Feel Better, Live More with Dr Rangan Chatterjee - #192 BITESIZE | Simple Daily Habits to Reduce Stress and Anxiety | Dr Mithu Storoni

Episode Date: June 17, 2021

We are living in the middle of a stress epidemic - the World Health Organization calls stress ‘the health epidemic of the twenty-first century’. But what can we do about it? Feel Better Live More Bitesize is my weekly podcast for your mind, body, and heart. Each week I’ll be featuring inspirational stories and practical tips from some of my former guests. Today’s clip is from episode 56 of the podcast with neuroscientist, researcher and author of the book ‘Stress-Proof, Dr. Mithu Storoni. In this clip, Mithu reveals the results of her research on the common causes of stress and how it affects our health. She gives some great practical tips on how we can help to buffer ourselves from the consequences of stress by changing some of our daily habits. Show notes and the full podcast are available at drchatterjee.com/56 Thanks to our sponsor http://www.athleticgreens.com/livemore Follow me on instagram.com/drchatterjee Follow me on facebook.com/DrChatterjee Follow me on twitter.com/drchatterjeeuk DISCLAIMER: The content in the podcast and on this webpage is not intended to constitute or be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your doctor or other qualified health care provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you have heard on the podcast or on my website. 

Today's Bite Size episode is brought to you by AG1, a science-driven daily health drink with over 70 essential nutrients to support your overall health. It includes vitamin C and zinc, which helps support a healthy immune system, something that is really important at this time of year. It also contains prebiotics and digestive enzymes that help support your gut health. It's really tasty and has been in my own life for over five years. Until the end of January, AG1 are giving a limited time offer. Usually they offer my listeners a one-year supply of vitamin D and K2 and five free travel packs with their first order. But until the end of January, they are doubling the five free travel packs to

10. And these packs are perfect for keeping in your backpack, office, or car. If you want to take advantage of this limited time offer, all you have to do is go to drinkag1.com forward slash live more. Welcome 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 56 of the podcast with the neuroscientist, researcher and author of the book Stress Proof, Dr. Mitu Storoni. In this clip, Mitu reveals the results of her research on the common causes of stress and how it affects our health. She gives some great practical tips on how we can help to buffer ourselves from the consequences of stress by changing some of our daily habits.

In the modern world, in 21st century living, what are the common sources of stress? So I think that the reason why stress is such an issue today is because our lives have changed so drastically that they've resulted in two things. The first thing is we have lost little habits we used to have incorporated in our day-to-day lives, which used to buffer up the consequences of stress and push us back down to our baseline. And we've also introduced things into our lives which have created new stress triggers. So if you imagine the brain, because ultimately stress stems from the brain, which is why I find it so fascinating. The brain is a prediction machine. That's what a lot of the data is pointing at. We have no idea what the world around us looks like. So the brain is creating a model of the

world using the cues it's receiving. So it's trying to do this because if it cannot model the world, the world stays uncertain. And if the world stays uncertain, the uncertainty masks danger. So by bringing the world into a predictable form that the brain can predict, it reduces uncertainty, it is able to control the world, gain mastery of the world. And in doing so, it can predict what's about to happen next and be prepared. Now, many of the cues that we've always used to create this picture of the world are suddenly disappearing. And these are cues we've evolved to rely on. So one wonderful cue I love to refer to is the notion of sunrise and sunset. All our

ancestors, all humanity, have always relied on one thing that's definitely going to happen tomorrow morning, and that's the sun is going to rise. And one thing that's going to happen tonight, the sun will set. But now the melanopsin containing ganglion cells, a very special receptor that we have at the back of the eye that detects the fall in blue light, these receptors at the end of the day are not detecting this fall anymore. So they're not talking to the center in the brain, to the suprachiasmatic nucleus, to say that, hey, the day's ended. It's sunset now.

So as far as the brain is concerned, we continue to have daylight as we look into our blue light emitting smartphones and Kindles and we watch Netflix in the evenings. And that in itself, through multiple pathways, creates uncertainty. You know, as an aside, melatonin, which is the darkness hormone I know you've spoken about before which we produce overnight melatonin is now being shown in head-to-head studies with anti-anxiety medications to have really significant efficacy against anxiety what does that mean it means nature has given us this natural anxiolytic we have taken every night like a pill. And suddenly, with modern technology, modern lives, globalized living, we have cut short this regular nature's anti-anxiety pill dose. And that stress karma has gone away. While at the same time, we've increased uncertainty by

not being able to predict sunrise and sunset anymore, which has created a new stressor. So that's one example. And then there's another example, movement and exercise. And this is one of my favorite examples. In the past, I know when both of us were young, we used to have to get up and run to the telephone to answer the phone. We used to have to get up and walk to the post office to post a letter. Our environment used to nudge us into behaviors in the past, nudge us into moving constantly. And we used to actually move doing low to moderate intensity exercise intermittently throughout the day. Today, we have the wonderful luxury of being able to do everything from these little phones. So we hardly move because we don't need to. As a result, we stay in our sedentary jobs.

We stay sitting all day long without these natural movements. And then people try to squeeze in their exercise because they're told exercise is really good for them. And it is good for us. It's very important for us. But they spend the whole day sitting down and then they do this intense high intensity exercise in the evening. Now, during the day, our ancestors had stress, we have stress. But every time we get a little stressor, the movement we do for the next hour or so buffers the effects of that stress away because low to moderate intensity exercise lowers levels of cortisol. So a little blip of stress and a long buffer of movement. A little

blip of stress, go for a 15 minute walk and you're back to baseline. So if you had these movement intervals throughout your day, the little blips of stress didn't accumulate. Today, we no longer have those buffers. We still get those little blips of stress. So instead, by the end of the day, we have this accumulation of cortisol. And then we go for super high intensity exercise in the evening, and we raise that cortisol even further. And that adds to our stress load, because that accumulates from one day to the next. So this is another example of a new stressor and an absence of a stress buffer. Yeah, me too. I love it. I mean, I think it's such a fresh perspective for me, that whole idea that the brain is trying to model things all the time and actually predict.

And that's when it feels safe. That's when it doesn't feel stressed. It sort of knows, you know, and I guess in many ways, that's how, that's why I find my patients, myself, my children respond so well to routine. That it's, I think, just the way we've always been, isn't it? Right? That this, you know, we need routine. We like routine, yet many of those routines are now just being eroded out of society, frankly. What have you changed in your own life since embarking on this journey to become a stress expert? The short answer is a lot. I'll give you three examples. So the first thing is I've drastically changed how I exercise. I have a gym membership, but now I focus more on moving throughout the day. And my aim with exercise is just one thing.

I want to feel physically exhausted every single day. And I get there by gradual bits of intermittent movement throughout the day. And if I do have to do a big dose of exercise, I do it in the morning. Okay. So that's my first thing. The second thing is, of course, and I know you've talked about this, blue blocking glasses and light. So I start wearing them around eight o'clock in the evening until I go to sleep. And sometimes even if I'm

reading and I stay up or I'm watching Netflix, I watch everything with a red tinted hue. And I find that they are really, really very effective. So you have to also block white light because I say this because I studied this for part of my PhD. Bright light stimulates the same melanopsin-containing ganglion cells as blue light if it's bright enough. So your light has to be both dim and it has to be not blue. So number one, feel physically exhausted at the end of the day before you hit the pillow. Brilliant. Second tip was wear blue blocking glasses in the evening as a way of limiting that blue glass exposure. And what's the third one? Have a hot bath whenever you can. We have lost the tradition in England of having a hot bath. People now go for houses

and flats with showers. Raising your core body temperature by just over half a degree on just one occasion can protect you from depressive symptoms for over six weeks, at least according to one study. Now, it is a study. We can't always extrapolate, but there is proof out there. If you're feeling low, have a hot bath. And that's the third thing I try to do. I love it. So it's always been highly qualified in terms of your academic credentials. You're also a yoga instructor. Why did you become a yoga instructor? And how does yoga help us de-stress? I was very fascinated by yoga because with my background, I've always been kind of questioning, well, why does this work? Does it really work? So I had to really do it to be convinced. What I found during my own journey practicing yoga is again coming

back to this sense of the brain and its image of the world and its image of uncertainty. When our brains push the stress response button, it's really kind of a full-blown recalibration system to prepare us for the immediate future, which the brain cannot predict and hence has no control over. So you are preparing yourself for every single possible outcome in the best way possible. That is essentially what the stress response is. If that uncertainty remains, that stress response stays and it becomes chronic stress. We know that bringing the environment into our control makes us feel we are in control and we feel calmer. Now, one of the problems with the stress response is when most of us

suddenly go through a stressful experience, we have no control over what's going on in our own bodies. You can try to tell your mind what to think, but your mind isn't going to listen to you. You can tell your heart to stop beating so fast, it's not going to listen to you. You can tell your heart to stop beating so fast, it's not going to listen to you. So you have no control over your sense of self. And this ties in with the whole fear of uncertainty because this lack of control over yourself translates to a lack of control over the situation. So if you're in a situation that doesn't need to be stressful, but you've picked up on one cue or other that's made you stressed, your body and brain kick off these mechanisms, which further intensify that sense of uncertainty and not being in control, which potentiate the stress even more. So one of the most effective things to be able to do at that point is learn which buttons to push in yourself, by yourself, in any situation, so that whatever chaos is taking place around you, you have control over yourself. Yoga lets you discover these buttons that are lurking inside you, which most of us have never learned are there, and we don't know how to push them. But it teaches

you through a formal feedback system. And in the long run, that translates to your having command and self-control over yourself in situations which are highly uncertain. Because when everything else is full of uncertainty around you, controlling yourself gives you the perception of enhanced control. Yeah, that's such a great way of looking at it. And I've got to say, I've never thought about yoga in those terms before. You're really expanding this idea of what yoga is good for, in the sense that the common sort of view of yoga for many people is it's about certain body positions. It's about becoming more flexible.

And of course, it can serve that role for some people. But it's so much more than that, isn't it? I love that. It's how you teach yourself self-control. isn't it? I love that. It's how you teach yourself self-control. Hope you enjoyed that bite-sized clip. Please 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 full conversation with my guest. And if you enjoyed this episode, I think you will really enjoy my new bite-sized Friday email. It's called the Friday Five. And each week I share things that I do not share on social media. It contains five short doses of positivity, articles or books that

I'm reading, quotes that I'm thinking about, exciting research I've come across, and so much more. I really think you, and so much more. I really think you're going to love it. The goal is for it to be a small yet powerful dose of feel good to get you ready for the weekend. You can sign up for it at drchastity.com forward slash Friday five. I hope you have a wonderful weekend. Make sure you have pressed subscribe and I'll be back next week with my long form conversational Wednesday and the latest episode of Bite Science next Friday.