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What is SD Protocol? The SD Protocol recognises that a lot of chronic health conditions can be linked back to the ‘fight or flight’ response being constantly switched on. It is a treatment system which provides advice, tools and tips to allow you to calm down your nervous system, letting your body recover and achieve greater health. What is the sympathetic nervous system? In our body we have many processes that happen automatically. We don’t have to consciously direct our body how to digest food, or tell our heart to keep beating, these actions and more are the responsibility of the Autonomic Nervous System. To allow our bodies to adapt to different situations, we have two settings for our Autonomic Nervous System- Sympathetic (Fight or Flight), and Parasympathetic (Rest and Digest). When it is working well, our body will fluctuate between the two settings, allowing us to respond to threats and changes in our environment and also calm down enough to get nutrients from the food we eat and sleep restfully to recover. What is Sympathetic Dominance? Sympathetic Dominance is when your Sympathetic nervous system is ALWAYS switched on. This causes your body to be in a state of constant alert, always ready to run away or fight for your life. Sounds exhausting, doesn’t it? For many people, this is how they live every day. Our stresses are not just trying to survive being chased by predators, we now get stressed by work (too much, not enough, toxic workplaces), relationships, kids, bills and mortgages, body image, being constantly contactable, screen time…I could go on, but you get the picture. Stress can be a constant in our lives, and our body responds as though we are constantly under threat of attack. So when do you get a chance to ‘Rest and Digest’? You don’t, and it can make you sick. What is stress? Stress is the feeling we get when the Sympathetic Nervous system is constantly switched on. Physically we notice this as hunched posture, tight shoulders, low back and hamstrings, racing thoughts, overwhelm/overstimulation, tiredness/fatigue, sensitivity to loud noises or bright lights. This can also lead to trouble sleeping, headaches, digestive trouble, hormonal issues and more. Why are my shoulders always tight? The ‘fight or flight’ response also tenses large muscle groups, so it is easy to run away at a moment's notice. Have you ever heard someone say they carry their stress in their shoulders? It’s true! Our body tenses our fighting muscles- our pectorals and upper trapezius, muscles that allow us to throw a punch or protect our head, and our flight muscles- glutes, hamstrings and gastrocnemius(calves) so that we can jump, run or crouch easily and quickly. Why am I so tired all the time? Being chronically stressed can affect quality of sleep, which naturally leads to being tired. It is often described as ‘waking up tired’ where you have had a full 8-9 hours sleep, but feel like you could just stay in bed all day. It is not easy to drift off to sleep when your body is in a state of constant alert and looking out for predators. You are woken by the slightest sounds, even the lights from your alarm clock/phone are too bright to let you sleep. This is good for when you need to make sure you don’t get eaten in your sleep, not good for when you need to go to work tomorrow and the reason you’re stressed is money, not lions. Can stress affect my hormonal systems? Yes, stress can also affect our hormonal system. To allow the stress response to occur, our body releases hormones to signal what our cells should be doing to create fight or flight. Trouble is, these hormones (mainly cortisol) actually steal components from other hormones, as it was designed as a short-term response. So when we are constantly stressed, our body can’t function as it needs to on a cellular level, which can cause a multitude of problems, not always immediately, but often years down the track if we remain in this stressed state. Can stress affect my digestion and cause bloating? When we’re in stress and survival mode, digesting dinner isn’t high on the priority list, so our brain slows down blood and nerve information to our gut. Inflammation levels also increase and this all leads to a very sluggish digestive system that means a stressed person can feel bloated, sensitive to some (usually complex) foods, and have a very unhealthy gut flora balance. Can stress affect my anxiety/mood/depression? It’s super tiring being on high alert for weeks/months/years and part of cortisol stealing important hormonal components means that happy hormones, like serotonin, aren’t being produced in sufficient quantities. (Serotonin is 90% made in the gut, which isn’t functioning well under stress anyway). As you can see, a system that is stuck in sympathetic dominance can have MANY systems affected. While you may not notice all these symptoms all at once, they can build up over years of stress and cause chronic health challenges. There are plenty of ways to reduce stress and ways to counter balance those that you can’t! What can I do about being stressed? Lots of things! Stress is not something that we just accept and move on, there are lots of ways to reduce your stress load and turn down your Sympathetic Dominance to allow your body to rest. There are always little changes you can make to help decrease the stress on your body and decrease your sympathetic dominance. It is easiest to look at it through the 3 key pillars of physical, chemical and emotional health. These upcoming suggestions are just examples of how you can make changes to reduce your stress. Not all of the suggestions will be applicable for you, so pick and choose a couple that you would like to try, doing this whole list at once would probably be too much! Some physical changes you can make:
3. Confronting, or at least acknowledging the biggest stress in your life. For many people, they are stressed by a lot of little things adding up, or one big issue they can do little about. It is a good idea to sit back and look at your life and where the stress comes into it. Maybe this will give you some perspective and allow you to let go of some of the smaller stresses, or at least name where your stress is coming from and give you the chance to compartmentalise or separate it from your everyday life.
4. See an emotional support professional- psychologist, counsellor, kinesiologist, best friend over coffee – a shared is a problem halved. If you need any additional support to work through your emotional stresses, please seek help. It’s OK to not be OK, but often reaching out for help can seem too hard. See your GP, call a helpline, text your mum, whatever you need to, to support yourself through whatever you are going through. Some of these changes are easier to implement than others, so start with the easy ones and work on the rest one at a time. Make sure you pick some from each section (including the scary emotional one, it’s kind of the most important), and strike that balance within your own life. Most people notice some pretty world changing experiences within the first two weeks, some will have to stick with it for a bit longer. Thanks for taking the time to learn a bit more about how you can improve your health; the more that we know about how our body functions and why we’re in the state that we’re in, the more we can do about it. |
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December 2024
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