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To Feel Better, Live More.
Bite Size your weekly dose of positivity and optimism to get you ready for the weekend.
Today's clip is from episode 416 of the podcast with neuroscientist, executive coach and author, Dr Tara Swart.
In this clip, Tara shares some of the most effective ways to manage stress and she shares some of the simple practices she implements herself.
I genuinely believe that a lot of us don't even realize how stressed we are.
I agree.
Many doctors, including myself, say that 80 to 90 of what we see in any given day is in some way related to stress, right?
As a neuroscientist, I would say that's where the stress piece really lands for me.
Because your brain's perception of what is going on is going to have this cascade effect on the rest of your body.
So if you perceive basically your brain perceives that there's a threat to your survival, then it's going to signal for your cortisol levels to rise.
So your adrenal glands will release more cortisol that goes around in the blood.
It crosses the blood brain barrier and the receptors in the brain can see that you're on high alert all the time.
And so that process is pro-inflammatory.
So that has all sorts of knock-on effects on your cardiovascular system, your immunity, your gastrointestinal system.
And it's very dehydrating.
So, you know, that can show up on your skin and your hair, your scalp.
And the other thing is that, as a very ancient survival mechanism that encourages storage of fat in the abdominal fat cells,
So basically you would kind of have very dry skin, frizzy hair, a bigger belly that you can't shift, sleep disturbance, probably some kind of digestive problems.
And it's all, you know, what's behind all of that is stress.
Yeah.
I've seen firsthand how many people this impacts physical health, mental health, emotional health the whole shebang when we're chronically stressed.
Stress's impact on our physical health, I think is profound.
And I don't think the public know enough about it.
And frankly, I don't think our profession knows enough about it.
No.
Because it's kind of behind whatever inflammatory marker you're seeing, it's almost like it's hidden.
So even if we understand that a certain disease is kind of like underpinned by inflammation, we're still not necessarily taking that step back and saying what are the stress factors in your life?
We're much more likely as a profession of doctors to say keep a food diary, you know, how much exercise do you do?
How do you sleep?
And keep focusing on those physical things.
And I think that's a problem.
But I also think some of the things that we learned during the pandemic whether it was just the benefits of being in nature more or whether it was understanding mental health better I think is opening the door to the medical profession and educating the population about stress and how big an impact it has on all of those other things.
So you could take two people, let's say you and I, and we could have the same job like we've actually had in the NHS as junior doctors.
And one of us could burn out and the other one doesn't.
Why is that?
So partly, there are things that you can do to build your mental resilience, to build your resilience to stress.
So if you have those tools and practices, if you've been doing them for years or you incorporate them now, that can help you to withstand stress.
But the other thing is that there's clearly different thresholds for different people of what causes them to actually burn out.
So, you know, let's say you get someone gets divorced.
Someone might find it a difficult experience, but you know, get through it, move on, and somebody else might completely break down.
So basically two things.
One is that we each have our own starting point or threshold.
And two, we can do things to build that up.
And I really found that actually in the pandemic around the time that we last, you know, we spoke on the podcast, is that because I had been practicing yoga and meditation and, you know, walking in nature and bathing with salts and just all the thing journaling.
Because I'd been doing those things for so long, I could really immediately draw on the help that I can get from those things.
But a message that I kept putting out there is that, even if you've never done these things before, if you start now, it will help you.
So there's two main ways to offload stress from your system.
One is physical exercise which sweats out the cortisol from your body, and the other one is speaking out loud or possibly journaling as well.
But i think speaking you know speaking with someone, because then you've got that sort of social connection piece.
But instead of ruminating on your thoughts, if you actually get them out of your brain body system, that reduces your cortisol levels too.
Look, the truth is Tara, this is something I've realised is an issue in my own life over the last few years.
Because my best mates are still the mates I made at university.
Yeah.
And they live hundreds of miles away from me.
And so literally four weekends ago, we got together, we went to Wales for a weekend.
And it was a very different weekend from how we might have done it in our 20s.
We went walking in the hills and it was amazing.
It was just three of us actually.
But I think we really opened up and shared things with each other that I don't think we have done in ages.
And I think we all felt lighter when we left and drove home and returned home to our families, being with people that you trust, that you've got such a long history with, that you can share things with that.
Maybe you find that some of the issues that you're facing in life, you're not alone in them.
You know, there's just so much benefit from that.
Are you open to sharing what you do on a daily basis to keep yourself in check with yourself?
So as soon as I wake up in the morning, before I start to think things like oh, what's the time and what do I have to do today?
I immediately give gratitude for my pillowcase, my pillow, my mattress, my mattress topper and my bedding.
So I'm intentionally pushing myself towards that oxytocin state rather than the cortisol state as soon as I'm aware that I've become awake.
I then do deep breathing whilst I'm still in bed.
And I really feel into like all the directions that I'm breathing in.
And I just see like, is there any tension somewhere or?
So you're tuning into your body immediately.
Immediately, yeah.
You're not allowing yourself, I guess often into the emails, the social media, the news, where you know you.
Suddenly you've lost touch with your body and you write into your brain and your thoughts, right.
Yeah.
Yeah, I mean, I don't have my phone in my bedroom and it's several floors down.
So it's quite a while till I can get to my phone.
And yeah, I got an old fashioned alarm clock because I just didn't want to like, have to.
You know, that's people's biggest excuse, isn't it?
I use my phone as my alarm clock.
Um so gratitude breathing breathing yeah, and then then i get up and i i take my probiotic first thing, because i have to give a 10 minute gap before i can eat or drink anything, and then i will look at my phone.
But what i love about that is what you have just said.
You do as a neuroscientist, former doctor coach, right.
With all your knowledge and experience of helping people, you have built into your life a practice, dare I say a ritual each morning whereby, within minutes, it's not much, that gratitude is not much, that breathing is not much,
And you know, 10, 15 minutes later, you're on your phone, right?
That's very achievable for people.
Yeah.
And but I'll add that because I have that 10 minute gap until I can drink my cup of tea.
That's why I look at my phone because I'm kind of waiting.
But my making my cup of tea, whether it's regular tea or matcha tea, whether I'm using mushroom powders or not, that is a ritual for me.
That is like a sacred moment.
Like the phone has is left behind.
And I do that almost like a form of meditation.
Why?
Um, I like I like rituals.
What is a ritual?
A ritual is something that you do intentionally.
So it's not just a routine.
It's something that you do regularly, but you do it very intentionally.
And I so I try to bring rituals into my life so that I've got it's like a patchwork quilt.
There's moments of mindfulness throughout my day.
And that to me is one of them.
And also then when I drink the cup of tea, I savour it like so much, like so that you know that's okay.
I've looked at my phone for a few minutes but I've got another pause there and you know, then I'll go and get like ready for the day.
Yeah, what it really speaks to to me is that you have spent time getting to know yourself.
Yeah right, so you know what works for you.
Yeah, we've been talking a lot about stress, right?
And the damaging effects of too much stress.
One of the antidotes is nature, right?
Nature is the palette that we have existed in since the beginning of time.
And so we all feel a sense of beauty when we're in nature.
And we know that when we're in nature our blood pressure goes down, our heart rate goes down.
There are certain trees that secrete chemicals, called phytoncides, that boost the natural killer cells in our immune system.
So there's a lot of good stuff going on when we're in nature.
We all feel good when we're in the forest or in nature, right?
Generally speaking, it's hardwired into us, isn't it?
For a number of reasons.
The difficulty there, of course, is that the world is becoming more and more urbanised.
So even just having more plants in your house has the effect that I mentioned of the trees in the forest.
Yeah, it is harder if you're living in an urban environment, but there are amazing parks in most cities.
So trying to get to them, but even just noticing the trees that you can see in the skyline kind of thing, or a body of water.
Yeah, it makes a difference.
I've seen research on fractals, which are these, of course, as you know, these geometric shapes that we only get in nature, that when a human eye sees a fractal, you lower levels of the stress hormone, cortisol right?
So I think that's one of the many reasons why nature is so powerful.
We've covered a lot.
To finish off though, Simple question.
In all of your experience doctor neuroscientist coach lecturer, whatever it might be what are some of the most impactful changes and lifestyle choices that people can bring into their lives that will improve the quality of them immediately?
So the year that was a game changer for me was the year that I decided to add in two or three micro habits per quarter.
So I started the year and I identified three things that I was going to do.
And also knowing that some quarters one of those was just going to fall by the wayside and not actually get incorporated.
But what it meant was because they were such easy things that by the end of you know, by the end of March, I was like okay, like what else can I do?
So, And it meant that by the end of the year I looked back and I had 10 things I was now doing, without question, that had not been habits the year before.
So I'm going to start with some really simple basic ones, because I think it's always worth repeating these things like drinking enough water.
I mean just going from being in a slightly dehydrated state to being in a properly hydrated state.
All the time will make you feel different.
Getting enough sleep and going to bed and waking up at regular times has been shown to be really important.
But then I'd like to like slightly switch and say that the more recent research on the benefits to your mental health, your health and longevity of spending time in nature and having really positive, meaningful social connections And having a purpose that transcends yourself.
These are the three things that I'm more focused on now, having kind of, you know, got the basics mostly right.
I love it.
Hope you enjoyed that bite-sized clip.
Do spread the love by sharing this episode with your friends and family.
And if you want more, why not go back and listen to the original full conversation with my guests.
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I hope you have a wonderful weekend.
Make sure you have pressed subscribe and I'll be back next week with my long form conversation on Wednesday and the latest episode of Bite Science next Friday.
