repair and rejuvenation. Your body just does it automatically, but it takes energy. There's a reason that we have what they call a base metabolic rate. It takes energy, it takes calories for our body just to keep our blood, blood pumping oxygenated and repair any tissues that have been damaged. Digestion takes energy. Sleep deprivation causes that HPA axis to kick off. Our brain does not like to be sleep deprived. So when we are sleep deprived, the natural reaction of our brain is to say, oh, well, I need to give you extra, an extra boost to help you stay alert during the day. Which means it activates the HPA axis, dumps more cortisol and more norepinephrine and blood glucose. We've, we know, or the researchers know that people with type 2 diabetes, for example, have more difficulty controlling. And it could be type one too. I'm, I'm just, I'm only familiar with type two. Have more difficulty controlling their blood sugar when they are experiencing emotional or physical stress. Nutritional imbalances. If you're getting not enough of a certain vitamin or mineral or too much. Your body knows it and you may start having cravings, you may start feeling fatigued. But when you're not getting those nutrients, the chemical reactions necessary to keep your gut healthy, to make the hormones and neurotransmitters that fuel the system, they can't be made or they can't be made in the sufficient amounts so your body starts feeling a stress. We talked the other day, I guess it was in my, in my daily morning show that I do. We were talking about vitamin D and how vital vitamin D is to so many different aspects of life, from pain management to immunity to mood. And when we for example, lack vitamin D, we start having significant symptoms of physical distress. Dehydration is the same way because our nerves communicate in a fluid environment. So when there's not enough fluid, guess what? It kind of shorts out the system. Toxins like alcohol, VOCs, which are the, the crap that's in paint. I don't remember what it stands for. Volatile, some or volatile organic compounds, that's what it is. And tobacco and other toxins are stressors on the body. The body perceives those as harmful and then it mounts a response against them, which is a stress. An immune response is a stress response. Injuries and illness, including autoimmune issues, are also signs of and causes of physical stress. So when we're sick, our body has to divert energy to guess what, healing itself, repairing itself. Pregnancy and childbirth. When you are making an entire another human being in your body, that takes some energy. I tell you what. So there are a lot of different things and pregnancy and childbirth can be one of the most amazing things in the world. I'm not saying it's distress. I'm just saying we need to examine how much energy we actually have and be compassionate with ourselves. If we are, for example, you know, pregnant or injured or recovering from an illness or haven't been eating well, you know, recognizing that our body machine is not probably able to, to operate at the same level and do everything that we quote, normally do because it's focused on these aberrations at the moment, these detours, so to speak, and encouraging people to be more cognizant of those things during the holidays. Think about it. And I guess we'll get that to down in, in relationship in a minute. But during the holidays, for example, we are shopping, we are generally interacting with people more. We are often going to holiday parties at our, you know, at our job and those sorts of things. We actually have a lot more time demand. Even though what we're doing, theoretically, we enjoy it can be extremely exhausting and it's a source of stress. So if you have to go to those holiday parties on Friday night and Saturday night, then recognizing that Sunday, you, your body may need time to recharge just like you recharge your phone and, and the things that you normally do on a Sunday. You know, you may want to pair back to the have tos instead of the, you know, routine stuff because you've spent so much energy. And too often I just see people, you know, trying to push through and then they start dreading the holidays because they're like, it's exhausting and I always get sick and you know, it's depressing and anxiety producing. Well, let's look at all the reasons, you know, and, and checking some of those cognitions, about half dues is important. But also just noticing, being mindful of how much more energy you're spending interacting with people or doing things that you don't normally do and recognizing that, okay, if you take that energy and you put it in this bucket over here, you have less in this bucket over here. It's just the way it is. We can't magically poof up more energy, environmental stress. And I wrote an article on this, oh gosh, about a year ago and I found the research to be absolutely fascinating. But they found like, for example, well, I'll start with light. When our circadian rhythms are out of whack, that contributes to physical stress because it throws a bunch of our hormones out of whack as well. From cortisol to our gonadal hormones, our hunger and satiation hormones. Lots of stuff goes wonky when our circadian rhythms are out of whack. And you know, people who are night shifters especially have a really difficult time, especially if they don't maintain their night shift schedule on their days off because the body takes about 28 days to adjust to, to a time change, even one as small as one hour. Some of us have really stubborn circadian rhythms and these time changes can be really challenging, the daylight savings time. But also as the days just naturally get shorter, our bodies have difficulty adjusting. I was talking some to, to some people in the, in the locker room at the gym this morning and we were all talking, commiserating about how at 6 o' clock last night we were all ready for bed. It was like it was dark out. And you know, our brain said, hey, dark out, time to go to bed. And that's your circadian rhythm and your pineal gland trying to regulate what's going on. So it's important to pay attention to those things when you have shorter days to make sure that you're spending more bright light time and again trying to get out during the day, walking to your car, walking to the grocery store, wherever, periodically. So you are not walking to the grocery store, but walking into the grocery store. So you're getting 10 to 15 minutes of passive exposure to the sun every day. That really helps maintain your vitamin D levels and can help a lot maintaining your circadian rhythms as well as mood and immunity. Fluorescent lights can be super, super stressful, even if the ballast isn't flickering. Fluorescent lights are very harsh on, on your eyes. They can cause a lot of glare, and it can contribute to headaches and neck tension and a variety of other things when they start to flicker. People who have any type of seizure disorder are at much higher risk of having a seizure when they are exposed to flickering lights. So flickering ballasts, flickering fluorescent lights can be literally physically dangerous for some people. But even if you don't have seizure disorder, fluorescent lights, flickering lights, the hum from ballasts that are getting ready to go out can contribute to stress in people and physical stress from that sort of sensory overload, which can contribute to a host of other emotional and and cognitive issues. Noise, traffic, air conditioner, wind turbines, other people and animals. Know, I've told you all before, I've got four dogs and wood floors. So whenever the UPS man comes, I know it. Whenever anybody has the audacity to walk down the street in our neighborhood, I know about it. And it can be, get, can get very loud very quickly and can be very startling if you're, you know, everything's dead quiet and then all of a sudden they erupt. And that can be stressful because people who have histories of trauma, you know, being startled like that, can be very, very stressful. But even people without histories of trauma just being jarred from quiet to, you know, cacophony can be extraordinarily stressful. They found that people who live within three miles of a wind turbine farm have a 26% higher rate of prescriptions for antidepressants. Wind turbine farms are very, very noisy. And that ambient hum that they put out, even though it's not a really loud noise, that ambient hum, at whatever level it's at, has been shown to significantly increase sleep disturbances, anxiety, headaches, and irritability. I have air conditioners on here. I'm mainly referring to window air conditioners or mini splits that make noise. If you've been in a hotel room, you know, and you're not used to it, then every time the air conditioner kicks on it, at least for me, it wakes me up and I can go back to sleep. But I'm not getting that sleep solid sleep that I normally would at home because every time it kicks on, I hear it. And then traffic, you know, you can have just the general hum of traffic, which you may adapt to over time, but honking cars and sirens and things like that can wake you up. Even if it doesn't wake you up completely, it may bring you out of a deep sleep enough where you're not actually getting that quality sleep. So noise can be a stressor. What do we do? Noise canceling headphones are good. Trying to find air conditioners that are as quiet as possible. Obviously, if you can avoid living near something that has low grade or even high grade ambient noise, like the L in Chicago or railroad tracks here in Tennessee, that's ideal. Not everybody can do that though. So again, noise canceling headphones, earplugs, a snoring spouse or dog can also be a source of noise that keeps you from getting quality sleep. Um, and even a, a significant other who has sleep apnea that has one of those CPAP machines. Well, that's great. They're not snoring as much. But those CPAP machines, or at least the ones I'm familiar with, are very, very loud. So that can also disrupt your sleep. It's sleep is so important to stress management. And because you're already starting to use a football metaphor 30 yards back, if when you wake up in the morning, you're sleep deprived in terms of your vulnerability to stress and to distress and to extreme reactions. So back to noise canceling headphones. Those are kind of uncomfortable to sleep in because you don't want to turn and then be laying on one earplugs. Super helpful as an option, but encouraging people to think about what they need to do. Temperature is also important. Think about when you're cold or when you're hot. The where I went to graduate school, my master's degree, all of our classes were in the basement of Shand's hospital. And they could not regulate the temperature down there to save their life. In the summer when it was literally 100 degrees outside in Florida, it was like 60 degrees in the basement of Shands. And in the winter when it was, you know, in Florida, like 40 degrees, but it was like 80 in the basement of Shand. So whatever the temperature was, it was the opposite where we were. And it's really hard to concentrate when you are physically uncomfortable. You know, you can be a little bit uncomfortable, but when you're physically uncomfortable or if you're going through menopause and you're having a hot flash, really hard to concentrate when you're physically uncomfortable, which contributes to irritability. It's frustrating to not be able to concentrate. It's frustrating to be uncomfortable. So environmental stress can contribute to emotional stress. When we're frustrated, it tends to put us in more of a negative psychological framework. So we tend to notice the negative and be more cognitively irritable. So you can see how all of these things impact each other, temperature wise. Sometimes it's just planning, you know, that my cohort, we learned to bring multiple layers in in the summer and in the winter dress in multiple layers so we could start shedding them as the day went on and you know, it looked like, you know, a beach scene by the end of the, by the end of the day most days. But being prepared for not ideal temperatures is helpful. Now. You can't always regulate everything, but also being aware that when your temperature is, when the temperature of your environment is uncomfortable, you know, you probably are going to be a little bit more irritable and, and taking steps ahead of time to hedge against that. If I know that I'm uncomfortable and I'm in a staff meeting or I'm in church or a conference or something, you know, I know that and that means I have to be more mindful in my interactions with other people because I can be more negative and, and fussy and you know, that's probably not warranted towards that person and, and I'm just kind of projecting my general. So I, I need to be more mindful of how I interact with others if I'm physically uncomfortable. Touch and tactile, you know, thinking about those conferences, I've been to a few, you know, three, four hour conferences. Doesn't sound like much, but when you're sitting in a hard wooden chair with no arms and you know, you're all dressed up in, you know, office clothes and heels and stuff, so you can't sit, crisscross applesauce or something, it can get really uncomfortable and your low back can start to hurt, your butt can start to get uncomfortable. Being aware of things that make you uncomfortable. There's a sweater that I have, I love the sweater, it's a gorgeous sweater, but it is wool and it is the itchiest thing in the world and you know, I cannot focus on anything when I'm wearing it. I tend to be more irritable unless I have, you know, a full turtleneck underneath it. Planning goes a long way to dealing with stress. That's my point here. Sight. You know, there are things that you can see, whether it's images or colors or organization or disorganization. If you look around my office right now, that can contribute to either feeling calm and happy and relaxed or dysphoric. Knowing what those triggers are is important. One place that I used to work it, all of the walls were painted this kind of pukey, institutional bluish green color. I can't even describe what it was. It just. It was not a cheerful color at all. It was cold. And so in my office, you know, I did as much as I could to brighten it up and warm it up a little bit so it didn't feel so stark and impersonal. I've been in other places and whenever I move into a house, one of the first things I almost always do is paint the walls for me. Butter. Butter yellow. I just, I love butter yellow. I'm not one that goes with the really bold colors. I'm not quite that brave, but butter yellow just warms up the room. That's me. My stepmother likes pistachio green. Okay. More power to her, you know, that makes her happy. It's a bright kind of yellow based. Green makes her feel cheerful. But knowing what colors make you feel happy is important because if you're going to be in an environment, you want to have an energy permeating that environment that supports happiness, even when distress, distressful things are happening. And then smells. Remember, smell is our greatest memory trigger. And there are noxious smells. I don't need to list them, but there are smells you smell and you're like, oh, wow, man. And then there are smells that are pleasant. They may not necessarily remind you of anything, but you like the smell of them. Like jasmine or rose or cedar or. Oh, wood shavings. I love the smell of freshly sawn wood. That's just me. But I know some of the smells I like. Are they all essential oil smells? No, of course not. But I know things that. Types of smells that I can put in my environment or things I can expose myself to that do generate what I call my happy juices. And it's important for people to know those because they can counteract noxious smells as well as other environmental or even emotional or cognitive stressors sometimes or with pictures and tactile things and smells. Even a lot of times in an emergency rescue kit that I encourage People to have, if they've got anxiety or either they've got, either they are on the autism spectrum disorder or they have a child on the autism spectrum disorder. Anyone who's prone to dysregulate when they're, you know, in public or, or not at home having a rescue kit with them. And a lot of times things that we put in there help people eliminate sources of environmental stress. From sunglasses to block out bright lights or fluorescent lights, to noise canceling headphones, to soft blankets that somebody can, can stroke, that can help them feel calmer to, you know, images, pictures on a mobile device that they can look at that make them feel happy or help them focus. And even smells that they can smell. And it, again, it doesn't necessarily have to be essential oils. It can be just any old smell. There was a spray, it was white lily and ginger or something I think that I used to use all the time when my son was little. And, and there was just something about that, that smell that I found very calming. And because I found it calming, I know theoretically in reality, because I found it calming, he found it calming. But you know, it got to the point where whenever he would smell it, it would also calm him down. And having that on hand was always, always helpful. So knowing what your triggers are is important. Environmental stress can also be caused by EM fields or your electromagnetic fields. And people who live next to really high voltage power lines, you know, those big monstrosities that are super metal contraptions that the vultures like to sit on, often report severe headaches, tension headaches, chest pressure, heart palpitations, sleep problems. Their blood, blood work often shows low melatonin. Interestingly enough, sleep apnea, tinnitus, fatigue, memory loss and redness in the skin with itching, rashes and tingling on the arms or face. Now a lot of these symptoms can be traced back to, to HPA axis hyperactivation and, and excess levels of cortisol and imbalances in the calming chemicals like serotonin, which can lead to low melatonin. But it's interesting that there is a significant body of research out there that actually does support scientifically the correlation between distance from an EM field and these symptoms. Now there is also research out there, I will tell you that disputes it. And you know, there are obvious reasons why that might happen. So it's important to examine the research and draw your own conclusions about EM field. But I did want to add it here because it is important to be aware of not only, you know, colors and things that we think about But EM fields and we also have, excuse me, These days we also have EM fields that emanate from our electronic devices, including our cell phones, the wireless, you know, anything that's bluetooth and soon 5G. So being aware that those do send out, you know, different waves in our environment that we're not really sure how they impact the individual. But people who are particularly sensitive may find that it adds physical or environment emotional stress to them. Social stress can contribute, can, can cause. Sorry. Social stress can use a lot of energy when we're being empathetic. I mean, that takes energy. We know that if we've been focusing on somebody all day, you know, maybe you had six back to back sessions, you're exhausted by the end of the day, which kind of goes in with compassion as well. Excuse me. Interaction and communication can also use energy. I mean positive interaction and communication can be really energizing, you know, but it also takes energy to pull, process all that input and formulate your responses. I love having discussions about peer reviewed research and stuff that can, can be very exciting and positive for me or just positive interaction with my kids or my friends. But it also takes energy to do that, to focus on them, to hear, to listen, to process conflictual interactions. Remember, that's distress. So it's going to get, cause the release of more energy because the brain perceives that as a threat. But conflictual interactions, whether it's with your boss or a colleague, or a client family member, can not only be energy draining because you have to focus on what's being said, but you also have to modulate your emotions during a conflict. Control your anger, not give in to your urges to start screaming or something. Conflictual communication usually uses a lot more cognitive, emotional and physical energy. Recognizing that if you're working in an environment that is highly conflictual, where there's a person or persons that you work with that are highly conflictual, recognizing the toll that that takes on your mental health and your energy levels is really important. And figuring out how to address it is also important. Whether it's mediation through human resources or you know, just talking to them, or setting boundaries, maybe changing offices, you know, depending on the situation, there are a lot of different options and sometimes there's no option. So you've got to figure out how you're going to tolerate it so it doesn't suck your energy dry. And then people with attachment or abandonment issues experience a lot of stress in relationships. They are, they experience a lot of stress being hypervigilant, scanning for signs of disapproval, scanning for signs of impending abandonment and actively using energy to try to garner approval from people. So dealing with attachment and abandonment issues is huge at in terms of reducing the energy that people spend and the distress that they experience on a day to day basis. Stress is ubiquitous and it comes in many forms. The goal is to reduce distress to free up energy for eustress and hopefully still have some left over for anything else that comes along like a cell phone battery. We need to use the energy for the apps and activities that are enjoyable, the eustress and the stuff we got to do. Eliminate or suspend apps that drain your battery as much as possible. I know last week I almost never do this. It's like the last time I took a week off from the gym was after I had surgery three years ago. But last week I just, I recognized that my battery was low and even though, you know, I really ultimately enjoy the gym, I didn't have it in me. And it was important for me to suspend that app, so to speak, in order to have the energy to focus on, on getting classes ready for y' all and doing what I needed to do, you know, at the house and with the children and each day your phone needs time to plug in and recharge. If you've ever tried to use your phone while it's recharging, you know it doesn't recharge nearly as quickly. You're the same way. You know, it's important when you're trying to recharge that you try to give yourself even a couple of hours once a week to just be and to recharge. However it is that you recharge, recognizing that if you're trying to do six things at the same time, that's, that's kind. It's not defeating the purpose, but it's mitigating the effectiveness of that recharge time. If this podcast helps you help your clients or yourself, please support us by purchasing your CEUs@Allce.com or or getting your agency to sponsor an episode. A direct link to the on demand CEUs for this podcast is@allce.com podcastceus that's allce.com podcastceus to sponsor an episode of Counselor Toolbox and reach over 50,000 clinicians per week. Go to allce.com sponsor. Thank you.