Feel Better, Live More with Dr Rangan Chatterjee - BITESIZE | 3 Simple Habits to Manage Stress and Build Resilience | Dr Tara Swart #461

Starting point is 00:00:00 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

Starting point is 00:00:51 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 416 of the podcast with Dr. Tara Swart, neuroscientist, executive coach and author of the bestselling book, The Source. Many of us simply don't realise the profound impact that chronic unmanaged stress can have on our physical health, even if we're eating well and getting plenty of exercise. In this clip, we discuss the impact stress can have on our health and Tara shares some of the most effective ways to manage stress

Starting point is 00:01:53 and also build resilience. I've seen firsthand how many people this impacts. Physical health, mental health, emotional health, the whole shebang when we're chronically stressed and 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 percent of what we see in any given day is in some way related to stress right as acientist, 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

Starting point is 00:02:34 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 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

Starting point is 00:03:19 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. You mentioned stress and belly fat there. Clearly many people around the world are trying to lose excess fat on their bodies for a variety of reasons. And there is this obsession around diet. And of course, diet is important. But I think we underestimate how much stress is behind our weight, the amount of fat that we're storing, you know, and so many other things.

Starting point is 00:04:08 Would you agree with that? Yeah, totally. So even if you eat less or you move more or both, if you've got these high levels of cortisol, it's still driving that, you know, depositing the fat into your belly. So it's kind of, you know, we have subcutaneous fat and then we have visceral fat.

Starting point is 00:04:29 So you're not getting fat all over, but it's mostly the belt that people would say, you know, I've had to like undo it a notch and I just can't shift it. And that's definitely driven by the stress hormone. It reminds me of a patient that I had 10, maybe even 15 years ago. I had 10, maybe even 15 years ago. She was in her 30s. She was slim and she developed pre-diabetes from stress alone. And the reason I know that is because A, I knew that she looked after herself with her diet and her exercise, but her job was mega, mega stressful. And when we helped her address that, when she realized that she needs to address that, within a few months, without changing her diet and her exercise, her blood sugar came back into the normal range. Really? So stress's impact on our physical health, I think is profound. And I don't think the public know

Starting point is 00:05:25 enough about it. And frankly, I don't think our profession knows enough about it. No, it's because it's kind of behind whatever inflammatory, you know, marker you're seeing. It's almost like it's hidden. So, you know, 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 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,

Starting point is 00:06:11 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. Yeah. 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,

Starting point is 00:06:41 you know, incorporate them now, that can help you to withstand stress 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, you know, 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, you know, 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,

Starting point is 00:07:42 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. Oh, yeah.

Starting point is 00:08:13 And it was a very different weekend from how we might have done it in our 20s. We went walking in the hills. Yeah. 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,

Starting point is 00:08:40 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 um so as soon as i wake up in the morning before i you know start to have start to think things I go, what's the time and you know, 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, I'm intentionally pushing myself towards that oxytocin state rather than the cortisol state. As soon as I'm aware that I become awake. I then do deep breathing

Starting point is 00:09:26 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. I mean, I don't have my phone in my bedroom, so I, 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

Starting point is 00:10:04 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. So gratitude, breathing and then? Then I get up and 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 yeah that's very achievable for

Starting point is 00:11:01 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 Like the phone is left behind and I do that almost like a form of meditation. Why? 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

Starting point is 00:11:38 you do regularly, but you do it very intentionally. And 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. Okay, I've looked at my phone for a few minutes, but I've got another pause there. We've covered a lot. To finish off though, simple question. In all of your experience, doctor, neuroscientist, coach, lecturer, whatever it might be,

Starting point is 00:12:25 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? I'm going to start with some really simple basic ones because I think it's always worth repeating these. So 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

Starting point is 00:13:10 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. Love it. Hope you enjoyed that bite-sized clip. Hope you have a wonderful weekend. And I'll be back next week with my long-form conversational Wednesday

Starting point is 00:13:31 and the latest episode of Bite Science next Friday.

Feel Better, Live More with Dr Rangan Chatterjee - BITESIZE | 3 Simple Habits to Manage Stress and Build Resilience | Dr Tara Swart #461

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