Can you believe it’s already February?? January flew by for Cara and I with the launch of Cultivate Change. And we’re excited to report that it was a huge success! The results surpassed even our wildest dreams for a first launch. And we have an incredible cohort of people making meaningful, lasting changes as we speak! Woohooo!
As you can imagine, we’re savoring and celebrating all of our hard work and success right now. But we’re also equally celebrating the much needed down time we’re taking this month. We’ve been burning the candle at both ends for a while and we can seriously feel the impact.
We consciously chose to work our booties off for a few of months and get a bit out of balance. And we’re so glad we did! But we were clear all along that it’s not sustainable. And we wouldn’t be practicing what we preach (or what we value), if we didn’t balance that out with a big period of rest and down time soon afterwards.
My Most Important Prescription For Your Health
So today I want to share one of the most important guideposts of wellness we talk about here at Luminary: Rest and Rejuvenate Regularly.
It sounds so simple. And yet, it’s one of THE most impactful things we can do for our health. That doesn’t mean there isn’t a place for big bursts of productivity and excitement in our lives. It’s just that our bodies, minds, relationships, and spirits need the periods of high demand to be cyclical–not an all-day-every-day experience.
There needs to be an ebb and flow in the pacing of our lives if we want to stay vital. AND actually feel whole enough to enjoy the fruits of all of our hard work.
If I could teach everyone just one healthful habit–this would be it. Here’s why it’s so impactful…
A Little Neurobiology Refresher
Our bodies and minds evolved to experience cycles of being in go mode and chill mode–or more specifically parasympathetic and sympathetic nervous system states. There’s a branch of our nervous system, called the autonomic nervous system, that handles much of the involuntary activity in our bodies. This includes things like breathing, heart beating, hormones, digestion, and automatic reactions. This part of our nervous system has two branches.
The sympathetic nervous system (SNS) is “GO mode.” It’s that modes that’s on during a fight or flight reaction, periods of productivity and whenever we are having a stress response. The parasympathetic nervous system (PNS) is “Chill Mode.” It’s the mode that allows us to rest, restore, repair our bodies, connect with our dear ones, make babies, absorb and utilize the nutrients we consume, and help ourselves reset physically and mentally.
Neither is better than the other, but most people get out of balance by getting stuck in the SNS mode too much of the time.
Chronic emotional stress, being hyper-productive, and not slowing down often enough leads to something called sympathetic upregulation–basically our SNS gets stuck in the ON mode and is constantly releasing the stress hormone cortisol.
Too much cortisol too often wreaks havoc on our bodies over time. And is a big factor in developing many health problems including heart disease, diabetes, excessive weight gain, autoimmune conditions, allergies, infertility, migraines, and the list goes on…
When we are stuck in the SNS or “Go Mode”, our bodies and minds never get a chance to fully rest, reset, repair, and restore. It’s like driving your car for 100,000 miles without an oil change–problems are inevitable. It’s not IF they’ll arise, but WHEN. And if you do it for long enough, some of those problems are no longer reversible.
Most importantly, we just don’t enjoy our daily lives as much or feel as vital when we’re stuck in the SNS mode. We tend to feel stressed, irritable, depleted, anxious, and overwhelmed. No thank you!
Unfortunately, it’s all too easy to get stuck in the SNS mode in our busy modern lives and in a culture where such a high value is placed on being hyper-productive. It’s literally created a modern health epidemic.
Sign Your Sympathetic Nervous System is Stuck In the On Mode
Here are a few signs that you’re experiencing sympathetic upregulation or being stuck in the “On Mode”
-
- Feeling regularly overwhelmed or frazzled
- Craving sweet or high calorie foods
- Trouble falling or staying asleep
- Feeling “tired and wired”
- Not waking up rested
- Feeling exhausted or depleted often
- Feeling an increase in anxiety or worrying a lot
- Jumping at loud noises/being easily startled
- Irritability
- Feeling stressed even when there aren’t excess stressors in your life
- Low libido
- Getting sick way more often than you think you should
- Regular headaches or migraines
- Having Irritable Bowel Syndrome
- Having an autoimmune disorder, hives, allergic reactions, or seasonal allergies
- Frequent neck, shoulder, and back pain/tightness
I can tell you right now, I’ve got a couple of these things going on after burning the candle at both ends the last few months! And I use them as important indicators that I’m overdue for more rest and down time.
Flipping the Switch Off
7 Ways to Lower Your Stress Levels and Support Your Nervous System.
So we all know how to end up stuck in the SNS On Mode (been there, done that!). But how do we unstick that switch and get back into the PNS more often? Here are my top 7 recommendations…
-
- Practice Regular Mindfulness. Remember 10 minutes is all it takes! You can do 3 short “brain breaks” each day (3-5 minutes) or one medium length mindfulness practice daily (10-15 minutes) and get tons of benefit. Trust me–your nervous system will thank you! (Personally I love the Headspace app for this)
- Follow Your Ultradian Rhythms – Rest & Productivity Cycles. Extensive research from NASA and the military shows that our bodies and brains are hardwired to work optimally in 90 minute spurts with periods of rest and renewal in between. Ideally these breaks are around 10-20 minutes long and involve switching activities, and resting both our body and our brain.
- Follow Your Circadian Rhythm – Sleep Cycles. Do your absolute best to get 7-9 hours of high quality sleep each night. Sometimes this simply isn’t possible (night shifts, having a sick child who is up all night, etc), but keep it top of mind and a priority in your life.
- Be Non-Productive / Take Down Time. Take little and big chunks of time to be truly non-productive throughout your days, weeks, months, and years – both mentally and physically. Take a hot bath or a nap, sit outside and watch the clouds, cozy up on the coach with a cup of tea, take a sabbatical, go on a vacation, rest more in the winter – that kind of stuff.
- Take a Break from Caffeine. If you’re getting stuck in the SNS On Mode, caffeine can really hinder your ability to get back to the PNS state. So it’s helpful to take a caffeine break for a month, or just significantly decrease your caffeine intake when you’re experiencing SNS up-regulation (see that list of SNS up-regulation symptoms above).
- Take Some Targeted Herbs That Support Your Nervous System. HPA Adapt is my go-to. I LOVE this product for when people are experiencing SNS up-regulation and use it myself intermittently. Talk to your health care practitioner about using it if you are pregnant, nursing, or have any allergies to herbs.
- Call on Additional Support as Needed. Some of us get stuck in the SNS “Go Mode” simply because we’ve been go-go-go for so long, our nervous system doesn’t easily get into the PNS mode anymore. We haven’t been utilizing those neural pathways often enough. And some of us get stuck in the SNS “Go Mode” because of difficult life experiences or circumstances (i.e., prolonged periods of heavy stress, little and big traumas, having a family member with mental illness or substance abuse, divorce, and grief/loss just to name a few). For many of my one-on-one clients I recommend we add in additional supports to help down regulate their SNS. It just has such an enormous impact on physical health and allows us to make much bigger strides in their healing. Additional supports that can help with sympathetic down-regulation include: working with a skilled therapist, acupuncture, cranio-sacral therapy or Feldenkreis work, bio-feedback, and massage.
If you’ve experienced any difficult life experiences or specific traumas, especially in your formative years, I can’t recommend getting additional support from an experienced therapist enough. These experiences have such a huge impact on your nervous system, so that no matter how much you meditate or try to rest, it can still be hard to get into the PNS state often enough or for as long as you need.
Luckily those nervous system impacts from difficult life experiences can be largely mitigated with the right support and processing. Take the Adverse Childhood Experiences Quiz here to learn about how your experiences might be impacting you.
I hope these tips encourage you to support your body and mind with more rest and down time!
If you remember just one thing from this blog, let it be this: At the heart of it all is honoring your cycles – rest and productivity, wake and sleep, busy times and restful times, and the seasons of your life.
There is no perfect formula, but rather an opportunity to tune in and listen to your body. To ask what it needs. To honor what you hear. And to care for yourself as diligently and lovingly as you do all of the important people and responsibilities in your life.
So this month you’ll find me more often lingering in my bathtub with music on, essential oils wafting, and a few candles flickering. Cozied up by our windows with a cup of tea in the early mornings watching the world go by. Walking quietly on our neighborhood trails just noticing, listening, and tuning into my senses. Cooking meals with friends. Spending some quality time with my sweetheart. Plucking a few guitar strings or picking up a paintbrush in the early evenings.
Saying no to additional responsibilities and commitments. And saying yes to slow living, to quiet, and to rest.
If you’re due for a season of rest too, I hope you’ll join me. Think of a couple of ways to more fully support yourself this week and in this season of your life. Then carve out the time and put those actions on your calendar. Trust me…your body, mind and spirit will thank you!
With love,
Amber
Team Luminary
