How to Fix Chronic Stress for Good

When I started training and when I got into the gym, I thought that effort is the only thing that matters. You know, as long as I'm training, as long as I'm doing the work, as long as I'm listening to all these bodybuilders and these roided-up fitness influencers, that I'm gonna get to my dream physique, get a body that I'm proud of and a body that reflects my ambitions and the person and the identity that I'm trying to become and be. I couldn't be further from the truth because one of the key things that I didn't understand was that there is so much more to the puzzle. You know, just doing the work, just training and eating and showing up, it's maybe 20% of the equation. The other 80% comes from managing your stress, from fixing your lifestyle, from fixing your sleep, from fixing your hormones. And all these small little details that the majority of people are always overlooking. And if we just look at this, you know, I saved the top of this picture just so you can see as well. This is exactly 3 years ago. I had been going consistently to the gym. I had been showing up. I had been doing everything perfect on paper according to these guys that I was listening to. Yet I was looking You know, solid. I'd built some muscles, but my physique was nowhere close to where I wanted it to be, right? Looking bloated, looking inflamed, holding on to water retention and looking puffy. And you can just see that this screams high stress, right? I was working a full-time job. I was trying to start my business at the same time as well. And I had no clue that this stress load and this fatigue that was building up inside of me would affect my Physical shape and my health, right? But then something clicked. I understood that I'm doing everything right on paper, yet nothing is happening. I completely shifted my focus, right? I started focusing on all these other things. You know, I've said this before in multiple other videos. I shifted my focus from just trying to look good to how can I actually feel good from the inside? Because that's the only thing that matters. The only thing that I wanted was laser sharp focus, was high energy, and was just feeling good, high libido, and all these things. That's what I wanted. I didn't even care more about the physique. And funny enough, the physique, when I shifted my focus, came as a byproduct, right? So in this video, I'm gonna break down one of the biggest pillars when it comes to this, and that is stress, and that is managing your stress levels, because that is one of the key things, once again, that I can guarantee you is holding you back from being in your best possible shape and being as healthy as you potentially can. And before we dive in, if you're new to the channel, first of all, welcome. My name is Lucas. I'm just a regular guy from Stockholm. Sweden, and over the last five to six years, I've dedicated all my time and energy to solve complex health problems that traditional medicine always overlooks and that no other person is talking about. So once again, if you stay for the whole of this video, I'm going to take you through the exact framework on how you should be doing things to fix your stress, which is going to be a massive catalyst when it comes to your health and the results that you're going to get. Before we dive in, we have to understand one thing though. What is actually chronic stress? And what does it do? Well, when you're in a chronic sympathetic state, there's a couple things that are going to happen. First, your cortisol stays elevated, right? That is going to suppress testosterone. It's going to increase visceral fat storage, and it's going to break down muscle tissue. Your digestion will also shut down, which leads to low stomach acid, poor nutrient absorption, dysbiosis, and a leaky gut. It's the same thing as I'm saying in all these videos. If you're eating the best of the best grass-fed steak, you're spending all this money on food, which I'm doing as well because that's a direct investment in yourself, right? You should be opting for the highest quality stuff, right? But even the best of the best steak and the best of the best oysters and caviar can be terrible and cause massive problems for your body if you're stressed whilst you're eating. That best of the best, highest quality can still cause dysbiosis and a leaky gut and chronic inflammation. Mitochondrial output drops, right? Less cellular energy, more oxidative stress, more inflammation. Your recovery will be paused. Your body will not build muscle, burn fat efficiently, repair tissue, and optimize hormones while it thinks you're under threat. You cannot grow in fight or flight. I was eating probably 1,800 calories here. I was trying to lose weight. Nothing happened. Here, it's actually a joke. I'm probably— I don't even count, right? I like to train 3 to 4 times per week and like just wing it. I don't count my food, anything. Probably eating closer to 3,500 calories here, right? It's a joke. Here I was starving myself trying to get shredded, but nothing happened. Right? I don't even like I don't even wanna be shredded here. Like let's let's just be honest. But it comes as a byproduct because I understand that it comes as a byproduct of me actually being truly healthy from the inside, right? Good health is shown as a good physique. Like it's not a surprise that that we think a good physique looks nice nice in nature because that's what what's healthy. You know comparing these. This doesn't look good because it looks unhealthy. This is something that is programmed in us for so many hundreds of probably thousands of thousands of years, right? And that's it. It just makes sense. We think of a good physique. Obviously, there's some nuance to this as well. If there's a roided up bodybuilder, you know, that guy's probably not healthy even though he like looks maybe good. So yeah, I guess some context is required, right? There's a reason why stress is called The silent killer. It really is, because I'd argue that this is the root cause for so many problems in today's day and age. Most high-level people, most entrepreneurs think that stress is normal, right? And they wear like this effort mindset and this stress mindset as a badge of honor. You know, I'm just pushing through, I'm doing all this work, I'm skipping sleep, I'm doing all these things. And they believe that just pushing is there is the solution. Chronic stress, though, is as far from that as possible or as it can be, right? Because chronic stress makes effort return less reward. That's the first thing, right? Why would we ever want to put effort if we're not getting anything out of it? That's number one. It makes discipline feel harder. It makes results nonexistent. Most likely you're not even It's like getting results. You're you're working backwards, and you're doing more damage than than actual good. So let's break this down. I'm going to break this down into a three pillar framework and how to fix chronic stress. Pillar number one is going to be elimination. So first thing we should be doing is removing what's keeping you stressed because we cannot calm a system that we keep on overstimulating. First thing. Chronic caffeine abuse, especially fasted caffeine, especially late caffeine later on in the day, right? Obviously, step number one here is like take away all the energy drinks and all these things. But I'm expecting that that thing is is already taken care of for you because you've watched some of my other videos where I completely debunk that, right? But even though we're having the best of the best French press. Coffee. We want to make sure that we— if we're feeling stressed, uh, we don't want to do any chronic caffeine abuse when we're fasted, uh, or late in the day, right? Step number 1, we, we want to generally just take away as many stimulants as possible because these things are going to stimulate our nervous system, and that's generally not good. Second thing, late-night blue light, screens late in the evening, overstimulating content, you know, always wired. We got to understand that blue light is causing oxidative stress, right? So the more we sit in front of blue light, the more, the more activated and, and also exposed our nervous system is towards oxidative stress. So if you have to do things, obviously inside my coaching program I have super clear protocols for this because some nights I have late calls. I have calls with clients in the US or in Australia. I have to sit late. There are some protocols that we can utilize that will help us, you know, mimic or take away the damage when we have to do things like sit in front of the screen late in the evening, right? But the general rule, take away as much blue light at night as possible, right? Get some, get some good red, um, um, the like Philips Hue or these ones from IKEA that mimics like red light in, in your house. You're not constantly stimulating with, with LED light all the time, right? Massive, massive thing. Constant multitasking. I didn't really have a better photo to show this, but you know, eating whilst working, common mistake I see in all clients when they come. It's just this rush, rush, rush mentality. They have no real parasympathetic windows as well, right? There's no— we have to reset our nervous system. One of the best things you can do a couple times throughout the day is just go out, get some fresh air, just reset, right? We're always— we're building this fatigue up, then we're gonna break it down, or we're gonna compound Come down to baseline. We build it up, come down to baseline. If you keep building, building, building, building, building without the compensation, that's when you find yourself like burnt out or getting into a massive stress debt. So we want to manage that properly. Undereating is also one of these crazy things that all clients and all people that I talk to do. Chronic calorie deficit, low carbs during high stress times, which is one of the worst mistakes you can do. It's very, very common in discipline and high performance, right? You're told by some nutritionist that you should eat salad and some chicken and you should eat— because you want to— you should be losing some weight and get shredded and you should eat crazy deficit, 1,800 calories, salad, broccoli, chicken, all these things. It's the most stupid thing you could ever do is to under-eat, especially under stress times. It's going to massively Mess up your hormones. Every single function in your body is going to be absolutely fucked up from this. Overtraining also super super super similar common, right? Five to six intense sessions weekly. No deloads. No walking. Only intensity. What do I mean with that? With that? Well, it's the classic Google Google Maps analogy. You know, if you and me are heading towards a destination, we're going to this specific city from where we're at right now. You have a car, you can drive as fast as you want, but you have no clue which direction you should be going. You have no guidance at all. It doesn't matter how fast you're driving or how much effort you're putting into it. I can probably walk and I have the exact destination written out on Google Maps, except like I know every single step I take is the correct step. I'm probably going to get there faster than you, right? So it's not, not about the effort, it's about The direction and the quality of the steps that we're taking, right? Instead of doing five to six sessions, you should be doing three. More than enough if those are structured correctly. That's more than you need. All my clients are are doing that, right? We don't have time to be in the gym for five six days a week. I don't have time. I'm running a business, right? It's the same for most of my clients as well. Three sessions structured, intense, properly done and properly executed. Is all you need. And that is gonna also massively improve the amount of stimulants or drastically decrease the amount of stimulants that you're putting on your nervous system. Every day you wake up with a bottle that you're able to fill that is gonna— this is stress, right? This is your stress budget, right? Every day you can fill this up to there to hit this point. If it goes over, you end up in a stress debt and you're fucked. Let's just say it like this. Everything you do is gonna accumulate stress throughout the day, whether that's work, whether that's training, all these things, right? Your body doesn't understand it. Everything hits the same nervous system. So when we understand this and we manage this with all the habits and all the tasks that we do throughout the day, it's very easy to have the broader overview and manage it properly, which leads to not being in a stress depth, which leads to proper recovery, which leads to we actually are building muscle, which leads to all these things that are actually gonna improve our health, not Fuck it up. So understanding the stress budget analogy is one of the key things as well. When we've cut out all the crap, it's time for restoration. Do and add the things that are actually going to regulate our nervous system. So rebuild the framework. First thing we should be doing, getting some more morning light, ideally within 30 minutes of waking, which is going to anchor your cortisol rate. It improves sleep later in the evening and it regulates your circadian timing. Right? In the winter, if we don't have the sun, as me right now in a Nordic winter, perfect, red light. But whenever sun is out, I'm out as well, right? Super, super important. Second thing, breathwork. Use this as a tool. I didn't have a video of me doing some breathwork, but stretching is also one of these things that is gonna massively calm down your body. So that's also a good thing, some mobility work. But doing breathwork, slow nasal breathing, 4-6 breathing, box breathing, this is gonna downregulate sympathetic drive. Sympathetic drive, right? The more times throughout the day we can make sure that we're staying in a sympathetic nervous system state, or take ourselves from a sympathetic nervous system state to a parasympathetic nervous system state, the better, right? And in my program, we have massive protocols for this on exactly how to do this on the daily basis. Once again, I'm just talking about the basics for you. I'm always like, I'm going to be very straight up and honest. I give you a lot of good value on this, on this channel. But I'm withholding probably 80% of the value, and that's for all my clients, right? So yeah, if you want the actual protocols, the deep dives in all these things, you know what you should be doing. Grounding in nature, massive, massive thing. It lowers inflammation, inflammatory load. It improves your HRV. It calms your nervous system tone. Even if you're living in a built-up city. I have a very good example of this. I have a client that lives in New York City. He's in, he's working. In a big VC company. Every single weekend, he drives an hour out. He goes to a little dog shelter and walks the dogs in the woods for a couple hours. Perfect. There's no excuse not to do this, and this should be one of the top things that you should be prioritizing on a weekly basis. At least one proper nature immersion throughout the week is a must, non-negotiable. The more you can do, the better. If you can ground, if you can be out in nature every single day, it's gonna be a game changer. Parasympathetic meals: sit down, chew slowly, no screens, no rushing. Massive as well. Once again, eating in front of the screens, eating rushed, eating stressed, chugging down a protein shake directly after the workout because you have to hit this anabolic window. I've said this so many times on this channel, but it's the most idiotic thing you could ever do. You're not digesting food properly and absorbing the nutrients when you're in a sympathetic nervous system state. Shoving down food down your mouth directly after a session is literally causing more damage than good. That's going to cause gut dysbiosis and a leaky gut and chronic inflammation, right? Sit down, be out in the sun if you can. Even better, be grounded at the same time. This is going to be a game changer when it comes to your body's actual ability to absorb the food that you're eating and make it go to the right places. Because it's not about just what we put into our mouth, it's about what we absorb that actually matters. And then number 5, this is the bonus extra, some strategic supplements. We can use L-theanine, taurine, black seed oil, and magnesium glycinate. The one thing we all have to understand here though is that supplements support regulation, right? They don't replace lifestyle correction. And same thing here, inside my program we have more in-depth protocols on this and exactly how to utilize these When to use them, and yeah, just do more in-depth guides. But these are good ones if you want to try some supplements to to add to the other things. Start with this last pillar regulation. This is the most important pillar because stress becomes chronic because people never fully switch up. So what does regulation actually mean over time? It means that we're sticking to consistent sleep and wake schedule, intentional wind down protocols. Weekly low stimulation days. Go out in nature. There's no excuse. Walking instead of always intensity. Google same thing as we just talked about the Google Maps analogy. Periodized training, right? We need deloads. We can't just constantly go, go, go, go, go at it, right? Key thing to understand though also is that stress is not the enemy. Chronic and unmanaged stress is like stress can also be a good thing, right? And if we understand how to properly Manage stress. We can increase our daily budget by understanding the stress budget and also training our vagus nerve and training our nervous system how to deal and how to handle stress better. Same thing here. These are things that we go in depth in my in my coaching program, right? I'm withholding the nitty-gritties. I'm giving you a lot here, so please start with applying this. See the results. Then when you're ready, when you understand that there's more more to this. To this as well, you book in a call. You see exactly how I can help you take these things to the next level. Right? So what is going to happen when you fix chronic stress then? Well, within a few weeks, you're going to have noticed a lot better deep sleep, more stable energy, less bloating, better mood, libido increases, training feels easier, less caffeine needed, recovery is better, and within months, you're going to have massively better body composition, better hormonal signaling, lower inflammation, and sharper focus. The goal isn't to remove stress. The goal is to increase your recovery capacity so you can. Deal with stress better, and so that your body can handle stress better. That's the goal, right? There's a massive difference between chronic and acute stress. Acute stress can be good. Let's take cold plunging as an example, right? That's a lot of stress. Everyone else says, "Oh, you shouldn't do it. It's so much stress for your body." Yeah, but in that case, that stress is also also training your vagus nerve to to be able to handle stress. Better in other stressful situations, right? So there's a lot of context that we have to understand here. Last thing: we can train like a savage, we can eat clean, we can take all the supplements in the world, but if your nervous system is constantly in survival mode, your body will never prioritize growth. So if you fix stress, everything else becomes easier. And once again, this is why I take such an in-depth approach with all my coaching clients, right? We don't just focus on the training and nutrition because that's just 20% of the equation. Managing stress is one of the key things, and also things that we prioritize, right? Because that is once again third time I'm saying it: the bottleneck for majority of people. Let's just take you well as an example. Startup founder, massive workload, stress, stress, stress, rush, rush, rush. He had no structure whatsoever. He didn't even think about his stress, his sleep, all these things, right? It was just work, work, work, work, work. Boom! Four months later, dialing everything in. Looking like an absolute stud. Stress under control, sleep under control, hormones under control, right? Same thing for Landon, business owner from the US. Work, work, work, work, work. Deprioritize sleep because it's— we can just go, go, go. Use caffeine to push through. Fixing all these things, boom, 4 months later, right? Same thing with Radwan, same thing with Edwan, with Oliver, with Leo. It's the same thing for all of these guys, right? This is also why I'm getting so crazy results with most of my clients. It's because we don't just do the training and nutrition. We do everything because everything plays into you achieving your best health. It's not just a it's it's not a fitness program. The Superman Protocol is not a fitness program. It's a performance and it's a health protocol made for people that have high stress capacity and that are busy and that don't want to waste their time being in the gym five to six days a week, and they're tired of listening to these bullshit bodybuilders that are roided up. And that has no clue how your life is structured and how your life works. There's a difference to how you go about things if the only thing you have to worry about is training and eating, and then fuck off for the rest of the day. As most of these bodybuilders, that's their life. All the fitness influencers as well, right? You have a business, you have a work, you have a hectic work. There's a completely different playing field, and we have to adapt. That doesn't make it harder for us to to to achieve the goals that we want. It just means that we have to play and deal and play the cards that were dealt, right? So if you're interested in that, if you're interested in interested in hearing the other eighty percent of the equation today's all the the detailed protocols, check out the first link in the description. Booking a call with me or my right-hand man Anton will walk you through the. Your exact situation, understand your bottlenecks, and see if the Superhuman Protocol is something for you. That's my coaching program. It's where we do twice a month one-to-ones. You have a full roadmap built out for anything and everything you can think about regarding health and performance. We personalize everything based on your exact problems, whether that be sleep is the first thing we should prioritize, or training, or whatever, right? We fix the things and take all the decision fatigue and thinking away from your plate so that I can just tell you the only thing you have to worry about is execution, right? I do the thinking. I do the decision fatigue. I do everything for you. The only thing you have to worry about showing up and executing on the things I tell you to do. So if that's something for you, check out the first link in the description. Once again, fixing your stress levels is gonna be one of the most important things you can do for your health. So be cautious, be aware of it, and follow this simple three-step framework. And I guarantee you your body composition in a couple months will be mass dramatically. drastically better. It's going to be night and day. If you have any questions on this, drop them in the, in the comments. Shoot me a message on IG. Check out the first link if you're interested in working with me. And thanks for watching. I'll see you guys in the next one. This was how to fix chronic stress for good. Boom.