Rest - one of the Important Blocks in your Wellness Program to lower Stress.

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ore than anything else, chronic mental or physical stress is the primary cause that pushes most of us out of health. Scientists have found that insomnia and fatigue correlates directly with adrenal stress. Too much stress leads to the state when adrenal glands hit their threshold.

A study by the American Institute of Stress reports that about 77% of Americans feel the physical symptoms of too much stress, including fatigue. A whopping 33% of Americans suffer from persistent, debilitating stress. Which is probably why so many people complain of chronic low energy levels.

Fatigue, brain fog, and low energy may not sound too serious, but over time, chronic stress leads to malfunctions and health issues. Over time, symptoms like these which seem not important can affect everything from your job performance to your relationships and physical fitness.

But imbalances, malfunction, and low energy isn’t a life sentence. You can get well and stay well naturally with lifestyle changes and a personalized holistic wellness program to lower stress and get your brain and body back on track.

There is a difference between bad and good stress. Short exposures to stress, with recovery time, is actually good stress, aka eustress, and that builds our brain’s and body’s capacity, resilience and boosts your performance. Too much of it, though, and your body begins to rebel with brain fog, weight gain, and fatigue.

In truth, your body and mind is a battlefield. It’s constantly being tested and stressed, and when you train your defensive and offensive forces in a good way, it makes you and your society stronger. These good stress cycles are the basis of improving your strength, skills, worldviews, immune system, and they are the basis of hormesis, a biological version of Le Chatelier’s principle of buffering in Chemistry, where your cellular machinery reacts to small periodic and aperiodic stresses and toxins to not only resist their effects, but actually become stronger.

Nick Taleb calls it antifragility. At the cellular level, hormesis is a central secret of life’s success.

Here are Five Stress/Recovery Cycles - Habits for Vitality and Longevity you should adopt:

* Awareness/Sleeping

* Learning/Reflecting

* Socializing/Solitude

* Moving/Resting

* Fasting/Eating

Each habit is a cycle between two fundamentally important states of life, one of stress, and one of recovery. These five all work together to prevent cortical, hippocampal, and glial atrophy (thinning and wasting away of your brain’s gray and white matter, a common problem in unhealthy aging) and more generally, to keep your brain and body both healthy and vital for a very long time.

I check my Clients’ adrenals and hormone levels with labs. However, without any tests I can give recommendations to improve your Awareness/Sleeping cycle. Sleep patterns can be improved with simple lifestyle adjustments.

• Eat a snack around bedtime. But not Starchy, carb-heavy snacks or meals during the late hours of the day can dramatically inhibit quality sleep.

• Keep your sleeping space dark or use a mask for sleep. I suggest Manta Sleep, the best mask ever. When light hits the eyes, it disrupts the circadian rhythm of the pineal gland and the production of melatonin and serotonin – this process most definitely hinders sleep quality.

• Avoid blue lights (television and/or computer activity) two hours before bed. These types of electronic devices are too stimulating to the brain, and it will take longer to fall asleep. If you have to watch something, use blue blocking glasses in the evening. I suggest Swanwick.

• Reading something spiritual, inspirational, or calming will help you to relax.

• Avoid using loud alarm clocks, as waking in such a manner can be very stressful on the body.

• Get to bed before 10 pm. Our systems, particularly the adrenals, do a majority of their recharging or recovering between the hours of 10 pm and 2 am.

• Check your bedroom for electromagnetic fields (EMFs). I personally sleep on an Anti-Aging mattress sheet which grounds me, protects me from EMFs and helps with detoxification and repairing cells while sleeping.

• Keep the temperature in the bedroom below 70 degrees Fahrenheit.

• Ask your doctor if your meds could be disrupting your sleep. Many medications, both prescription and over-the-counter, may have negative effects on sleep. There is no such thing as a drug deficiency. Most drugs are used to treat symptoms and do little to restore normal sleep function. However, do not stop taking prescription meds before discussing it with your doctor.

The tips above are some of the most effective ones to implement and will get you real results, fast. However, there are many more ways you can improve your sleep and recovery, and I do proper investigation with selected labs into the underlying cause which can compromise your Circadian rhythm.