Hello dear followers and welcome to April! Writing this from my office with a backdrop of glorious sunshine through the window. Spring is finally here and let’s hope we get more of these days to lift our mood, top up our Vitamin D and get us out and about in nature.

April also brings stress awareness month and as someone who has experienced first-hand what stress can do to the body, it’s such an important topic to cover. I sit with clients all too often who have a barrage of symptoms that are brought about or exasperated by stress and with a few tweaks to diet and lifestyle can be reduced significantly.

My own personal experience with stress is a story I tell often to clients to bring to life how what we describe as typical ‘life stress’ can be the catalyst to a host of symptoms that are difficult to identify as probable cause.

My Story

In my late 20s, I began suffering from symptoms that were difficult to pinpoint such as headaches, neck stiffness, consistent boats of tonsilitis, a significant reduction in energy, digestive issues such as bloating and constipation and bouts of insomnia. These symptoms developed over several years and were intermittent. When visiting the doctor over a 2-year period, I would relay my symptoms and the usual standard blood tests were run only to be told that my blood was fine and that my symptoms were typical for working mums – helpful!

Looking back the signs were there but I was just too damn busy to listen. With a baby and a toddler to look after, working 4 days a week as an Operational Manager and completing my 4-year diploma in Nutritional Therapy at weekends and evenings, it’s easy to see why my health started to deteriorate juggling so many plates. After 2 years of complaining to my GP of my symptoms, countless MRI scans, a hospital visit with a racing heart hooked up to machines for the day, every blood test the NHS has to offer and feeling like I was going insane or seriously ill without a cure, I was diagnosed with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome/ME.

NICE guideline diagnosis of ME/CFS should be based on the presence of four core symptoms: debilitating fatigue, post-exertional malaise, cognitive dysfunction, and unrefreshing sleep. With no specific test for ME/CFS, the above set of symptoms for more than 6 months is the basis for diagnosis. I was crushed, scared, and felt very alone with more unanswered questions than answers. There is no known cure for ME/CFS and to be given a diagnosis of a chronic illness with no known cure feels like your world is caving in.

With two young children to look after and a new career to start as a Nutritional Therapist and Wellbeing Coach, giving up and giving in was not an option (I’m also a Taurus with a bullish personality which is helpful in these situations ☺️). I began to research my symptoms and came across HPA dysregulation and how our inbuilt responses to stress work in terms of cortisol production. During times of stress, your body releases cortisol so you stay on high alert and function. When the period of stress is over, cortisol should reduce to its usual rhythm and back into a restful state. When we are under periods of stress that continue for longer timeframes, our stress response adapts flooding your body with cortisol for longer periods. It’s an adaptive mechanism so it can continue to flood the body with cortisol even on non-stressful days as it perceives danger in all areas.

Newly qualified in Nutritional Therapy, I had access to functional testing that allowed me to review how my body was responding to stress and look at cortisol production throughout the day. That test alone was the turning point as the results were able to show that my body was in a chronic state of stress and producing double the amount of cortisol at various parts of the day than it should be, creating chronic inflammation, affecting my immune system, and creating unwanted symptoms.

The signs of HPA axis dysregulation are widespread and may include any of the following:

• Allergies
• Anxiety
• Apathy
• Bone Loss
• Chronic Fatigue
• Cold
• Craving Salty Foods
• Decreased Immunity (frequent bouts of illness)
• Depression
• Early onset perimenopause/menopause
• Fatigue (especially in the morning or after a stressful event)
• Hot Flushes
• Low Blood Pressure
• Memory Loss
• Muscle Wasting
• Panic Attacks
• Poor Concentration
• Sleep Disturbances (insomnia/waking up early hours)
• Weight gain around the midsection

So, with all this said and done, you can see why stress can trigger so many common health issues and symptoms. So, what are the fundamentals in reducing stress and increasing your natural defences to support healing?

Rest

Avoid stressful situations where you can. Be honest with yourself about the activities/ tasks you do each week that drain your energy. Ditch what doesn’t serve you.

Schedule some daily me-time- like it is an important event in your diary. Do something you do just for your own pleasure. Whether that’s reading a book, painting, a quiet cup of tea in the garden, a phone call to your sister, a soak in the bath … Whatever it is, you must make time for joy –  Every day.

Learn techniques to direct your mind and body away from stress and into a restful state. The fight-or-flight response is automatic and can be triggered just by worry – justified or not -, so relaxation must be learned and PRACTISED. Breathing exercises and guided meditation are perfect for this.

Sleep

Don’t even get me started on sleep – that really deserves its own book! Just know this: repair and recovery during sleep oppose the destructive effects of cortisol. Your body NEEDS you to sleep to get a chance for necessary repair and maintenance.

That includes your brain. During sleep, the spaces between brain cells widen and get ‘rinsed’. That way, the body cleans away waste products of metabolism and cell debris, including amyloids, the proteins linked to Alzheimer’s disease. This process takes approx. 8 hours, so do not cut back on your sleep, even if you think that you don’t need it. Also, you cannot make up for lost sleep, and a chronic sleep deficit significantly increases cortisol. In one study, sleeping 6 hours or less for seven consecutive nights raised cortisol levels considerably.

Exercise

Exercise increases your feel-good hormones – endorphins – and improves mood, reduces anxiety and depression, burns that excess sugar and oxygen circulating in your system, and improves sleep quality. Exercise may also increase body temperature, and blood circulation in the brain. It even impacts the HPA axis and thus increases your resilience to stress. What’s not to like?

Studies found that rhythmic, aerobic exercise of moderate and low intensity that uses large muscle groups (e. g., jogging, swimming, cycling, walking) was the most effective when done for just 15 to 30 minutes a day for a minimum of three times a week in programmes of 10-weeks or longer.

What’s important when you’re stressed, however, is not to overdo it. Over-exercising stimulates cortisol production – the opposite of what you want right now. The ideal is gentle exercise, such as walking, or – better still – the Eastern-type exercises such as yoga and tai chi, because they don’t just encourage the movement your body needs but also elicit the relaxation response.

Eat for nourishment

What you eat matters. Everything that happens in your body is ultimately chemistry. The chemicals involved are the nutrients that come from your food, and your body can only work with what you provide – or not.

Eat real food

You would not expect a petrol car to run on diesel. In the same way, the human body cannot function with a diet based on ultra-processed foods packed with sugar, salt, trans-fats and extra ingredients you cannot pronounce. The body just wasn’t made for that and needs proper fuel. Fruit, vegetables, whole grains, nuts, seeds, meat, fish, eggs, seafood, herbs and spices have worked for humans for millennia. That’s a sign.

Follow a low-carb diet

It’s been found to reduce cortisol. Overeating highly refined foods and overindulging in starchy carbs may contribute to permanently elevated cortisol, triggering a vicious cycle of chronic stress and unhealthy eating. Eating a diet low in carbohydrates with good quality protein and essential fats at each meal is supportive of keeping a calm, stress-free environment for your adrenals.

Avoid stimulants

From caffeine, refined carbohydrates (sugar, flour, bread, fruit juices, baked goods, chocolate), nicotine and alcohol, stimulants create spikes in blood sugars creating an inflammatory and stressful environment.

Want to chat?  

If you are experiencing any of the above symptoms and wish to chat these through, then feel free to book in for a complimentary call with me to discuss further.

Spring 21 Day Reset – Online Programme: Start date 28th April

There are still a few spaces for my online programme due to start on Monday 28th April. If you are looking to improve your health, increase energy, lose some weight and regain better eating habits then this is exactly what you need!

Becca Broadbent from TheseMumsDo Fitness www.thesemumsdo.co.uk and I have been running online support groups for over 5 years and the results are phenomenal. If you want to gain support from two experts and a group of like-minded women who are looking to improve their health, then this one’s for you. You get full access to my easy and nourishing food plan, live Q&A and daily support from Becca and me for the 21 days. It’s fun, easy and great for motivational and accountability support. Spaces are limited to 20 and are first come first served.

Spring Easy Lunch Bowl Recipe:

We need easy, quick go-to recipes that pack a punch for nutritional content and can be prepared in 5 minutes so I hope you like this recipe to keep you nourished through Spring.