This week we will discuss the most challenging issue we deal with every day. It is stress. take a second to remember last time you were stressed. Ho did you feel? Did you feel any changes in your physical body: elevated heart rate, heat, sweat, ‘stone in your stomach’? Stress has a serious influence on our physical and mental well-being. So take some time this week not only to read about this topic but also identify situations that make you very stressed. Why do you get so stressed? Using NAC you can change the way you feel about the situations that made you most stressed. If that is something that you find very challenging get in touch and we will go through that together.

And I hope you are still using NAC to change your first habit. This tool is very powerful when used well. You can change anything you are not happy with !

WEEK 4: STRESS

Stress is inevitable. And it is not that we do a little bit of worrying, we seriously stress. Several times a week we press the ‘fight or flight’ button in our body, with different chemicals and hormones being released that really mess up any weight loss efforts. And you know very well, that we are not designed to press that button so often, right?

It has a massive impact on our health and well being. The worst thing is that when we get stressed it does not just go away. Worry, anxiety, insomnia, stomach ulcers are just a few side effects of too much stress.

The most common thing we do, when too much stress arises, we start making poor nutritional choices.

"Eating can be a source of solace and can lower stress," explains Jason Perry Block, MD, an assistant professor of population medicine at Harvard University. "This happens, in part, because the body releases chemicals in response to food that might have a direct calming effect."[1] Stress also can play a major role in cortisol production, a hormone that in high levels may interfere with weight-loss goals.

“More stress = more cortisol = higher appetite for junk food = more belly fat,” says Shawn M. Talbott, PhD, a nutritional biochemist.

The thing is that we never get rid of stress. We live stressed all the time, putting our body and health in jeopardy. So what can we do about it? One way to stop being stressed is to start taking control of your thoughts. Just put all the effort possible to think about something else, something fun, a time where you were happy and relaxed. Or focus on new task, just change the focus. But it is not always easy.

So I have for you two great, simple tools that I use when I get stressed. They will help you relax your body and mind. And they are super simple. First, when you get very stressed, start breathing deep… Deep, long breathes will change your body biochemistry. The result is incredible and almost immediate. When you are super stressed it may take a bit longer, but it always works. You can stay indoors or go outside, whatever works. Breathe through your nose all the way down to your belly. Slow, deep breath in and out. Balance these breathes.

If we cannot stop stressing right before bed time, we will struggle to sleep. I’m normally a very good sleeper but in the last few years I have had short episodes of sleep difficulties. This exercise helped me relax and fall asleep many times, when my brain was too busy thinking different thought and stressing out, that kept me awake. This exercise comes from a great book “Psycho – Cybernetics” By Maxwell Maltz, MD, FICS and is called “How to use Mental Picture to Relax”. It should be practised for 30 min daily, if you don’t have that much time, start with at least 10 minutes. I used it before bed but you can use this technique throughout the day if needed.

Set yourself comfortably in an easy chair or lie down on your back. Consciously let go the various muscle groups as much as possible without making too much of an effort of it. Just consciously pay attention to the various parts of your body and let go a little. You will find that you can always voluntarily relax to a certain degree. You can stop frowning and let your forehead relax. You can ease up a little on the tension in your jaws. You can let your hands, your arms, your shoulders and legs become a little more relaxed than they are. Spend few minutes on this and then stop paying attention to your muscles. This is as far as you are going to try to go by conscious control. From here on out you will relax more and more by using your nervous system to automatically bring about a relaxed condition. In short, you are going to use “goal pictures”, help in imagination, and let your brain and nervous system realise those goals for you.

MENTAL PICTURE 1

In your mind’s eye see yourself lying stretched out on the bed. Form a picture of your legs as they would look if made of concrete. See yourself lying there with two very heavy concrete legs. See these very heavy concrete legs sinking far down into the mattress from their sheer weight. Now picture your arms and hands as made of concrete. They also are very heavy and are sinking down the bed and exerting tremendous pressure against the bed. In your mind’s eye see a friend come into the room and attempt to lift your concrete legs. He takes hold of your feet and attempts to lift them. But they are too heavy for him. He cannot do it. Repeat with arms, neck, etc.

MENTAL PICTURE 2

Your body is a big marionette doll. Your hands are tide loosely to your wrists by strings. Your forearm is connected loosely by a string to your upper arm. Your upper arm is connected very loosely by a string to your shoulder. Your feet, calves, thighs are also connected together with a single string. Your neck consists of one very limp string. The strings that control your jaw and hold your lips together have slackened and stretched to such an extent that your chin has dropped down loosely against your chest. All the various strings that connect the various parts of your body are loose and limp and your body is just sprawled loosely across the bed.

MENTAL PICTURE 3

Your body consists of a series of inflated rubber balloons. Two valves open in your feet and the air begins to escape from your legs. Your legs begin to collapse and continue until they consist only of deflated rubber tubes, lying flat against the bed. Next a valve is open in your chest, and as the air begins to escape your entire trunk begins to collapse limply against the bed. Continue with arms, head, and neck.

MENTAL PICTURE 4

Many people will find this the most relaxing of all. Just go back in memory to some relaxing and pleasant scene from your past. There is always some time in everyone’s life when he/she felt relaxed, at ease, and at peace with the world. Pick out your own relaxing picture from your past and call up detailed memory images. Yours may be a peaceful scene at the mountain lake where you went fishing. If so, pay particular attention to the little incidental things in the environment. Remember the quiet ripples on the water. What sounds were present? Did you hear the quiet rustling of the leaves? Maybe you remember sitting perfectly relaxed, and somewhat drowsy, before an open fireplace long ago. Did the logs crackle and spark? What other sights and sounds were present? Maybe you choose to remember relaxing in the sun on a beach. How did the sand feel against your body? Could you feel the warm, relaxing sun, touching your body? Almost as physical thing? Was there a breeze blowing? Where there gulls on the beach? The more of these incidental details you can remember and picture to yourself, the more successful you will be.

Daily practice will bring these mental pictures, or memories, clearer and clearer. The effect of learning will also be cumulative. Practice will strengthen the tie in between mental image and physical sensations. You will become more and more proficient in relaxation, and this in itself will be “remembered” in the future practice sessions.

When lying down to practice, many practitioners fall asleep. If you fall asleep, you don’t get the same level of benefits. So, start in a standing or seated positions.

Many people feel the best time to practice are upon rising and before going to bed, a time when your brain and nervous system are most agreeable to new suggestions. Yet, if you can only find time during your lunch hour or a scheduled break during the day, doing it then is far better than not doing the practice because you have no time in the morning or are exhausted just before bed.

Daily practice is the key to getting results. Avoid judging yourself in this process. Regardless of where you start, you will improve with practice.

[1] Breeze, J. (n.d.). Can Stress Cause Weight Gain?

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STRESS