Something More To Stress About...

As if life isn’t stressful enough, we now have something more to stress about.  Your stress itself could be making you sick. Stress doesn’t only affect us emotionally. It can exacerbate just about every health condition that you can think of. Studies have found many health problems relate to stress. Stress worsens and increases the risk of heart disease, Alzheimer’s disease, depression, gastrointestinal problems, headaches, diabetes and asthma.

For many years, researchers have found a link between the highly stressed out type A personalities and heart problems. Now, there is increasing evidence that stress worsens just about any health problem. When you are stressed over a long period of time, the physiological changes can lead to health problems.

Stress is not only a feeling, and it isn’t only in your head.  It is a built in response that we have to help us deal with threats. When you are stressed, your blood vessels constrict, your pulse rate and blood pressure rises, you breathe faster and release more cortisol and adrenalin.  All of this has a great impact on how your body will function. But before you get too stressed out about being stressed, we have some good news. Because stress is so pervasive and every day in practice, our team deals with the effects of chronic stress – we have been searching for solutions that our patients can use to give them greater resilience to stress.

We have finally found something that works and is giving great results.  With interactive heart rate variability training, it is possible to train resilience to stress and to become aware of when our sympathetic nervous systems are activated.

We are able to instantly see how our thoughts and breathing patterns alter our heart rate variability and see the impact on the body.  Never before as a therapist have I seen anything so powerful.  Research has shown that HRV training helps the individual better manage stress and anxiety and improve work satisfaction and performance. In the case of athletes, sports performance can also be improved.  The concept is simple.  A small monitor clipped onto your earlobe links in with a computer screen where you can watch live how your breathing rate and thought pattern affects heart rate variability and nervous system function.  Some very simple techniques are then given to you help you balance nervous system function, allowing you to practice these techniques while being measured real time.  The visual feedback helps you enforce positive techniques as you watch the stress melt away.

Charmaine Shepherd

By Charmaine Shepherd  B.Sc. Biomed., N.dip. Ac, MBAcC
Charmaine Shepherd is an Acupuncturist, Director of the Centre for Holistic Health and Author of Is it all in your mind? 10 Steps to Resolving the Underlying Causes of Anxiety and Depression. Available on Kindle!

Charmaine has a sensitive and holistic approach to health-care. She is dedicated to helping individuals take control of their own health."I believe in supporting the innate healing ability of the body through the use of natural remedies, nutrition and lifestyle” Charmaine Shepherd.