By Dr. Christopher Lepisto
a 3-minute read
With Halloween past and the holidays upon us, it can be helpful to pause and reflect on your own picture of stress. How much are you carrying right now? Are there rough but temporary life circumstances? Or is there a chronic drain on your energy?
While a few people fully enjoy the holidays and some call them the worst time of the year, most of us fall somewhere in between, tilting towards this being a more stressful time. Understanding where you fall on that spectrum is the starting point for creating a healthier relationship with stress.
The body’s response to stress is not a flaw in our design; it’s what we once needed to run from bears. Yet our bodies don’t know the difference between a predator and an overflowing inbox. When stress builds as the holidays ramp up, it can lead to headaches, fatigue, digestive changes, muscle tension, disturbed sleep, irritability, and mood instability; all useful to understand how much stress load we are carrying.
Stress, at its core, is not the enemy — it’s information. When we learn to interpret its signals and support the body’s capacity to deal with it, stress becomes a catalyst for balance rather than breakdown.
Acute stress serves us well. When faced with a challenge, the adrenal glands release hormones such as norepinephrine, which dilates pupils, increases heart rate, raises blood pressure, sharpens alertness, and suppresses appetite. The body is preparing muscle and mind for energy use, priming us for action and quick decision-making.
This immediate stress response can be used to train our bodies. Think about when you turn on the shower and accidentally get hit with cold water. The immediate shock takes our breath away, increasing our heart rate and causing us to cry out. But if you intentionally repeat cold exposures over time, not only will you feel less shocked as the body adapts, you also create greater tolerance to all stress.
Thankfully, there are many other ways to build resilience than finishing showers with cold water in the wintertime. I draw upon the large evidence-based tradition of natural therapeutics to determine which are the best for you.
How do you know where you stand?
As a Naturopathic Doctor, I help people uncover the physiological roots of stress and create personalized, natural strategies to help them renew. If you’re feeling the weight of stress or want to build greater resilience, I invite you to reach out. I routinely include stress assessments during physical examination related to your nervous system and blood pressure control. I also run adrenal indicators of cortisol and DHEA via blood or saliva, which reveal the stage of your stress response. Together, we can design a plan that rejuvenates your energy and strength for whatever may come.
(970) 250-4104
