As a naturopathic physician, I know that medicine should never be cookie cutter because every individual’s needs are unique.
The good thing about stress is that it can absolutely be a catalyst that sparks positive change. The bad news is that I rarely see stress creating change. What I usually see is chronic stress being worn as a red badge of courage to demonstrate the ability to grind and stay perpetually busy. And, sometimes stress is also a convenient excuse to not prioritize yourself and take care of other aspects of your health.
Today, I’m going to talk about stress and fear and how they impact a person’s immune health. I also want to offer some tools that you can use to modulate your own stress levels.
When we’re talking about stress and the immune system, there’s a distinction between acute stress and chronic stress. Acute stress, such as the stress before taking an exam, can actually upregulate certain areas of immune function. Where we begin to run into trouble with immune health is when we deal with chronic stress.
Chronic stress, feeling overwhelmed and pressured for a prolonged period of time, has different impacts on the immune system. Particularly during the course of a pandemic, immune health is crucial and chronic stress can suppress immunity across the board. The research regarding the impact of stress on the immune system is still developing, but current research demonstrates the link between stress and immunosuppression.
Fear often accompanies stress. And, not surprisingly, chronic fear has similar impacts on the immune system that stress does. However, fear has another surprising impact. It causes us to catastrophize and blow events out of proportion, as well as negatively impact our decision-making processes. I feel certain that this is part of what leads people to make poor health decisions.
Now that we know stress and fear are detrimental to immune health, what do we do about it? We’re always going to have events in our lives that cause stress and fear, so the best bet is to focus on our response to that input. There are five strategies that I use to help my patients manage their stress, as well as manage my own stress.
Turn off the news. I find that many of my patients’ stress is made worse by endless scrolling through or watching the news, and I regularly recommend media breaks. Often, there isn’t new news to report so the news is the actually the same information reframed in a way to keep us engaged, and some media may intentionally push the buttons of stress and fear in order to maintain an audience.
Get outside. Connection with nature is grounding and brings us to a truer reality than we can possibly get through a screen. Personally, nature brings me to a place where I am reminded of what is truly important in my life. There are many studies that show time in nature relieves not just psychological stress, but physical stress as well.
Exercise is a great stress outlet for me and the same is true for many of us. Movement, particularly intense movement, can get me out of my head and into my body. That’s a win for me! Along with modulating stress, exercise stabilizes mood, can act as an anti-inflammatory, and it reduces symptoms and mortality (death) when a person is dealing with a viral illness.
Meditation and breathing. I’ve become a regular meditator over the past several months and I use different breathing strategies to calm my nervous system. Meditating for five to 10 minutes is easy to incorporate into my day and a technique such as box breathing is easy to implement. These strategies teach me to calm and clear my head in moments of stress and give me the space that I need between hearing something stressful and then reacting to that stressor. Creating that space is crucial for a healthy stress response.
Supplements. Before I talk about supplements, I want to stress that you absolutely cannot out-supplement or out-medicate poor health habits. This means that if you aren’t working on numbers 1-4 on this list, supplements and medications aren’t going to work as well. I do have a few interventions that I use, including glycine, l-theanine and a tincture of skullcap/oats. These are great to have on hand if I need them and I’m grateful that they are there when I need them. I will often recommend that patients use herbs and nutrients such as ashwaganda, phosphatidyl serine, lavender, Vitamin C, B Vitamins, GABA and others. I don’t have a standard supplement prescription because my patients, as individuals, have different needs.
Of course, there are many other strategies that can be used to modulate a person’s stress. As a naturopathic physician, I know that medicine should never be cookie cutter because every individual’s needs are unique. The same goes for stress management strategies. If the strategies I’ve written about today don’t work for you, keep looking for a better fit. Your stress-relieving solution is out there! FBN
By Amber Belt, ND
Amber Belt, N.D. is a naturopathic physician with sharp regenerative injection skills, a roller derby enthusiast, a business owner, an animal lover and a Flagstaff devotee. She has been performing regenerative injections for 12 years and can be contacted via aspenmedcenter.com or at 928-213-5828.