1.) Laughter

Over the years laughter has been shown by a number of research studies to have positive and long-lasting effects on the human body. Stress levels relate to what is known as stress-hormones. These include cortisol and epinephrine or adrenaline. Laughter is amazingly good at reducing high levels of stress hormones in the body. It achieves this by increasing the levels of pleasure chemicals like endorphins.  Laughter relaxes the whole body. A good, hearty laugh relieves physical tension and stress, leaving your muscles relaxed for up to 45 minutes after. Laughter boosts the immune system. Laughter decreases stress hormones and increases immune cells and infection-fighting antibodies, thus improving your resistance to disease. Laughter protects the heart. Laughter improves the function of blood vessels and increases blood flow, which can help protect you against a heart attack and other cardiovascular problems.  Laugh by yourself.  Laugh with friends and loved ones.  Laugh in the car, in your home, at the office.  Learns what you find humorous and get as much of it as you can.

2.) Go For A Long Walk

One can overcome day to day stress at work or at home by going on a long walk. Walking not only helps to maintain health but it also acts as a stress reliever. Walking also improves blood circulation and brings oxygen and nutrients to all of our cells.

3.) Drink water

This is a much overlooked yet effective way to promote the body’s ability to recover from stress. Staying well hydrated with water allows your body to flush out toxic by-products, and helps to prevent fatigue.  The brain functions better.  Muscles relax.  Make sure it is clean and as pure as possible.

4.) Get a massage

 While a 60 minute massage is ideal, benefits from massage can be achieved in frequent 10-15 minutes.  Massage is a useful way to de-stress the mind and de-stress the body. There are many forms of massage from purely relaxing Swedish massage to therapeutic neuromuscular and trigger point massage. The latter forms are most beneficial when long term stress is creating muscle aches, pains, tension or headaches.

5.) Write in a journal

Expressing feelings is an important way to deal with stress. Keeping a journal is one suggestion I might offer to capture those feelings at any moment. You don’t have to worry about what others think or say, just let your pen do the work. By the time you’re done, those feelings will be on their way out of your system.

6.) Seek Out Sound Therapy

A number of studies show that listening to music, especially classical, may help you unwind. Though less melodic, therapeutic CDs of “binaural beats” also show promise as a means of calming the mind and body, according to several studies. These recordings work by projecting two tones of similar frequencies into each ear. This creates a “beat” at a certain frequency in the mind, say proponents, and your brain falls in sync with it; different frequencies call forth different moods. Web sites such as hemi-sync.com  offer relaxation-inducing binaural-beat recordings.

Just a word about how a provider trained in functional medicine might begin to assess how much stress is actually affecting your health:

Most clinicians run a limited blood panel.  They are looking for an already established disease process. Generally, action is taken only when the lab results are out of the normal range. The trouble with this is that many people might not have an actual disease yet, but they are suffering from chronic symptoms already. Why wait until damage has been done? Functional medicine lab testing aims to prevent disease, illness or dysfunction before by assessing patterns of imbalance that, without intervention, will end up yielding chronic disease. When a known disease is already present, these tests can help us understand what may be causing your disease on a more personalized, unique and deeper level than other tests.

One of the principles of Functional Medicine is finding the underlying causes that are contributing to  your symptoms or diagnosed disease. Functional Medicine testing allows Dr. Rosman to find a path to rebalance your body at a molecular level, rather than just treating your symptoms. Here is just one of several tests that Dr. Rosman might select to assess how much stress is affecting you.

Adrenal Stress Index – Saliva samples (done in the privacy of your own home)

This test measures the effect of stress on your body. This includes emotional, dietary, infectious or inflammatory types of stress. It is an important tool for evaluating adrenal imbalances (that Stress Axis Dysfunction I discussed in an earlier blog) that may be impacting your health. This test assesses 4 cortisol levels, DHEA-S, among other helpful indicators. Adrenal imbalances are the foundation of Stress Axis Dysfunction.