Fight Stress With These 5 Foods

Do you want to use food to mitigate some of the impact that stress has on your health?

If you answered yes, this means that you:

• Understand that being in a perpetual state of stress isn’t good for anything

• Are tired of feeling exhausted and run down, and are open to taking action to feel like your best self so you can do more of what you love (and feel better when doing it!)

• Are open-minded to using a holistic approach to make changes and figure out what works for your body and mind

I've put together a free guide, 5 Foods that Fight Stress, to show you some of the ways that stress steals from you, and some simple ways to take back your health.

Based on the info shared, you’ll…

• Have a better understanding of where comfort food cravings come from

• Know which delicious foods to seek out to nourish yourself and help balance your body, resulting in increased energy, less time fighting colds, and better sleep so you can wake up refreshed and ready for your day

• Eat chocolate without judging yourself for it

• Feel like you have more options than just sucking it up and assuming you simply have to feel this way

I hope you take a peek at these simple foods and start eating your way to less stress and better health soon!  

How to Stress Less and Sleep More

Have you ever experienced this vicious cycle? It goes like this:

You're stressed out, so you have trouble sleeping, but then because you're not getting enough sleep, you feel more stressed. When you get up, after hitting the snooze button a few times and only being resuscitated by a caffeinated beverage, you still feel like a shell of yourself.

You know that 3pm coffee isn't going to help your head when it hits the pillow, but it seems like the only way you're going to make it through that afternoon meeting. So the cycle continues...

Learn how to break that cycle and restore your energy.

My signature wellness workshop “Stress Less, Sleep More” focuses on stress and sleep, and the impact both have on our health and job performance. I teach participants how to take make lasting changes no matter what life looks like or how busy they are. With these simple but effective tools, they can get back to feeling like their best selves.

If you’d like this offered where you work, reach out for a complimentary consultation to learn more about how to support your own efforts to get your energy, and life, back. 

In the meantime, here is a 15-minute guided meditation to get yourself back to a calmer state - you can even use this if you have trouble falling back to sleep. Sweet dreams!

Are You Making Career Choices With Courage?

The first of a new monthly series called "Courageous Career Choices" is done! I'm interviewing people from all industries, both entrepreneurs and employees, who have made intentional decisions (not just major career changes) to do work that's aligned with their values. 

The goal is to to inspire you if you're curious about:

• the impact that our work can have on our health

• what makes people move from thinking about leaving their jobs to actually taking action

• how to manage stress and prioritize wellness when in a big transition (or simply in your everyday life!)

The first interview was with Jen of Wander Free Wellness. You can watch here (just skip to the 1 minute 30 second mark to ignore the tech trouble!) or head to the Facebook  page if you want to leave a comment or question. The next three months are scheduled and in the events section there so you can RSVP to receive a reminder when we're going live! I truly hope you enjoy this series.

Stress: Why it Matters and What to Do About It

Never-ending inbox have you on edge? 

I recently led a yoga workshop called "From Stressed to Savasana." When preparing the content for the post-yoga flow discussion, I took a step back to examine the importance of managing this common emotion. 

We all know that constantly feeling stressed doesn’t feel good. But other than not enjoying the way it feels, why is it so important to address?

Because the majority of disease is linked to stress. Over 80% of visits to doctors are stress related, yet only 3% of the time is stress management covered (source). 

Stress leads to inflammation in your body, and chronic inflammation leads to disease. When we’re not well (dis-ease) that can make us feel stressed, which then perpetuates the whole cycle (source).

Some stress is good— such as starting a new job that’s a great fit –  and the body’s process for managing real threats (like a potential life-threatening situation) is a critical. Unfortunately, we often perceive everyday stressors the same way in the body (video – start at 3:20).

This perpetual stress response increases the release of hormones like cortisol and adrenaline (source). Imagine you’re being chased by a lion. All of your body’s energy and resources will be spent on preparing you to fight or take flight, leaving minimal energy to be spent on other bodily functions like digesting food. Your body decides that running from the lion takes precedence over digesting that sandwich, and rightfully so!

So, when this same stress response happens daily, you can imagine how much it interferes with your ability to perform normal tasks and feel like your best self.

It inhibits proper digestion and nutrient absorption, clouds thinking, causes anxiety, can bring upon a feeling of being “tired but wired,” increases sugar cravings, weight gain, high blood pressure and more.

So… what do we do?!

Just like the Sympathetic Nervous System is turned “on” – we can turn it “off” by activating the Parasympathetic Nervous System (PNS is nicknamed the “rest and digest” system for a reason). There are countless ways to do this, and many are free and fast, making them easy to integrate into our busy lives!   

Three of these tips take less than five minutes daily! Use them to start restoring your energy today. Have other simple stress relief activities that are working for you? Let me know in the comments! Your input may be just what someone else needs to hear.