How To Relieve Chronic Stress So You Feel Fantastic

*Listen on the podcast: How to relieve chronic stress so you feel fantastic

I've shared my story, here on the blog in numerous posts, about how unrelenting chronic stress in my life nearly took me down. It got so bad, I ended up in total burnout and experienced PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder).  PTSD is a psychological and emotional stress disorder that causes someone to believe that they are unable to cope with the demands placed on their inner world. It is a negative perception of highly stressful or traumatic situations that manifests itself through emotional and physical symptoms.

I'm hear to share more about how chronic stress can be overcome before it's too late. Truth be told, this applies to everyone, whether your circumstances were as intense as mine or not.

That said, I am seeing more and more women, especially single moms struggle with the severity of stress induced to PTSD. In fact, 7 million people in the United States suffer from PTSD.

Unmanaged stress is at the bottom of most health problems. An incredibly high percentage of doctors visits are stress related. Let's face it friends, chronic stress is on the rise in our modern society. The good news is, there's a lot you can do to manage and reduce the effects of stress.

In the past, I had a hard time accepting the relationship between my life stress and the set of symptoms I ended up with when I first did my Hair Tissue Mineral Analysis (HTMA) and got my results. It was so much easier for me to heal my body and bring it back to balance when I understood what was actually going on inside me.

Stress starts in your brain, as soon as information comes in through your ears and eyes. It travels to several parts of your brain and goes through different processing centers that require your logic and emotions. These centers then make decisions about when you need to mobilize energy in the face of stress. They implement those decisions through your sympathetic nervous system, which gives you the ability to fight or flight. Your heart rate will increase, your blood will flow better to your extremities so you can take flight.

Stress affects your autonomic nervous system, endocrine system, and immune system; these physical systems are all interdependent on each other. This means, your mood and mental health, your hormones (funky cycles or moods lady?) and how well your body can avoid getting sick.

The longer your body and nervous system is in a state of stress that is not balanced with rest and nourishment, the more it will burn out. Quite literally. You actually lose minerals under stress and don't get them back unless you replace them. This mineral burnout results in your whole body starting to slow down, because minerals are your bodies spark plugs. They ignite you. When you lose them, you lose your 'get up and go' so to speak.

This makes it harder and harder to cope in general. So it's really important to do what you can to not let yourself get burned out. There are many ways to help yourself with this, and I've shared a lot on the blog in the past.

For today, I'll share the top 3 -then if you need more support, I'll share how you can work with me to replace your spark (aka: minerals).

Perception & Mindset

First off, how you perceive stress plays an important role in how your body responds physically to stress.

Its very important to understand that you do have the power to manage stress. You may not have the ability to control the way each day goes perfectly or entirely. BUT you do get to choose how you respond. You always have a choice and can practice daily training yourself to shift your mindset so you can better diffuse and handle stress.

There are going to be stressful situations, experiences that definitely arise and are outside of your control. However, what you do have the power over is your perception of the stresses in your life. You also have the ability to continue to support yourself appropriately in light of the fact that stress occurs in life and then you will be better able to manage it.

Here's a quick little test for self-stress to see where you are at.

Rate each one on a scale of 1-10. Be honest with yourself. No one is grading you - it only benefits you.

1. I can rarely quiet my mind.
2. I don't get enough sleep.
3. I am often irritable and edgy.
4. I find myself being impatient with most people and situations.
5. I am often angry.
6. I am often sad.
7. I procrastinate about important tasks.
8. I put off exercise.
9. I eat on the run too often.
10. I find myself avoiding problems rather than solving them.

If you scored over 50, I highly recommend you prioritize stress-relief care practices now. If you have a preventative mindset and scored below 50, you can be proactive about your stress relief practices now too. Keep in mind, this is not a full assessment but some key questions to consider for starters.

For me, the accumulation of stressors that were unrelenting didn't give my body, mind, soul enough time to recover. Which is why, I ended up in total burnout and experienced PTSD.

Some of us don't have good vital energy reserves to begin with, and unfortunately we may learn that after the fact.


Breath & Slowing Down

Pay attention to your breath. It's your life force. When you actually slow down and pay attention you can consciously choose to breath slowly and fully. Most people are not in tune with their breath.

The next time you catch yourself feeling stressed and anxious... stop and breath.

Being able to shift into a parasympathetic state out of a stressed sypathetic state is a practice. The more awareness you have around when you are in a sympathetic state vs. a parasympathetic state, the better. The more you can live in a parasympathetic state, the easier it will be to reach your health goals and better manage stress.

Breath is the link between the mind and the body and anyone can learn to do this. When your exhale is a few counts longer than your inhale, the vagus nerve sends a signal to your brain to turn up the parasympathetic and down regulate the sympathetic nervous system.

This is why yogis focus so much on breath. It's why guided meditations tell you how and when to breath in a very calm manner. You have all the control if you choose to tune in to your breath. You can do this anytime, anywhere and within minutes restore yourself to more of a calm state.

This is yet another reason I practice meditation and encourage regular grounding in nature.


Restore Your Mineral Reserves

Mineral burnout is REAL. Here's how stress causes your to lose your minerals:

When stress dominates your body loses essential minerals such as calcium and magnesium. Stress will cause an increase in adrenal output of mineral corticoids. Stimulation of your adrenal glands tends to increase the secretion of hormones that cause you to lose minerals.

Mineralocorticoids are a class of steroid hormones characterized by their influence on salt and water balances, which also has a relationship with calcium. The primary mineralocorticoid is aldosterone (which is associated with sodium retention).

When the stress response is ongoing other minerals can actually build up in the body, such as potassium, sodium and phosphorous. This is due to a change in intestinal absorption (since digestion takes a back seat when we are in fight-or-flight mode) and re-absorption by the kidneys of these elements. This is how some types of high blood pressure can flare up, due to stress and the increase of sodium with a corresponding loss of calcium and magnesium. Prolonged stress can result in severe mineral deficiencies ( I am living proof).

Stress also changes your metabolism and causes your body to retain minerals that are needed to stimulate, while at the same time lose nutrients/minerals needed to help calm your body. Eventually, if stress continues your body will slowly lose it's ability to adequately store sedative minerals.

One such mineral would be magnesium. Magnesium is particularly sensitive to stress.

Emotional stress and alcohol consumption are the two main ways people in this culture lose magnesium. Sugary diets are another big factor for magnesium loss. Excessive exercise, pregnancy, breast feeding, medication, frequent infections also deplete magnesium. The problem is the more magnesium that is depleted the less able one is to deal with stress since magnesium is a natural sedative. The edgier you are the more likely it is you are depleted in magnesium (learn more in my magnesium training HERE).

Chromium is another mineral that is affected due to stress, either physiological or emotional.

Excess sugar in the diet can increase the need for chromium at the same time as create a greater stress on the body, creating a vicious cycle. It is not uncommon for people to develop blood sugar problems following a stressful event, or even a traumatic event. Why is that so?

Chromium works with insulin, helping the cells to absorb and use glucose. Chromium deficiency has been known to produce increased insulin requirements. So, it's a vicious cycle -stress depletes chromium, the cells can't get the glucose they need so more insulin is required thereby increasing the blood sugar. In order to store insulin plenty of zinc is required as well.

Stress also depletes zinc status. Under-active adrenal glands (also due to stress) can create a relative deficiency of zinc (as zinc is found in the adrenal glands). So, another vicious cycle ensues. Stress depletes zinc, the adrenals need zinc and are bombarded by stress then can't function in full because they are lacking a key nutrient imperative to their optimal function.

You can have an increased need for zinc as well as an increased loss of the mineral -all due to stress! Another thing to point out about zinc and stress actually impact your digestion. Since digestion can't take place when the body is under stress (or stuck in sympathetic mode), eating during stress will compromise you ability to digest your food and absorb the minerals in your food.

For one thing, you need zinc to make adequate hydrochloric acid which is what is required to properly pull the minerals from your food to begin with. Yet another vicious cycle -when does it end? When you are stressed you won't make the HCl needed to uptake your zinc or other minerals.

Folks, this is important! It's why I am on a mission to make sure more people know about minerals and what they can do to remineralize their bodies.

The #1 thing my clients tell me after working together on their mineral balancing programs via HTMA is that they can handle stress so much better. It actually amazes them. Things that would have made them fly off the handle in the past, no longer affect them like they once would have.

I can't tell you what minerals to take or what you need right now - you really must test to know for sure. But what I can tell you is that everyone needs them, and when your body has enough you can feel FANTASTIC!

Then when you are ready to take your power back so you can handle stress better, I highly recommend getting started with hair tissue mineral analysis. 

I myself went from burned out to feeling fantastic all thanks to mineral balancing through HTMA.  I was sparked back to life!  You can get sparked back to vibrant health too!


Now, I'd love to hear from you. Are you struggling with getting a handle on stress? Does your health crash every time a stressful series of events occurs  Let me know in the comments.

If you are ready to overcome burnout and  emotional overwhelm so you can get back to fully enjoying your life and pursuing your passion, I invite you to book a breakthrough session with me today. We'll get on the phone and discuss your happiest outcome for your health and dreams right now, and if I believe I can support you in that, I'll share how.