There is no way we can escape stressed caused by the current political situation: One of world’s super powers, the largest country in the world, one of the few who are known to hold nuclear weapons, attacked another country. That is a fact. However, the stressed caused by the news means serious danger for all people, not just for those concerned. Learn how you and your clients can cope better cope with stress caused by the war in Ukraine.

Support your nervous system

As we mainly talk about nutrition, we start with food. Stress typically causes emotional eating and everyone agrees that it’s not healthy. But we are not going to concern about obesity, we are going to focus on short-term outcomes. So here is why well-balanced diet full of vegetables, quality fats and protein will impact how you feel:

a) Nervous system. In order to work properly, your nervous system needs many vitamins and minerals. So if you don’t eat or you slip to emotional eating, will you support your nervous system or will you hurt it at times when it’s heavily overloaded? I bet you all know the answer.

b) Adrenals. Your adrenal function affects the quantity of stress hormone cortisol, which is released in situations like this. E.g., in people with lack of omega-3, adrenals produces excess cortisol. And I bet we don’t need that now.

c) Emotions. If you don’t eat or you will eat to counterfeit your negative emotions, how will you feel few hours later? Most of us feel guilt and blame. As if there is not enough stress without this. So think twice before taking this path. (I am not talking about having a piece of chocolate as a treat – see bellow)

Will exercise calm you down?

Those who know me are aware that I promote walking as the key physical activity for everyone. And most of the time this is enough. Well, now my recommendation will include more than that, I suggest not only daily 7500 steps, but also cardio.
Why?
Have you ever felt angry and started to stamp your feet in anger? Have you ever felt like hitting someone so you at least hit a pillow? If not, you surely saw an angry child doing that. I suggest cardio for two reasons. One – it will work just like pillow hitting or stamping your feet in anger – it helps release the anger and we definitely all need that now!
Secondly, cardio releases endorhines. And that is what we need now badly, don’t we? So when we can all produce our best stress-relieving drug with no side effect, let’s do that! If you like to dance, do it till you sweat. If you like to jog, go for at least 20 minutes, if you like to go swimming, make sure to swim fast to get really really physically tired. Just find any cardio activity and do it at least 3 times per week. For your own sake.

Walking

You may think that now you don’t need to walk as much if you do cardio. I’d like you to reconsider. Now we look at walking for other reasons than calorie burning: It is a coordination of your whole body, of the whole neural system. During walking, both of your hemispheres, upper and lower extremities, work in coordination. It is like a perfect concert of all nerves in your body. So you may imagine walking like harmonization of your nervous system. Do you see why I suggest you don’t give up your walks?
In the next article, we are going to look at your mind and how to get all the above recommendations into practice.
Do you need help with your specific situation? Write me to book an appointment.