HEALTH AND LIFESTYLE

by DR TAINA TURCASSO, ND RM

Many people find the idea of a little fear, in the form of a scary movie or a haunted house, enjoyable. It’s thrilling. These types of experiences create a spike in cortisol which can increase the heart rate and give you a burst of energy. This can seem harmless, because it’s usually only over a short period of time and once it’s over, you will typically go back to feeling however you did before the movie. If you don’t maybe horror/thriller movies aren’t for you. When you translate this response to fear to the real world and in a situation like the one we are currently in where there is a global pandemic causing a constant or even fluctuating level of worry and fear for many people, the resulting physiological changes can be detrimental to your health and feed into a cycle of more anxiety and fear.

Anxiety about the unknown will activate the fear centre in the brain called the amygdala which acts like an alarm, interfacing with the stress system to keep our body and mind on high alert. After the amygdala sends a distress signal, the hypothalamus activates the sympathetic nervous system by sending signals through the autonomic nerves to the adrenal glands, which release epinephrine (adrenaline) into the bloodstream causing your heart rate to go up, increases your breathing rate, and increases your alertness. Sugar is also released to provide fuel. This cascade leads to activation of the second component of the stress response system, the hyothalamicpituitary-axis (HPA axis). The HPA axis relies on hormonal signals to keep the sympathetic nervous system fired up and the hypothalamus releases a hormone that ultimately leads to the release of cortisol from your adrenal glands. After the threat has passed, the parasympathetic nervous system kicks into gear, calming everything down.

Unfortunately, merely the suggestion of danger, even if it is never experienced, is enough to trigger the amygdala and activate the stress response. Many people

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are unable to find a way to put the brakes on stress and chronic low-level stress keeps the HPA axis activated. After a while, this can have an effect on the body that contributes to the health problems associated with chronic stress. Persistent epinephrine surges can damage blood vessels and arteries and increase blood pressure which raises the risk of heart attacks or strokes. Elevated cortisol levels create physiological changes that helps to replenish the body’s energy (glucose) stores that are depleted during the stress response but inadvertently contribute to the buildup of fat tissue and cause weight gain. Further, the immune system can bear the brunt as these physiological effects of chronic stress damages cells in the body which elevates inflammation levels resulting in a sterile immune response. This can create an imbalance in the immune function because the immune system is reacting to multiple “threats.”

Fortunately, we can all learn techniques to counter the stress response, and this will help us far beyond the pandemic years. Here are a few things to consider in order to improve your immune response as we head into another pandemic winter:

Engage in moderate exercise, at least 30 minutes, 3x/week (ideally 150 minutes/ week). Moderate means at around 40% maximum workload, when you can still talk but not sing. In one study comparing students exposed to the same psychological stressors, the exercising students had low levels of inflammation and elevated mood throughout. Interesting, higher intensity was not as effective at protecting mental health or reducing inflammation.

Double down on your efforts at eating healthy. Stick to unprocessed foods, low sugar, low (or no) alcohol, and lots of brightly coloured fruits and vegetables. Think about creating a foundational diet with your core healthy foods, and then incorporate some treats. This way you will ensure you are still getting in all of the foods that you know make you feel good and the treats (piece of chocolate and a glass of wine, for example) are on top of your foundation.

Get a treatment plan together for yourself with your health care provider and stick with it, at least until spring. Ensure it includes vitamin D and a good multivitamin and keep other vitamins such as vitamin C on hand for when you are exposed to extra stress or fighting a cold.

Commit to engaging in a mindfulness practice daily for even 10 minutes, whether that is meditation through one of the many apps available or a short yoga practice. Mindfulness will improve mental health, decrease the stress response, and maybe even increase telomere length (think longevity).

Sometimes it is actually possible to eliminate the stressor. If you can, do it. Change jobs, end the relationship, whatever you can do to reduce the external stress in your life.

The current state of the world is so challenging for so many people. Whether it’s fear around getting sick, fear of our childrens’ well-being and safety, fear for our livelihoods, fear for our disenfranchised, or fear for our planet, it may be well-founded but it is possible to lessen the impact that it has on your health and even on your perception of the world. All we can do is get through this one day at a time, continue to look out for one another and our families, and control what is in our power to control and that is how we look after ourselves and how we interact with those around us.

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Are you 100% safe right now in this moment?

Most of us will respond with, yes, right now in this moment I am safe. Anyone who has experienced a significant amount of trauma will look around and list all of the things that could go wrong at any time. This is because once the mind experiences something fearful it does everything in its power to stop us from feeling that way again. It is like a built-in protective system. There are however a few problems with this system. The first is that the mind will perceive danger when none actually exists. Unfortunately, the mind does not fully know the difference between thinking about a negative event and living it. This means real or imagined, the autonomic nervous system engages in a fight or flight response, even when it might not need to. Secondly, the more time we spend in fight or flight the more we develop a fearful or traumatic response to the world around us.

For many of us this fight or flight system has been on overdrive for the past 19 months. This increases our levels of cortisol in our bodies, may impact our sleep, can decrease our ability to rationally think and problem solve, and may greatly impact the quality of our lives. When considering threat, we often think only of physical danger, like a bear running at us. In reality the threat of physical violence for many of us is actually quite low. Perceived threat

also shows up in thoughts such as I am not good enough, I am not likeable, I am going to get in trouble. When we think these thoughts about ourselves our nervous system kicks into the same fight or flight as when in physical danger. In reality, we are actually better equipped to deal with physical threats than we are these thoughts. Mostly because physical threat is often short lived, thoughts can linger with us for hours or days at a time.

According to Dr. Eric Gentry, a traumatologist, we do have the ability to engage our parasympathetic nervous system in order to end the flight/flight response. Start by paying attention to your thoughts, do you notice when you perceive a threat and feel unsafe? We can interrupt the threat response, which typically looks like anger or avoidance by paying attention and reminding ourselves that we are in fact safe in the moment. We have to tell our minds that while yes what we are imagining happening is possible, it is not happening right this moment. Once we tell our minds that we are safe we also need to tell our muscles. We cannot be angry or anxious in a relaxed body. We can do this by taking a deep breath, doing a head to toe body scan and releasing any tension we feel as we go through squeezing and releasing. We can also do a little wiggle of the shoulders or allow all of our muscles to be like wet noodles and shake it out. It is possible that you may need to go through this a few times to interrupt the threat response. It is also helpful to try this out in the least emotionally engaging moments in your life and build up to the bigger ones. If someone cuts you off and you feel angry try it there first, then build up the most challenging interactions such as conflict with others or challenging intrusive negative thoughts about yourself.

The content provided in this article is for information purposes only. It is not meant as a substitute for professional medical or psychological advice, diagnosis, or treatment. If you find yourself in distress, please reach out to your local physician who can provide mental health resources in your community.

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