Way to go OSU !! We went to bed last night smiling and High St. was exploding with celebrations, as Ohio State had beat Oregon for the National Championship. My husband was so excited that he was shouting with excitement every time there was a touchdown and Laney was going crazy running in circles and barking. She didn't know what was going on and it was quite comical as her OSU sweater came off and was dragging behind her. Wow, there are some happy buckeye fans today. The sun even came out today.
I have been out running errands and enjoying lunch with friends. We have to take advantage of beautiful sunny days here in the north. I said I was going to talk about stress and being with my friends on a regular basis is the best thing for stress. I think back now and realize that my friends have been excellent therapy. They make you laugh, they let you cry if you need too, and they help you see situations differently. God Bless my friends.
I can now talk about stress and what it does to people. A little over a year ago just hearing the word stress made me sick. Yes stress will make you sick and can even kill you. We all have stress in our life, but when it becomes overwhelming due to a life event it can make you ill. It can change your personality, cause cognitive problems, and mess up the hypothalamus- pituitary- thyroid axis. You throw off one thing in the body such as depleting an important mineral or vitamin and it can wreck havoc with your whole mind body relationship.
So the first thing that I want to tell people is that stress will cause belly fat and if you have a muffin top, you may have an overload of stress. When I finally got to the point that I felt so bad last fall, I looked in the mirror and there was a ring of fat around my abdomen. I thought to myself that if I could have jumped in the water I would have floated. I surely wasn't going to sink and I wasn't eating
any more than usual. I had always been petite and now I felt like someone had inflated a ring around my middle, but I couldn't find a plug to pull. When I went to some health care professionals who practice Integrated medicine, the first thing out of my mouth was please help me my body has turned on me. I had even been exercising and eating healthy. I was more concerned about the belly fat than anything, because I knew it was bad and a sign of high stress. And, of course a 48 hour urine test confirmed that my cortisol level was off the chart. STRESS!!!
When our body is under constant stress the adrenal glands sitting on the kidneys keep pumping out cortisol. Our body is made to react to stress for those threatening moments in life. It gives us energy to get through situations. But, if you are in a constant state of stress and you are not releasing the energy your cortisol tells the body to store fat around the middle. Cortisol also keeps us awake and that explained the sleep deprivation I had experienced on and off since childhood. Your cortisol rises normally while we sleep and upon awaking is high, but declines as the day goes on so we can sleep at night. My cortisol level was high 24hrs a day and higher than normal. This was a bad indication that if I didn't get the level under control, I was going to burn out the adrenal glands. I was very sleep deprived and felt exhausted.
Sleep deprivation is not good, because sleeping helps us heal and refuel our bodies. A lack of sleep leads to heart problems, diabetes, high blood pressure and cognitive problems and a host of many other health problems. It throws the whole body out of sync.
It was also haunting my husband. We had come through three years of stress fighting Cancer and now we are fighting off stress. Just knowing you have Cancer causes cortisol levels to rise and if you add chemotherapy and shock the body with drugs, you are almost certain to screw up that hormonal balance in the body. As for me, just the shock of knowing my husband had cancer and was not himself after the chemotherapy caused a big imbalance in me. What a mess we both were.
Thank goodness we are both doing better. I was given supplements prescribed by a doctor and I am getting my cortisol under control and slowly but surely the belly fat is deflating. Together my husband and I are learning how to control cortisol with the right food balances and we have started doing Yoga to help with stress. The Yoga is one of our goals this year to help us relax and tone up.
Goodbye belly fat. I am not going to let you take possession of me any more. It sometimes takes hitting rock bottom to make us find help and get that ownership of our body that I talked about.
My rock bottom decent started in 2011 and climaxed November 2013. I had one of the worst panic attacks of my life as I left the doctors office at MD Anderson. We did not deserve to be treated with insults and intimidated as we were. We were very vulnerable and tired. I was the emergency that sent us home. I never want to feel that bad again. It was what sent me out to search for help. My cortisol was pumping and the adrenaline was making me sick. My therapist had a lot to do with pointing me in the right direction. I have learned a lot about myself and my body. It is ashamed that it took me until August of 2014 to fall literally and stand up and say I need someone that understands the effects of stress on the body. My prayers were answered and now everyday I know what it is like to feel good. I still have a long ways to go to, but I am amazed at how good I feel.
I still have a lot I can say about what stress does to you. Don't let any one tell you it does not cause illness, because it can wreck your whole body chemistry. It can cause personality changes. If anyone makes you feel afraid or harms you run away and don't look back. You will release your adrenaline and perhaps avoid all the stress my husband and I have had. If you have belly fat take it seriously. You can get healthy.
I will talk later about what else happens to the body when your cortisol levels stay high. I need to get to sleep and let my body rest. Goodnight world.
Life is beautiful !!!
Elizabeth:)
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