How Stress Puts Us Into Stress Mode, and What We Need to Recover

The information provided in this podcast is educational and not intended to diagnose or treat medical conditions. Dr. Donnie Wilson struggled for decades to solve her numerous health issues and heal her body. But with focused determination, she healed herself. And in doing so, she discovered the Dr. Donnie stress recovery Protocol. On this show, you're going to hear from doctors, nutritionists and Experts along with Dr. Donnie, who will give practical advice and wisdom to help heal your body. This is how humans heal.

Hey guys.

This episode is from one of Dr. Donnie's live Facebook streams where she answered listeners questions live on Facebook.

It's just been so much stress for everyone, especially the past couple months and then even more stress. I've been hearing from patients and from those of you and I can see it for myself too, that the stress is just at all time high. And of course this is what I've specialized in and researched and my passion is understanding stress. For over 20 years I've been doing that. And so I just feel like this is something I, this is something I can do to help because this is really my passion. I love helping to understand our bodies, understand what our bodies need, what do our human bodies need in order to be healthy. And in order to be healthy while stressed is the thing, you know, we're, again, we're under so much stress right now with.

Everything that's going on in the world.

And this is the thing, is this is what I've been studying for all these years. I first became interested in stress. I think it was really back when I was in nature pathic medical school. So I was under a lot of stress. Ton of courses and a ton of things on my to do list. I was studying nature pathic medicine and I was studying to be a midwife, which meant I was on call and I might get woken up every night or every other night when a woman was in labor and I was attending home births. So I would wake up in the middle of the night and drive around in the dark and find this home where the woman was in labor. And then it was my job to figure out how was the labor going, how far progressed was she, when is this baby coming? Is there anything that we need to do to address it? And so I was on call for births while I was doing my naturopathic training too. And I became very interested in fear of labor. Maybe some of you can relate to that. Like if you think about having a baby right, right away you can go, oh my gosh, how is this baby going to get out? How's that going to happen? And of course, we know that human bodies have been having babies ever, right? So we know our bodies are supposed to know how to do that. But at the same time, it's scary to think about this baby coming out of our bodies and how's that going to work and is the baby going to be okay? Am I going to be okay? What's going to happen to me? And so I became very interested in studying fear of labor. And I studied actually women who had a history of physical abuse or emotional abuse and how they responded to labor. And the thing is that, first of all, I felt so honored for these women to allow me to share in their birth experience and to ask them questions and to learn from their process of experiencing stress.

What I learned is that even in labor, we need a certain amount of stress and stress hormones. We need a certain amount of cortisol and adrenaline, which are our stress hormones, need a certain amount of cortisol and adrenaline for labor to work. Right? Like our human bodies have these stress hormones for a reason, to actually get.

The labor process to work. But the other part of it is if we have too much stress. Because here's the thing, I'm also trained as a doula, and a doula is a labor support person. And in the research about labor support people, we see that when women have support during labor, the labor goes better.

They have fewer interventions, they have less need for intervention, things just go more smoothly. And when you dig deeper and you go, why is it, why is it that women have support during labor that labor goes better? Well, it's because they have support for their stress experience. And if women don't have enough support during labor, labor can also come to a standstill. So it's essentially to say, if we don't have enough stress hormones, labor doesn't happen. But if we have too much stress hormones, labor also doesn't happen.

So then once I researched this and I graduated and I started practicing, and I started practicing in the tri state area in New York in 2001. So it was right after 9, 11, and it was a super stressful time. People were experiencing so much stress related to their life and their family and their future. And I thought to myself, well, how about I apply the same information I learned from women in labor to people in all situations experiencing stress? And so I started implementing this way back then. And I found that it was true. It was that we need a certain amount of stress in our lives, right? We need, like, to have something we're passionate about, to be parents to, to have A project to have a job, right? We need a certain amount of cortisol to wake up in the morning, and we need some adrenaline to help us respond as well. So we need these stress hormones. It's not that we want zero stress, and it's not that we want zero cortisol. It's that we need a certain amount in order to thrive. The problem is that I'm just going to try to see if I tilt that a little bit. The problem is if we have too much stress and not enough stress recovery, like, right, so we need enough. We need some stress. We also need stress recovery like we need sleep at night, we need food during the day, we need water, we need exercise, we need this, what I would call stress support that helps us counterbalance the stress we're exposed to. And when we have stress and we have stress recovery, that's when our bodies function best. That's when our hormones are imbalanced, our neurotransmitters are balanced, our digestion works right, Our hormones work right. But if our stress goes up too high and we don't have enough stress recovery to counterbalance, that's when the health issues start happening. And for each person, it's different, right? For one person, it might be stomach pain, heartburn, ibs. Another person, it might be skin rashes or anxiety or sleep issues. For another person, it might be their immune system. Maybe you're not fighting off infections as well, or you get autoimmunity or allergies. Another person, it might be hormone imbalances like fatigue or thyroid imbalance or blood sugar imbalance. So it can affect us in different ways, but it really comes back to this. Too much stress and not enough stress recovery. And the thing I want to really dive into today, please first tell me if you can relate to that. I'd love to hear from you guys. I'll see if I can see some of your comments. Can you see what I mean? Like, can you relate to, first of all, just the point that as humans we need a certain amount of stress, right? Because a lot of times we walk around thinking, if only I had zero stress, or if only the stress didn't exist, or having kind of a negative view about stress, you know, as if stress is this, you know, negative, heavy, evil thing. And what the studies show is if we're stressed about stress, it's worse for us. So I want to really help you to be not stressed about stress. I want to help you to understand the value of stress and the value of stress recovery so that you don't have the. You can decrease the negative impact of the stress by doing that. And so the first step is awareness. The first step is just saying, okay, I'm human. I'm going to have stress. That's just part of life. But I also. It doesn't make sense. We're not superheroes. We're not machines, we're not robots. It's not like we're supposed to be able to power through every kind of stress and be resilient without any support. That doesn't make sense either. We're responsive. We're just as responsive as a plant. You know, if your plant experienced a stress, right? If your plant didn't have enough water or fell out of its pot, which happens to mine all the time when the cats knock them over, that's a stress. So you would expect that the plant is maybe not going to look as good the next day if it didn't get enough water. Well, same for you. If you don't get your stress recovery and your nutrient needs, your body's not going to respond or feel or look the same way. So it's about really acknowledging that we're human and as humans, we're going to have stress. And we're not superheroes. We need stress recovery. Also, the other analogy sometimes I'll say is like a marathon runner, you know, if you're an athlete, you're trained to know that you're going to need recovery time. You know, an athlete doesn't just go perform their sport and not expect that. They're going to need some time to recover. Maybe some of you are athletes and you can, you know, relate to this. I just think that all of us, even if you're not.

An athlete performing today, you're a human performing today, which means that as a human performing your daily activities, you still need that stress recovery. And so just acknowledging that about ourselves, that we're not invincible, that we do have needs. And so please comment.

If that brings up some thoughts for you, like some aha moments or some realizations, like, oh, okay. In some ways it's like, oh, okay, I can just be human and I can just. Because in some ways it feels like giving our ourselves the support we need can almost feel indulgent, you know, like, oh, you mean I need to call my friend or I need to sleep. Like some. For some people, that feels indulgent. Like, I've. When I have spoken to audiences around the world, some cultures, really kind of really, including the United States, like, where I grew up, sleep is considered like Way down on the list. You know, sleep when you die is the phrase, right? No, we can't just sleep when we die. We need to sleep day to day because that's what's going to help us keep up with our activities and with anytime we have additional stress. So of course, right now in the world where there's a lot more additional stress, right? Like if you watch anything on news media, maybe you can, right, Awake, start to feel your adrenaline rising, your cortisol rising. You start to feel your mind racing, your heart racing. You're trying to lay down and go to sleep, and your mind won't let you go to sleep. That's that stress response going, right? Some of you can relate to that. Please, you know, please say send a. Like, you know, like maybe you can relate to just feeling that stress response bubble up inside of you. We know that when our brain, really, the amygdala picks up on stress, it tells our hypothalamus and our brain that there's a stress going on. Whether that's an emotional stress, a physical stress. Many different types of stresses can trigger the amygdala and the hypothalamus. And it says.

There you go. Yes, sleep is for the weak. That's what we hear, right? Let's eliminate that phrase. Sleep is not for the weak. Sleep is for the strong. Right? Sleep is what keeps you strong. I would love to just rewrite some of these phrases and sleep, maybe we can start doing that today. Let's rewrite these phrases to say no. Sleep is what humans need. Let's be human. Let's acknowledge our humanness and just give our bodies and our humans bodies what they need.

So this brain picks up on the various stresses. Thank you all for joining me. Sleep is smart. Oh, there's a good phrase. Sleep is for the smart. There we go. Thank you. So sleep is for the sensible. Sleep is for the humans. You know, like we're in human bodies, we're not in robot bodies. Another joke sometimes I say is, you can't go down to this body store and get a new body. Like, this is your body. So we've got to acknowledge, hey, this is the body I need to take care of and understand. And we don't come with a manual. You know, like whenever I order something, I just ordered a cat scratcher. And I know it came with an instruction manual I'm going to need to look at to figure out how to put it together and how it works. But our bodies don't come with an instruction manual. So this Is our body training us when we can listen in and observe. And it's not about judging our body. It's not like we go try to. It doesn't help to be hard on ourselves and be like, why is my body responding this way? Why do I feel anxious? Why do I feel irritable? Then we start to have this almost like we're, like, mad at ourselves for having a stress response. It's like, no, don't be mad at your body for having a stress response. That's normal. So, like, now if I start to feel my adrenaline going up, I'll say to the person I'm talking to, I say, I feel my adrenaline is high. I know I'm stressed right now, and I appreciate that you're helping me, and I appreciate that I probably sound very stressed right now because my adrenaline is high. I can feel it. My heart's racing. My mind's racing. So I think if you. The more we accept, each of us accept that that's a human response, adrenaline. And it's not something to be judged. It's not something to be judged in another person, and it's not something to be judged in yourself. Like, I think the more we can communicate about that and say, hey, I'm in stress mode right now. And I know that means I probably seem a little over the top, a little bit irritable, right? But that there's a reason for that, and that's why I'm. I'm asking for your help. Or that's why I might need a little time to myself. That's maybe why I need to take a walk. So I think maybe we can start using this language. What do you guys think? If could, you know, have you found that you can accept that about your body instead of judging our bodies? Right? Because it's very. That's the other thing is, in our cultures, we tend to judge ourselves a lot of things, like, why me? Why now? And we almost get harder on our bodies for having a normal stress response. And when you think about it, you're like, why am I doing that? Because then it's just adding more stress to the stress. So instead, if you just. I think it will help if you start to go, oh, okay, my body's doing what it's supposed to do. It's trying to protect me. Let me just go, okay, Let me see what my body needs. And maybe I need to take a breath. Maybe I need to ask for help. Let me see what I can do to just understand my stress response. Because what's Happening. As soon as the amygdala and the hypothalamus pick up on a stress, it signals to the pituitary, which is also in the brain, and it signals to what we call the sympathetic nervous system. First of all, the sympathetic nervous system creates the adrenaline and the adrenaline is what goes through your whole system. It makes your heart race, makes your mind race, makes your blood move, because it's trying to help you respond to the stress. And then that pituitary tells your adrenal glands, which are above your kidneys, down here in your back. So it's going from your brain to your adrenal glands. And the adrenal glands make the cortisol and more adrenaline. And this is basically going to tell your body, hey, set aside digestion, don't worry about the hormones right now, don't worry about those things we can do when we're relaxing. Let's do everything to make sure that he or she is ready to respond to this stress right now. So the cortisol raises your blood sugar levels, it turns off your digestion, it gets your muscles working, it gets your.

Brain responding to the stress. And so this is a normal stress response from the adrenal glands making cortisol and adrenaline. The thing is that that should normally turn itself off. It actually has a built in turnoff system.

As soon as the brain picks up on increasing cortisol levels, it should turn off the signal. That's a normal turn off mode. The problem is when we have days and months and years when that stress response from our nervous system keeps on signaling, so it keeps turning the light switch on, it keeps saying, flip the light switch to stress mode again. Flip the light switch to stress mode again. And pretty soon the brain just never turns that light switch off. It just keeps the stress mode on. And maybe some of you can relate to that where you just feel like I've had maybe a death in the family, maybe a death of a pet, maybe a job change, loss of a job, or I think I really want to add to that list racism and discrimination. Because when people feel discriminated against.

And I think we all can relate to maybe some point in our lives feeling like someone wasn't really seeing us, wasn't including us, wasn't listening to us, whether based on color of our skin or our sex or, or many other possible reasons, but especially right now in the world, it's important for us, I think, to bring attention to racism where people are maybe not responding or including people based on this color of their skin. And when that happens to us as humans, it's stressful. These are things that, again, trigger the brain to shift these neurotransmitters. The adrenaline goes off, the cortisol goes off, that stress mode turns on. And so imagine anytime a person is going out into the world and interacting, whether that's to get on a bus or go into a store or go to a job, and they're every single time having a stress trigger because they might not be treated fairly, or they might have someone respond to them in a negative way. Right. Like, we can relate to that. Right. Like if you go out into the world and you. Someone might actually interact with you in a negative way, it stresses you. Right? You feel angry, you feel sad, and you know that that stress response is being triggered. And so it's important to acknowledge that those are stresses that we then need to help our bodies recover from. But if we understand how much of a stress it is to each other, that maybe we can make different choices about that. Maybe we can. Again, I think if we're more aware of these stresses and how it affects our bodies, that we're going to be more understanding of ourselves and of each other. So if another person seems stressed or hesitant, maybe it's our chance to say, hey, I get it. I understand. I've. I've felt that before. I want to make sure you know that I'm not judging you. I'm here for you as another human, to be supportive, to be any way of support that I can so that we can work together to accomplish whatever we're trying to accomplish together or to help you through your process. You know, it's a way different experience than assuming that the other person's stress response is something negative. No, their stress response is trying to protect them based on their past experiences. Right. Like, and that's the same for each of us. What happens is when we have negative experiences in the past, we kind of anticipate that negative experience happening again. And so it becomes, you see what I mean, like, layers of stress. And so I'm thinking that the more. And I. Again, I. A lot of this I have to really find for myself. I also have, you know, many times where I've noticed, why was I having a stress response in that moment? Was there something from my past that I'm anticipating and that's kind of bringing that stress forward. And all of a sudden, we're no longer in the present moment. We're really responding based on our past experience. And it's. It's natural because we're trying to be protective and not have that same thing happen again. But what if we can all just give ourselves a little bit more understanding and presence and togetherness and understanding that we're all human, we all have a human stress response. We're all going to probably anticipate stress. Let's just be there for each other.

Because what happens is the more we can then kind of take a break and be compassionate of ourselves and compassionate to others. It's. It turns the light switch of stress off. That light switch of stress will then turn off and the cortisol levels correct, the adrenaline levels correct, and your body can go back to doing the digestion it needs and doing the hormones and doing the immunity that it needs. We need that immunity to protect us from viruses that are potentially a threat from other, you know, things that we might come into contact in our environment. And so we want our immune system working, we want our digestion working, we want our nervous system working, and our hormones, we want them working in a nice harmony. And the only way that's going to happen is if our body gets to turn off the stress response and get some stress recovery time. Even if that means just being able to take a breath, being able to, you know, listen to some music. I call it couch time. Being able to just sit on the couch and do nothing. You know, one of my favorites lately is I've found where I can put on instrumental music or even some of the healing sounds music and just let it play. And I just practice just sitting. In fact, it's a type of mindfulness or meditation. But mindfulness and meditation can look very different for different people. For some people, it might look like gardening, or it might look like taking a shower or a bath, or it might look like calling a friend or.

Watching a show that's relaxing to you. Or exercise is a great one, too. So these are activities that potentially could even just be five, ten minutes, or maybe it's an hour or two, or maybe you have a whole day to just do activities that are stress recovery and to realize that we need that stress recovery time. And right now, I think in the world, we've had very little time for stress recovery. Although it's interesting because maybe some of you can relate to this. Some people who've been at home or in, say, quarantine noticed that for the first time in their lives, they're actually getting stress recovery time that they were not getting before. I've noticed that for myself. For me, for 20 years, I've been commuting into Manhattan over to Connecticut and back and forth to my different offices and even flying to my office in Arizona. And for the past couple months, I've been in my home office. And that's to me, never happened before. And at first that was a stress, right? Like at first, any change in our environment can really be a stress to our system. If you went from commuting all the time to staying home, in some ways it's a stress because your body's like, wait a minute, how do we do this? What's the schedule? What's the plan? And there's a little bit of adaptation while our bodies figure out how to do this new schedule. So in some ways, something positive can also be a stress. And it may take a little time to get adjusted. But then what I'm hearing from people is as they get used to this new schedule where they get to be in their home, they don't have a reason to have to keep going to parties. They're invited to, that they really need to go to bed early, but they're going to go anyway to this party. Or, you know.

Expectations or obligations or commitments. You know, we can go, no, I'm supposed to be staying at home. I'm going to stay at home. And in some ways that's been a real opportunity for stress recovery. It's just that at the same time, we've also had stress of a lot of unknown and unknown about businesses and finances and the future and our health. And so there's been a lot of stress even though we've also maybe had a little bit more stress recovery time at home. Right. So just kind of evaluate for yourself because I think it's very different for each person. What's been your counterbalance? You know, has your stress been. You could look at each on a day to day, or you could look at this on a weekly basis, or you could look at this on a month or a year. Where has my stress level been in terms of emotional stress, physical stress? I even look at toxins as a stress. Certain foods are stress. You know, look at all the different factors that might have been more stressful to your body recently and what are the things that have been a stress recovery? And where's your, where are you in that scale? Is it, if you think of it almost like a teeter totter, you know, like, is it balanced? Are you able to get the stress recovery to balance out your stress levels? And based on that, then you might make different decisions. You might say, hey, maybe I need to do a little add in where Can I add in a little more stress recovery into my day?

Is there something I can decrease that I know is causing me stress? Maybe I need to create some boundaries. This is where you hear the term boundaries being used. A boundary is basically saying no to something is to say, well, I really like, you know, watching shows till 2am Believe me, I've been there. My daughter and I sometimes will watch shows till 2am but sometimes I have to say to myself, no, I really need to go to bed so that I can get enough sleep so I'm ready for the next day. And so my boundary for myself is I need to go to bed by this certain time instead of.

Staying up, you know, to watch a show. But a boundary could also be, you know, with another person you need to communicate with, you know, like no, I really can't do that right now or tonight or today or next week because I have this other priority that I need to do for myself. And so creating boundaries is a way to help us kind of contain the stress and make sure that we have enough space for, for stress recovery. You know, if we, I'm, you know, I know if I need to do get in my 10 minute workout, which I love by the way, 10 or 15 minute strength workouts, or I need to get in my, you know, whatever kind of stress recovery you prefer, I need to get in my 10 minute walk at the beach or I need to get whatever that is for you. I need to, you know, I need to make sure I have time to put bird food in for the birds because that's not only good for the birds but it's good for me. You know, what are those things in your life you're probably we already doing but when you think about it, they're actually your chance for stress recovery. You're getting to be in nature, you're getting to connect with animals, maybe you're getting to connect with yourself. Those are stress recovery and we want to make sure you have some space and time for that in your day. And if you realize, oh my gosh, I've over committed myself, I'm supposed to do this and this and this and this. And I'm watching this video and it ended up meaning that I didn't get to do my self care or exercise. Wait a minute, I need a boundary there. I need to say I need to be a little more disciplined with myself and say no. Right now what I need is my stress recovery time and that means I might not be able to do that other thing right now.

And I think that when we can be understanding about that for ourselves and others. Like if you notice other people in your life who are, maybe they seem irritable, maybe they seem like they're kind of like negative or you know, responding in a way where you're like why is that person like sound like they're criticizing or judging? Actually probably that person is needing more self care. They're probably a little overstressed and they. Sometimes that person just needs a little space to realize it for themselves. You know, to say, oh I can, you know, if a person seems irritable, you can just say them. I hear that, you know, maybe you need a little time or you need a little bit of self care. I'm gonna go do take care of myself and you know, let me know, you know if I can help. So that, because sometimes the way that people even for ourselves, right. If you notice that for yourself, if you're like a little irritable about something or getting upset about something, you're like why am I upset about that? It's probably that.

Your stress is out of balance. You're getting more stress than stress recovery time.

Something a lot of people don't know is that too much stress can actually create an abundance of health problems like high blood pressure, high blood sugar, anxiety, migraines, insomnia, even fertility issues. This is because high stress puts your adrenal glands on overload. They release cortisol and adrenaline which controls your digestion, hormones, immune system, energy focus and even your emotional response. So how can you beat stress when you don't know where to start? That's why we have a free 7 day stress reset program. It's designed to help support weight loss, digestive healing and hormone balancing. It includes support for integrating self care. Daily tips come to you by email and video. Gluten free dairy free meal plans as well as grocery shopping lists, journal pages and more. This free program will help you beat stress and put you on the path to wholeness in your body. Get your plan now for free@drdonni.com all.

Right, let me see, let me see if you guys have any more questions for me because I am hoping this. Thanks for saying hi, I love, you know, love seeing you here and.

Okay, I see. Oh I see. Yes, you're worried about your dog's death. Exactly. That's the thing. I'm so sorry to hear about your dog. Pets are so important for many of us. You know, pets, they've showed over and over that pets are such a great stress recovery, stress support. It gives us that connection. Of course, they're usually so welcoming and loving, right? They're just excited to see. And they help our bodies release a hormone called oxytocin, which is a anti stress hormone. It's the love and bonding hormone. And so animals can be such a source of love and connection and stress recovery. And then when we lose them, it's very sad. Like when we lose anything, right? It's this grief process that happens. And so sharing about it is very helpful. I think that the more we can say, like, you are, like, put it out there. Hey, my pet died, and I'm really sad about that, then all of us can respond and say, oh, my gosh, I'm so sorry that your dog died. It's really hard to lose a pet. And I want to support you with that stress recovery process. And you know, it does. It takes time sometimes to go through the grief process. And knowing that grief is also a normal human process. Our bodies know how to do grief. Our bodies know that there's going to be some anger, there's going to be some denial, there's going to be sadness. That's going to be part of the process. And to be human means that we're going to have grief, we're going to have loss, we're going to have anger, we're going to have sadness. It doesn't make sense to try to ignore or eliminate or try to not have these feelings. These are human emotions.

One of my friends and colleagues, Joan, has wrote a book that talks about how the more comfortable we can become, the more awareness we. We can have more confidence in ourselves that we can have these emotional experiences and get through it, right? Like to know that our body can do it. We can have this feeling. And she says that it takes 90 seconds to have a certain feeling. So you might have a feeling of anxiety or fear or sadness or loneliness or a lot of these feelings. If we really feel them and give ourselves 90 seconds to feel it, we start to get into confidence about it. We can go, oh, yeah, I know I can feel angry. I can really feel it. And I know my body's gonna get through it and it's gonna then go to the next thing. And I think it's a, you know, similar concept of grief, except grief goes longer. I find it's a process of, you know, being present with these feelings and it's gonna keep coming up, you know, little by little as you're processing the loss or the grief. But to know that your body can do it and you can get through it. Our bodies are not static. That's the same with stress. Our bodies are not. Even though we've been exposed to major stresses in our lives. You know, people can have childhood stresses, major crisis and trauma and abuse and discrimination and racism. That can happen. And as humans, there's ways where our bodies can process and recover. And that's what gives me hope in these times when stress is really high, is I know that stress recovery is possible, but it does mean that we have to give our bodies the space for that stress recovery and the space for that grief and the space for that and the acknowledgement, the validation that. That. That stress happened to us and that gave our bodies the chance to process it and recover from it. And what I then also do is I look at the actual cortisol levels. Like I measure cortisol levels. Because a lot of times we go, just. Someone yesterday said to me, well, Dr. Donnie, I know I've been stressed. I know my cortisol and adrenaline are probably been affected. Why measure them? What's the point of measuring them if I already know that it's. It must have been affected? Here's the thing is that when you actually measure the levels, it's validating also, because then you can actually relate to your body and see, hey, where is my cortisol and adrenaline now? Not in necessarily the exact moment of the stress, but now that it's been a day or a week or a month or a year or 10 years later, where is your cortisol now? What is it in the morning? What is it in the middle of the day? What is it in the evening? What's your adrenaline level? Is it too high? Is it too low? Did your body actually recover from the stress and get back to optimal? Or was your body left over with this cortisol too high, too low? Adrenaline too high, too low? Where exactly is your body at this point in time based on the various stresses you've been exposed to? The reason that information is so helpful is one, because of validation. So that you can connect with your body and really connect with the idea that your body is affected by stress, and you can see where those levels are. The second reason is because then we can help your body recover not only by the emotional processing that we're talking about and the support and just knowing that our body can get through these emotional processes, but actually if we see the cortisol is too low, we can use different, whether it's herbs, nutrients, peptides, glandulars, hormones, we can get your cortisol back to where it should be. But first we need to know if it's too low. If we just guess, we might give the wrong treatment. But if we see that your cortisol is too low, we have options. We can then figure out what is the best way to help your cortisol improve. If your cortisol is too high at certain times of day, we want to know that because then we can give the right treatment. There's different herbs and nutrients and peptides and different approaches that can help bring your cortisol down when it's too high. A lot of people will say to me, well, I'm assuming my cortisol is too high because I've had a lot of stress. I wouldn't assume. I mean, it's. If anything, if you have a feeling your cortisol is too high, I would maybe figure it might be too high at night when it's supposed to be low. But I'd rather measure because there's many times when we've been wrong where we thought, oh, my cortisol is going to be high. And we measure it and it's actually low, we would have given the opposite treatment. We would have made it worse. So measuring cortisol levels can be huge in terms of understanding your body at this point in time and how that balance of stress and stress recovery has happened over your lifetime. And then we can also measure adrenaline levels and by measuring her adrenaline, which can also be too high. This morning I was looking at a patient's adrenaline levels that was way up high. And of course, you know, her mom was telling me how she has just times during the day where her anxiety and her.

She's just super stressed and anxious. We can see, oh, wow, that adrenaline is really high. We need to help the body process the adrenaline. And of course, we know that our genetics come into play with all of this. There's certain genes that have to do with processing adrenaline, and there's genes that have to do with processing cortisol. So you may also have some genetic tendencies toward high or low cortisol. And so by understanding your genetic tendencies, as well as understanding exactly how stress has affected your body at this point point in time, we now have such a better understanding of your body. I feel like this is such key information that everyone should have. You know, like, we need to know how has our body been affected by stress so that we can effectively help your body recover from stress. We know that when people will go through life for decades with their cortisol and adrenaline too high or too low, we know they have increased risk of depression, anxiety, diabetes, heart disease, cancer, dementia, you name it. These major causes of death essentially come back to having stress imbalance, having cortisol and adrenaline out of balance, and perhaps never really getting a chance to process the stress. And what I find is, and this is also in the research, that when we can help that cortisol and adrenaline back to where it should be, which again, can be done with not only dietary sleep, stress recovery activities, but also by using nutrients and herbs and other approaches to help get your levels back where they should be. Because once you help your body recover, it can stay there. Like I see it over and over, we recheck levels. We do a lot of research in following these patterns. When we get the cortisol and adrenaline back on track.

It stays there as long as the person's maintaining their stress recovery. But as soon as the stress goes up and their stress recovery is down, their levels go back off track again. Right. Like, it becomes a more predictable pattern for that person. And the thing is that as much as we know as humans as a whole, we're all affected by stress individually. We're each affected slightly differently. So you have your unique stress type, or sometimes I refer to it as like your stress fingerprint, but your unique stress pattern is unique to you. There's certain common ones. This is what I'm researching and going to be writing more about soon. But to know that we're all affected by stress over time and in the moment, and that there's things we can do about it, and that it's about knowing how your body responds to stress and what it needs to help rebalance is what can help you fend off viruses, like HPV virus, for example, is one that I help a lot with. It helps you to keep your digestion working right? So you can absorb your nutrients, keeps your gut bacteria balanced, keeps your hormones balanced, keeps your neurotransmitters working for you, keeps your memory working, your mood on track, these are things to help you stay feeling at your best so you can be there for your family and do what you love. Okay, let me see your other questions. I have trouble sleeping every night ever since COVID Oh, my gosh. Interesting. Anyone else you know? So it sounds like she had COVID virus and ever since then she's been having a hard time sleeping at night. Of course, a lot of people, even without having the actual COVID virus. Thank you so much for saying hi and for your comments. I really appreciate it.

Even people who didn't have the virus have been having Trouble with sleep because of the stress, you know, that affects our sleep. But the interesting thing I've seen in patients who had the COVID virus is a lot of fatigue. People find that even once the virus clears and they're breathing fine and they've recovered from the virus, they're experiencing fatigue for weeks or months afterwards. And I believe it comes back to the same. Having a virus and going through a major infection will also be a stress on your system. So your cortisol and adrenaline will be affected by having an infection like a COVID virus, and very likely your cortisol levels are affected. So even with the sleep situation, if you're finding you're having trouble sleeping, like you lay down and go to sleep and you can't fall asleep or you're waking up in the night. Ever since you had the COVID virus, it's probably that going through the infection was a stress on your system and it affected your cortisol and maybe your adrenaline too. And so whenever someone has an infection, I always, in my mind, this is something I learned early as a naturopathic doctor. We always have to help the adrenal glands. Remember, the adrenal glands make the cortisol and adrenaline. We have to help them recover from stress because otherwise you might have residual symptoms. It could be sleep issues, could be fatigue, could be low memory or irritability or any of these symptoms we've been talking about, really. So what I would do, if you've noticed you're not been yourself ever since having Covid or any other infection, I would want to check your cortisol levels and your adrenaline levels and say, okay, let's find out what's going on here. Maybe you have still high cortisol and adrenaline because your body was trying to protect you from this virus. And now even though the virus is gone, you're now you can't sleep, right, because your cortisol and adrenaline are still high, that stress mode is still on. That's how you can tell the stress mode is still on. And we need to get that stress mode turned off. And there's ways to turn off the stress mode. I mean, even sometimes just having awareness for it. I think there's a partly just acknowledging and having the mindset and then giving your body extra stress recovery time. Maybe you have to do a little more in the evening to really tell your body it's time to go to sleep. Make sure it's dark in the bedroom, turn up, you know, turn out the lights, turn on some music, do a meditation, really do extra to tell signal to your body. We're going to be relaxed now. You know, like that's what you're essentially telling your brain. Let's turn off the stress. Let's turn on the stress recovery. And sometimes that's enough. Just those things you can do in your day to day. But you may, if that doesn't work, you may need to actually use some herbs and nutrients to help. For example, the nutrient called phosphatidylserine. And then the herbs, for example, ashwagandha, banaba, leaf, magnolia root, all help reset the signal in the hypothalamus to say, let's turn off that stress mode. And you may only have to take them for a week or maybe a month to get your brain to go, okay, I can see now that the stress is over, I can chill out and go back to my normal sleep pattern. So I love that example.

Oh, she said she didn't even have Covid. She's just been stressed since the pandemic. Yeah, yeah. It's just. That's exactly it. That a lot of people are complaining of having trouble sleeping, higher anxiety.

You know, these various ways that stress shows up, digestive issues. I'm hearing a lot about heartburn. People have more allergies, even, maybe other infections. Maybe you don't have Covid, but maybe all of a sudden you're getting bladder infections. You're like, why am I getting bladder infections now? Well, it's because your body's been in stress mode from this pandemic and so you became more susceptible to these things, whatever your body's susceptibility is. So, yeah, so if you've noticed that you're not sleeping or anything else since the COVID pandemic or even now with some of the other stress, which of course all of these things, I can't even. I don't want to be negative. I mean, I feel like Covid is a virus. It's in our world, in our environment, like many other viruses.

Racism is something that's existing in our culture. These are things that I'd rather bring it to the surface and know it's there so we can do something about it. I'd rather know that the COVID virus exists so that we can all be proactive and go, okay, how can we be proactive and support our systems and help us recover from this? I'd rather know that racism is happening so we can all be proactive and bring awareness to it and change it. Right. We can make changes to these things. So it's not always does the stress negative, right? It's more like, how can we shift our view of it and say, hey, this stress of this pandemic is, you know, yes, it's happened, but it's also brought us a lot of awareness for ourselves, our culture, our environment, and making us look, I think, at ourselves and say, what am I doing to help myself with my health, with my stress recovery, and how to help us all together get through this together. How can. With our awareness of ourselves as humans and our awareness of how we relate to each other and the environment that we live in, right? There's bacteria, there's viruses, there's other microbes. We're in this constantly responding environment. And I think the more we can look at it that way and look at it as, hey, here's a chance for us to really have a chance to look at ourselves and look at the way we're interacting with each other and make sure that we're getting enough stress recovery not just for ourselves, but stress recovery so that we can be more getting the benefit of the togetherness that can happen, the opportunities that can happen when we work together and we accomplish our goals together. So let's see. I know we're probably just about out of time, but I want to see if you guys have any other questions. This is. This is great. It's been, you know, I'm glad to be able to share this with you. I hope that maybe it's giving you some insights and maybe a little bit different perspective of anything to say. Yes, there's a lot of stress. There's potentially a lot of stress in just the unknowns and the fear about what's going to happen right. In any one of our lives. Am I going to get sick? Am I going to. Was my family going to do what's going on? What's happening with my job, my home, my family? And to be able to just acknowledge the stress and acknowledge that we all this is going to affect us and that what we need now is the stress recovery time and a little bit of compassion and space for each of us to have that stress recovery time and to be able to say, hey, I understand. You know, I understand that you've experienced this stress. Even if, say, you're connecting with someone who's experienced racism or who's experienced Covid who has experienced another kind of stress, be present with them as a human. I understand. Because sometimes we feel a little awkward. Like, what do I say to this person whose dog died or who had a stressful experience? What do I say to them? Just, I would say start by just saying, I hear you, I see you, I'm here for you. And as a human, another human, I get that that was stressful for you and I'm happy to help any way I can to help you with your stress recovery process. And this is what, you know, maybe Shea, this is what I do for my stress recovery. If I can help by, you know, helping you with meals, with helping you with, you know, any other way that that that might help that other person recover from the stress. And sometimes just having the validation and acknowledgement that the stress happened really can be a huge piece of helping a person recover. And then again for yourselves, thinking through, hey, do I need to know my cortisol and adrenaline levels so that I can really help my body recover from the stress, get my hormones and my messengers back on track so that I can be functioning at my best going forward? Anyway, so I'm so glad you've been here with me. Thank you. I feel so to be able to share this information is such a gift to me and so I appreciate you all and I hope it's helpful and I would love your feedback, if anything, that I might say a different way or I really want to be compassionate and acknowledging of everyone's situation and really have this information be something that potentially helps you moving forward for your life and your health and your interactions with the people in your life.

All right, well, thanks you all and I look forward to talking to you again very soon.

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