Dealing with stress..

tanedout

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538
I've seen it mentioned a few times that people struggle to deal with stress when in a PFS/PSSD/PAS state. I definitely find this to be the case, and seem to go through phases where some times I'm ok, and other times feel like I'm under chronic stress.

Anyone have any tips on dealing with stress, or any short-term quick fixes as well as longer term?!

I seem to get some benefit from going for a walk (not sure if this suggests vainous gases issue potentially, red blood cells?) but I know a few things that are fairly effective;

  • Drinking tea - this is supposed to lower cortisol, and I think the actual motion is quite relaxing
  • Meditation - easier said than done sometimes, but probably effective too and I need to practice more
  • Adaptogen herbs - rhodiola, ashwaghanda etc - pretty much the CD herbs, I'm tempted to get back on with these - anyone suggest any that are especially effective as anti-stress?!
  • Diet - avoiding processed foods, sugar, alcohol - do all these anyway.
Any other tips or suggestions?
 

Canari

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1,609
I have written quite a lot already about it, including some free videos in irene lyon website, not to mention the paid program if you have less than 200 bucks to put in it, valid for life. I know this enough and nevertheless I have not hesitated to take the course. I earn nothing for advertising it... But Ii would help any member who would take it even more than I help the other members of the group. More over, before any trial, you can also go for free into a facebook group!

Meditation is not good for everybody and she has some videos to explain this and why, same for mindfulness, as this triggers some people. She has the best free ressource on line, and maybe the only paid ressource, much cheaper than sessions.

The both short and long term method is to discharge the weight stocked and stuck in the ANS. I have all the prooves but I cannot explain shortly all my years of learning. People trust me or they do not. I think not, as there have not been many questions after my threads and I think I wrote them for nothing.... You would have to deal with stress not only to feel fine but so that any treatment work better! You can stabilize much quicker if you get rid of all the activation that is frozen in the nervous system. I have shared in my log a few things I do for myself, as I still have some activation from a surgery, and it is no fun, and the biggest part I cannot do it myself. Hopefully I do it tomorrow with some help.... Anybody with sleep problem and who had general anestesia can beneficiate to work on it, because this is a big cause of activation during sleep!

And about cortisol, this is about ANS too, as the body should use adrenaline, and turn to cortisol only when there was some long term stress, and then the body turns to cortisol as a habit. Anybody having cortisol issues has an underlying problem of frozen activation. It is like a cyst, or copper put in stock in liver, the body puts also the nervous activation aside. Until we do something. So my method is the equivalent of chelation, but at nerves level.
Catharsis or fast breathe work like rebirth, is a bad idea as it is the equivalent of a herx that is difficult to eliminate, or making stuff go out and poison all and letting it re-deposit.
Believe me, all those products damage the nervous system, virus and spirochete etc damage nerves too! This is an internal agression! You need to clean the electric activation of the nerves, empty the battery, so that the energy be redirected to you immune and healing system. The sympathic system directly triggers the release of adrenaline, cortisol etc. If you calm the nervous system while keeping the charge, you do not fool the body....

The same energy that keeps the past stress from going overboard is the energy that also put your body in rest and digest and repair mode! They cannot work on both wires! Look at the polyvagal theory! If you get calm by withdrawing and feeling separated from things, this is not real rest, it is a rest that keep the big charge quiet... Go to her website, this is her name, read the free guide to destress in 7 steps, apply it, register in the free facebook group, and start it!
 

Goose12

Well-Known Member
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648
I was under chronic stress when I first crashed. It was nearly impossible to quiet my mind, the most important thing is to get your cortisol under control.

A few things that helped me were: meditation and rhodolia that you already mentioned.

L dopa, this would take an hour or two to kick in but I quickly built up a tolerance to it. I would save it for occasions.

Eleuthero

R andro, it didn't help while on it but the snap back put my anxiety at a lower baseline.

RU, this is the best for anxiety, at least for me. If I had to do everything over again I would do 3 days at 50mgs right away. RU is the best thing I have tried for anxiety to lower your baseline.

Because of RU and r andro anxiety is not an issue for me anymore.
 

Canari

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1,609
Depression is when the dorsal parasympathetic is dominant, with a lot of sympathetic underneath at the same time. This is what stills your energy from the rest and digest and repair state.
Anxiety is when the dorsal vagus nerve can no more contain all the charge, thus it lets escape part of the activation in form of anxiety. Anxiety is an activation for action that lacks target, it has no intention beforehand. So it triggers cortisol. When cortisol is triggered, it means adrenals are tired, or else adrenaline would be triggered first!

The normal current way that the dorsal vagal works is to allow digestion, sexuality, real rest and immune system. It is meant to be redirected to blocking strong activations of the sympathetic system, during short periods. In the biggest cases, it is what you see in animals having catalepsy like possums. It is also what happens in general anestesia. Then we should go out of this state, so that we get the energy back to digestion etc.

Very often, we do not remove totally the powerful brake, and we keep some freeze over some activation, and this is what slows all healing processes.

Social engagement is a good way to regulate the dorsal vagal, as it unfreezes us through the use of the ventral part of the vagus. Be with friends that are able to sustain and keep a good mood, and who do not ask you to make an effort because it is all in your head...

Meditation too is good, when you can be present and not dissociate while doing it.
 
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Canari

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1,609
I have found this article that explains the nervous system by comparing with the body being polluted.
Toxins, Pollutants + Your Nervous System - Irene Lyon

At the bottom of the page you will find the link to her ebook to destress in 7 steps. Use it! It looks super basic, but it is that easy, when you do it.
 

mattyb

Moderator
Messages
833
You can't just wait until you get stressed out to worry about how to deal with stress. Stress is dealt with by creating resilience.

You create resilience through frequency. This means meditating, exercising, eating right, having productive hobbies, seeing friends/family - FREQUENTLY. You can't wait until the stress hits you, if you aren't prepped you'll break under it. You have to have outlets for this stress that are constantly being used. Art or science, anything creative, is extremely useful for coping with stress.

This also means exposing yourself to stress. If your life is too down tempo, and you never have any real worries to deal with occasionally, you'll become easy to break.

If you wait for the stress to hit you without prepping for it, the only thing you can do is apply temporary patches - eating a lot, sleeping a lot, drugs, supplements, etc. Those patches have their own risks though if practiced regularly though, so all we can really do is build resilience and find good outlets.
 

Canari

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1,609
@mattyb resilience and frequency are indeed linked. Then your examples include trying to not add more stress, which is of course good, and using the ventral vagus power, which is good as well. But what almost all modern science misses is the weight of undischarged activations, which leads to tell people to make an effort, to push through and forget about old stories, or talk them in therapies, or get emotional catharsis, or organise new habits through a work on the limbic system. In most cases it pushes the activation deeper. Nothing looks more overcome and out of you than what is IN you. Then some people escape all their life, and some get a trigger one day, and they crash so many years after, that it seems unrelated.

You would indeed become an easy break if you did not expose yourself to stress since childhood, but most people have had more than they should have had in their life, and this is what broke resilience in the first place. When you expose yourself to stress, you have to not reach certain thresholds, or else you lower resilience. Instead of increasing it.

so all we can really do is build resilience
This is also what I say, but not by adding stress like a sort of vaccine. You build resilience by discharging the plates of the balance on both side.

This also means exposing yourself to stress
But not new ones. You have to expose yourself to the activation of your old stresses and detox them. This will repair the pathways of your ANS.

The technique to build resilience is about making go out of you a piece of old stress that you can sustain, so that you can put it out of you for real. Why do we have those stresses remaining in us? Because when it is too big, the body cannot dump it, and stock it the same as it stocks toxins and heavy metals, and for the same reason, your wise body wants to prevent more damage. But long term, you HAVE to let them out. And let me tell you that is it safer to remove memories than lead or mercury...

So the only way, no matter the technique, is a technique that makes you feel a tiny bit of your stress and discharge the electric charge. This shows the way to your body, and re-start the natural system of the body. Any time you activate a bit too much, you damage a bit more the system, as if creating a too big Herxeimer! It works as detox, you cannot detox all at once! This is a pity this point escapes to most people and even scientists.

You all in this forum understand these principles when they are shown in hair test. You know you can first show no copper or no mercury, and then when you get better, your body starts to dump the heavy metal that was kept in stock, in the cells! This is the same for stress! You know that your body can use nickel or aluminium instead of the mineral they should, and that you go on living, but that you have to come back to the right pathways. Your nerves work the same way, they have plan Bs but you need to come back to plan A.

If you wait for the stress to hit you without prepping for it, the only thing you can do is apply temporary patches
This is the only thing most people do, as we did not learn anything else. But this is not the only thing you can do.

I have once helped a guy who had an issue and who was waiting for the result to know about a possible cancer. He was overwhelmed by fear and could not go out of his anxiety up to the point that his eyes were having the gleam of high fever. ONE hour later, this was gone. TWO hours later I helped him do the same job in a few seconds, the next day he phoned me for help again, and by the time I was there he told me he had managed it alone. We never did anything else since then, and 2 months after he was able to stand mindfulness and when he once got his stress back, his wife just reminded him what we did, and he was able to do it. I am not going to tell you that it is always that easy and quick, but you can teach your body to get back its capacity, its elasticity, its resilience, And one word more, coherence.
 
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MNK99

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5,560
So be proactive about our stress durability, rather than reactive?
Usually I'm stressed all the time but used to it... except for these types of illnesses. I'm used to conflict, arguing, dealing with angry people, frustration, lots of energy, and the like. All good (if you can turn off from it once in a while), and come home. It stays with you, but going to the gym and jogging, or working on creative projects, and just being alone sometimes helps. In my current situation -- stress response is worsened. I don't think I'll ever be super easy going and laid back tho. It's ingrained in me.

Worse stress than my norm near exams and graduations, and career changes and stuff... but once it's done or I get results, I'm "happy" briefly. It's hard to be satisfied though. You can always be better, have more success, and get things done quicker. I feel that way, it isn't true bc if it was I'd try and do it somehow. Some people have it easy, but many have it far worse in the world.

Agenda and daily rituals and forcing myself into "structure" as best as I can helps. Working on that now, had it down pat a year+ ago.
 
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Canari

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So be proactive about our stress durability, rather than reactive?
what do you mean?

Irene s post today in the FB group

It is important to understand that the physiology of the body and its body systems (the immune system, brain system, mental processing, reproductive system, urinary system etc . . . ) are ALL modulated by the autonomic nervous system and its reactions to real or perceived threat. This is why little kids get tummy aches when they don't like a teacher, or when mom and dad hate each other and are keeping it all PC in the home.
1f615.png

Then, we are all genetically predisposed to various things. For me, for example, no matter how stressed I get, my gut stays pretty darn solid, but my skin goes bonkers! My husband is the other way ... never seen his ever have a rash, but his GI tract goes into roller coaster rides when his old traumas and stressors are high and triggered.

Hope this add another piece the puzzle here.
 
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Canari

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Let go of what we can't control, the past, our health not being where we want it to be... and just keep plugging along.
-If I could treat all mental stress that same way, I'd be better. Not being ruled by emotions, but rather detached for a while.
This is the problem... just because it does not work as you say.... Let go is an automatic response that follows a PATHWAY.
Then, this is not mental stress but physiological.
You are not ruled by emotions but y their embodiment, the physiological part of it.
And when you are detached, that makes you more able to function short term, but this is where the freeze or dissociative response is!

Good find @supernature ! Yes trauma is communicative and I have seen the same with dogs. No genetics but behaviour influence. Good relationships are healing and communicative.
 

MNK99

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5,560
So changing one's behavior changes the mind? I know it does definitely, but is that what you mean?
For that detached action, can one just keep doing it until it's automatic? And that behavioral change strengthens the pathway, and in turn the brain changes?
I see what you guys are saying ... loving communicative relationships are the way to go. Love is the answer, perhaps.
True unconditional love, not narcissistic nor obsessive love. And not contingent on other things.
 
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Canari

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1,609
So changing one's behavior changes the mind? I know it does definitely, but is that what you mean?
Partially yes. But the trick is not in changing consciously, but in finishing behaviours that were stuck, because you could not. Where people get it wrong is when they think they have to punch the pillow imagining they hit the person who did them harm. This release some steam from the pressure cooker, but it is not what we want, because steam will go on building. What we need is to manage get part of the activation, feel it in the body, and let it discharge by any electric force such as trembling or laughing with tears or without. As in animal videos after shock. Trembling is a mix of successive fight and flight rresponses that go away! forward-backward, that is what trembling is. forward-backward is fight-flight, which can be felt at emotional level as anger-fear.

For that detached action, can one just keep doing it until it's automatic?
This is protective until you can get rid of the full sympathetic pressure. So let it happen but ressource with people who help by their contact. In the online course, they teach how to ressource other ways. The main one is to orienteer. Just look around and enumerate all the nicest things you have in the room, notice sounds and smells. Notice the ground and your weight and how you lean on earth. Orienteering is what is done after danger is passed, and we still have the behaviour, it is one of the pathways to recovery! While you do this, you can just track how your body feel safety in this place where you are, and notice the changes the shifts. Do this often in the day when you feel relatively ok, so that you can use it too when you do not feel that good.

This behaviour yes is helping to make some permanent changes.
Behavioural changes change emotions and thoughts, but not forever, there are cycles, and you want your baseline to get better.

And that behavioral change strengthens the pathway, and in turn the brain changes?
Yes, but more than the brain, because we have nerves in all the body. What changes is that your vagus nerve can play its main role of rest digest heal and reproduce much better! Our vagus is too much at work to keep past activations.

The pathway we have to reinforce is not the sympathetic activation one, this one works all too good! We have to reinforce the relaxation part. As this is not a fast reaction, we tend to shut it and shorten it. Animals do not do this mistake, that is why they are better than us, even when then get involved in a serial killer world with lions around! You can reinforce this only by practising to notice the slightest change towards relaxation, and rejoice about feeling even the slightest "less bad" feeling! If you wait to feel perfect, then you can wait long.... If you celebrate by happy noticing, of the minor changes, then it shows the way to your body, to do each time more. Baby steps are best.
 

MNK99

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5,560
So bad emotions are bad (obviously), when in that state too long.
Anger is also bad. My uncle told me "anger is a cancer."
I felt that depression is anger turned inward.

"No emotions" are bad too. Detachment is a half measure perhaps (outside of buddhist monks). Being a robot without emotions may be easier than some things, but it's also unhealthy and not conducive to meaningful relationships.

Drugs or the patches @mattyb mentioned are "crutches" and never permanent.

Baby steps it is. I had a counsellor, she said write down three positive things everyday (outside of oneself). I'll see her again in the future.
My best friend who moved - we always saw each other late at night, hung out on the rooftop and talked about our dreams and helped each other process whatever was going on. A "debriefing" of sorts. Writing's great too. He's my creative partner but we couldn't work together just when things were going well for both of us, but I'll get to it again soon.
 

Canari

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1,609
High levels of Adrenaline and Cortisol were seen.

Later they made a comparison with the humans and how such a dynamic and stressfull environment like we live in today is a reason for all kinds of health issues in particular.

There would be no cortisol and no adrenaline if we did not have a nervous system to give the order, to trigger it! Hormones are not a cause but a consequence, there is something upward.

Yes the environment is quite hard, but we could still do good if we knew, if we still knew, how to lower and change from one state to another, activated and relaxed. Same as supplements, we need to cycle everything! Antilopes live in a serial killer world and they still go on eating every day until the lion get them! Because they discharge the stress each time. We can do it too. Actually, that was the role of the shaman... Make you do it when you were not able to do it alone, after being overwhelmed. That is why people are trembling, and they say with a very realistic imaginary, that they "make the bad spirits go away".
 

Canari

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This is precious when you have friends like this man!
and talked about our dreams and helped each other process whatever was going on. A "debriefing" of sorts.
Apart from the talking for debriefing, do you remember what sort of physiological feelings you were having when you were doing this?

I felt that depression is anger turned inward.
Your feeling is absolutely right! You can add also the possibility that it be fear or both fear and anger.

Depression is the shut down of fear and anger, who can then show up sometimes as anxiety or panic attack or furor... Yes, it is kept inward, instead of being discharged outside. The problem to do what animals do, shake it out, is that it is needed to do "sobre la marcha", on the go might be the right english expression... When there is a stock, it is too big to go all at once. That is why I compared to chelation, like when gbold says he does lead detox regularly. You cannot clean all at once. But with a good shaman that makes you shake off your stress safely, you can do the job a bit quicker. In somatic experiencing that is also what we do.

Humorists help to shake out, because they make us laugh at stupid stressful stuff, just see what they chose to laugh at... It is really efficient. Watch and listen to this is a big help to deal with stress to! Add this to the list of self-help!
 

supernature

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921
Yes the environment is quite hard, but we could still do good if we knew, if we still knew, how to lower and change from one state to another, activated and relaxed. ...
... Antilopes live in a serial killer world and they still go on eating every day until the lion get them! Because they discharge the stress each time. We can do it too.

...
 
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Canari

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1,609
It seems they dont care too much about getting killed, but when the time comes they run for their lives. The rest of the time they care much more about eating and living (reproduction). Simple as that.
What makes it not simple for humans? Have you seen videos of animals escaping from the shock of a predator? They really shake off the stress. And when they flee, they use adrenaline for running, so there is no left-over, which is not the case when you cannot flee. Have you read the book "why zebras dont get ulcers"?