“Stress should be a powerful driving force, not an obstacle.” ~ Bill Phillips
Is Stress Ruining Your Day and Keeping You Up at Night?
A 2014 study on workplace stress by the American Institute of Stress revealed that 77% of Americans report physical symptoms from stress, 73% report psychological symptoms, and 33% report experiencing extreme stress.
If you feel stressed to the point your day is compromised, and you struggle to sleep, you should seek help in learning to manage your stress.
No provider can eliminate your stress because it is part of the human experience. However, this does not mean that we can’t get help with learning how to self-regulate through stress.
To help you understand how to self-regulate through stress, I will cover the following three questions in this article:
- What is stress?
- Why is my stress so bad?
- Who can I see for my stress?
What is Stress?
Your journey to properly managing stress starts with understanding the role of the Autonomic Nervous System (ANS).
The ANS is a network of cells that controls the body’s internal state. It regulates and supports many different internal processes, often outside of a person’s conscious awareness, to maintain inner balance (this is known as Homeostasis). Hence, your external monitoring system measures and senses what you are facing to keep you in balance with your environment.
Your ANS is concerned with the concept of homeostasis, or a state of compensation necessary to support health.
Allostasis is when you are imbalanced, and your ANS seeks to bring you back into balance by activating your stress or recovery response.
A quote by Dr. Bruce McEwen (Professor of Neuroendocrinology at Rockefeller University) will bring more depth to your understanding:
“Stress is a brain and body response aimed at promoting adaptation in the face of real or imagined threats to a person’s homeostasis.”
Why is My Stress So Bad?
Humans are unique in how we perceive stress because not only do we react to real stress, but we can also create it in our minds.
We can activate the stress response from financial concerns, relationship problems, and real or imagined work stress.
Our fight-or-flight response is activated whenever we ruminate about the past or worry about our future. Thus, our 21st-century lifestyle is putting us under stress chronically.
Chronic stress is bad stress!
When these perceived threats chronically activate our stress response, it begins to damage our bodies.
Chronic diseases, including heart disease, diabetes, and hypertension, are all linked to ANS imbalances. To quote Dr. Bruce McEwen, “Allodynamic adaptation has a price, and the cost of this adaptation is called allostatic load–the wear and tear on the body and brain.”
How we filter stressful events and manage stress daily significantly impacts the “price” we pay for stress.
The stress response is an adaptive or healthy mechanism meant to protect you. Still, when you fail to manage stress properly over the long term, this protective mechanism becomes a maladaptive or destructive force in your life.
The lesson is that your stress is terrible not only because of circumstances but also due to your thinking.
Who Can I See for My Stress?
1. Psychologist
A psychologist can help you sort through the causes of your stress so you can go to work, possibly eliminating the source of the stress.
It could be a relationship, a pattern of behavior, or a thought process that is causing your stress.
2. Primary Care Doctor
Your primary care doctor is also an excellent place to start.
They will ask you a series of questions to help you understand if there is a physiological solution to consider.
Your primary care doctor can also refer you to a psychologist in your area if they determine the mental health route is best for you.
3. Functional Medicine Doctor
Seeing a functional medicine doctor can be an excellent choice.
The reason why is their approach to medicine is holistic, root cause rather than looking immediately for a prescription drug to treat the problem. Getting to the source is the key to mastering stress.
Anxiety often accompanies stress; anxiety can be rooted in gut health. A functional doctor can evaluate and treat gut health imbalances.
At Tiger Medical, we had seen clients win over anxiety and stress when gut health was addressed.
A Solution to Your Stress
Tiger Medical Institute is a root-cause, functional medicine clinic with deep stress and sleep problem resolution expertise.
At Tiger Medical Institute, we utilize multiple strategies to help our clients master stress by learning to self-regulate through stress and re-engineer their lives to create a less stressful environment.
Our physicians will evaluate physical imbalances contributing to stress and anxiety. Our health coaches will train you in specific techniques you can use daily to eliminate the stress response on demand.
In time, as you work on the physiological imbalances, employ stress elimination techniques, and engineer your life for lower stress, you can gain victory over stress and anxiety.
What are My Next Steps Next Steps
An excellent next step is to read these related articles:
- What Makes Diaphragmatic Breathing So Important?
- Should I Breathe With My Chest or My Stomach?
- A Review of the Tiger Medical Institute Personalized Medical System - Pros and Cons
After you’ve learned more, consider booking a call with one of our professionals at Tiger Medical Institute. In this call, we focus on you.
We want to understand your current state of health, what you’ve tried in the past, and what you feel your current state of health is costing you. We also determine if what we do is a good fit for you.
If, and only if, there is a fit and you want to learn more, do we then progress to presenting our comprehensive program to you. We allow you to decide if it is a good fit for you to move forward with us.
To talk to one of our professionals, CLICK HERE to schedule your call!
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