Tag Archive for: anxiety

Distress Is Normal!

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We’ve experienced ever-present stress over the past three years, from pandemics to politics to prices of just about everything. It hasn’t slowed down, and that can take its toll—if you let it. Am I saying that stress is normal? I already said that in the last Memo. The objective is to train the body to adapt to stress.

I’m not going to review the entire general adaptation syndrome, but put simply, you expose yourself to a planned stressor, such as exercise, to train the body to adapt to the hormones released during stress. That way the body is trained to respond to stress hormones when you’re exposed to other types of stress.

The Stress Response

The most extreme yet common example of the stress response I can think of for almost everyone would be this: did you ever almost have a car accident? I mean within seconds, you’d have been severely injured and maybe dead. Remember that first minute afterward? If you had sensors to test yourself, your heart rate and blood pressure would be sky high. You’d be breathing heavily. You’d most likely be shaking. All the hormones that caused those reactions would still be coursing through your body; it would take time for your body to normalize. That’s the extreme, fight-or-flight, type of stress response.

When you exercise regularly, you train your body to deal with that hormone surge, although the results aren’t as extreme as when you’re exposed to life-threatening stress. How you respond is at least partially in your control.

Dealing with Stress

I interviewed psychologist Evan Parks again to ask him how a person can deal with the anxiety caused by today’s stress. Here are his recommendations:

  • Stand outside your body and take a survey of what’s going on. Is there anything you attribute the symptoms to? Are you feeling stress in response to something specific, or is it just a general feeling of anxiety?
  • Does talking about it with a spouse or a friend help clarify things for you?
  • Can you center your thoughts from doom and gloom to a realistic perspective by prayer or meditation?

If these steps help, great. If not, it may be time to seek professional help.

Psychology isn’t my area of expertise. You can hear the interview in Straight Talk on Health on drchet.com if you’re an Insider or Member; it will be posted no later than Monday. Dr. Evan Parks does a great job of explaining all of it in more detail.

The Bottom Line

Distress is normal, so you’d better get used to it. One way to do that is to use a positive stressor such as exercise to help you prepare your body. Yes, eating a better diet and eating less may help as well. Use planned distress to your advantage by preparing your body for the unpredictable stress of today’s life.

What are you prepared to do today?

        Dr. Chet

Living in Anxious Times

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A psychologist I’ve interviewed on my local radio show on WGVU-FM, the Grand Rapids NPR affiliate, called me recently to talk about a wave of anxiety that seems to be impacting people: increased visits to doctors and ERs for chest pain, headaches, high blood pressure, and many more symptoms that don’t have a physiological explanation. Without a physical explanation, the symptoms may be our response to the stressful times in which we live.

Think about it. Things seem to be out of control. We’re exiting a pandemic that has changed the way society interacts. On top of that, every day there seems to be another major act of violence, such as the one recently in my home town of Buffalo, NY. Inflation is talked about incessantly. Supply chain issues are having serious effects on our lives—there’s nothing more serious than being unable to feed your baby. If we’re on social media, we can’t escape it. The stress of life is having an impact on every single one of us.

I think what’s happened over the last few decades, at least in the U.S. and Canada, is that we’ve come to believe that a happy life is one free of stress. We’ve gotten to believe that those stress feelings are not good. Is stress bad? I’ll discuss that as well as how to cope with stress on Saturday.

This month’s Insider Conference Call is tomorrow night. The call is where you can get your product and health questions answered. I’ll have a research topic or two that I’ll talk about, and then it’s on to your questions.

What are you prepared to do today?

        Dr. Chet

P.S. A reminder that the Optimal Performance Program has gone digital: you can you can buy and download the four audios and the workbook. My keystone energy-building, weight-management, and fitness product is still available as CDs and a bound workbook, but if you are more accustomed to listening to MP3s and you don’t like paying for shipping, this deal is for you. I’m introducing the download version only for only $29.95; Member and Insider discounts apply. Regardless of age or current fitness level, you can achieve Optimal Performance. Get your copy today!

Mental Health 2020: Take Control

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In the last Memo I said that there are no simple rules to be made whether we talk about the pandemic or politics. These are complicated issues no matter how much we wish they were not. There are no absolute answers, and that results in a loss of control. We appear to have lost control of our lives, and that uncertainty creates anxiety and subsequently depressive symptoms.

Posttraumatic Stress Disorder?

Could this unrelenting stress result in something such as posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD)? Generally, PTSD is associated with a single traumatic event. After the last presidential election, that term was floated because for over half the electorate, the results were unexpected. Psychologists and psychiatrists were quick to suggest that term didn’t apply.

There have been no studies published on the general population related to PTSD and COVID-19 in the U.S., but research from Italy and China indicates that even though the pandemic is an ongoing stressor, it can potentially lead to a PTSD scenario in some people. Whether it’s called PTSD or given some other name, the loss of control is very stressful to most Americans.

Is It Time for Digital Detox?

Is there anything we can do to ease the current level of stress? One psychologist suggests that we take a social media and digital detox. I have to agree.

You want proof? “Russian interference.” That phrase alone can start a social-media firestorm. I don’t even have to go into the particulars, and people on both sides of the issue have their digital knives drawn. Didn’t you just for that split second get ready to attack, depending on your political persuasion, even though I didn’t say another word? Do you think that’s healthy? I don’t think so.

I think that if you use social media or the Internet, take a break or limit it the time spent on it every day. I certainly have. I believe in a controlled fast to help your body detoxify itself, and the same applies to our mental health. Just as you eat better foods while you detox your body, get back to reading more positive books and magazines to detox your mind. End your online session with cat videos or baby pictures or scripture—whatever makes you smile and feel good.

It comes back to control. You’re in charge of you, and you can control what you do and see. You can’t control what other people say or do. Do you really think you’ll be able to change someone’s mind about politics or the pandemic with what you have to say? When they respond in a vicious way, is that going to help your mental state? Get control of your digital world and detox your brain.

The Bottom Line

We live in challenging times and we certainly live in a constant state of stress. That can definitely impact our mental health whether we realize it or not. As I said, much of what is impacting us today is not under our control.

What we can do is control how we respond to it. Eat better. Eat less. Move more. And clear your mind with a digital detox. It all comes down to one question:

What are you prepared to do today?

        Dr. Chet

References:
1. https://wbur.fm/33q5hHX
2. https://bit.ly/2FsESRN
3. https://bit.ly/3kecphl

Mental Health 2020: The Stats

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At this point, there have been no substantive studies of mental health resulting from either the pandemic or the political climate in the U.S. There are metrics that have been tracked via online survey since April; the surveys added modified questions that ask about factors related to the pandemic.

The results for symptoms of anxiety show that 30.8% of respondents indicated more symptoms in late April compared to 31.4% in late August although the percentage fluctuated as high as 36.0%. The results for symptoms of depression ranged from 23.5% in late April to 24.5% in late August with a percentage fluctuation as high as 28.8%.

What do the numbers mean in comparison with pre-pandemic times?
From January to June 2019, 8.2% of adults aged 18 and over had symptoms of anxiety disorder while 6.6% had symptoms of depressive disorder. The current surveys are not perfect and there’s no statistical analysis, but by all appearances we are more anxious and tend to exhibit more depressive symptoms.

I think what contributes to the anxiety is that there’s no simple solution. Humans like binary choices: this is right, that’s wrong. And that just doesn’t apply in this case. Could we be creating a population at risk for a form of posttraumatic stress disorder? Is there anything we can do about it? We’ll take a look at that on Saturday.

What are you prepared to do today?

        Dr. Chet

References:
1. https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/covid19/pulse/mental-health.htm
2. https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/depression.htm

Question Time: Professional Help

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Wrapping up this week on recently asked questions, I saved the most serious question for today. I talked to a number of people who were concerned about themselves, friends, or family members. The simplest way of explaining the questions is to say they or people they knew had medical issues related to nutrition and diet, and the inability to resolve health and eating issues may have contributed to a state of depression and anxiety.

Note that I said “may have.” This is not my area of expertise. I wouldn’t presume that I know enough to be able to say . . .

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