Stress Reduction Techniques and PCOS Treatment - Why Your Nervous System Matters
Stress = Threat
The human body responds to all stress as though it is a tiger. We modernized so quickly, rapidly creating far more subtle and frequent forms of stress than the stressors of our nomadic ancestors, and our nervous systems have not been able to keep up evolutionarily. As it is, our brains cannot differentiate between the threat of being hunted by a large animal and the looming stress of an approaching work deadline - it’s all tigers.
This is why stress reduction techniques, bubble baths, and meditation are not enough to mitigate the impacts of stress. When fighting a tiger, we don’t need to rest - we need to run. In this post, we will explore how the nervous system works, what the brain recognizes as a threat, and how that impacts hormone health, digestion, inflammation, and sleep.
Hello, my fellow warriors. I’m Hilary Beckwith, ex-dieter and functional health expert. Women with PCOS/PMOS, IBS, and autoimmune conditions come to see me with signs of adrenal stress, insulin resistance, and inflammatory conditions, and my job is to find the root causes so we can address their symptoms more effectively and fill in the gaps between their lab values and how their body actually feels. Before you continue, click here to read my Medical Disclaimer.
In this article, you’ll learn:
What is the autonomic nervous system
What your brain recognizes as a threat
What systems and functions are paused when your stress response system is activated
How to ditch the focus on “staying calm” amid stress, and instead, work with your body’s natural response system to support whole-body health
your body’s innate response to threats
As a species, we’ve evolved different ways of surviving as the world changes. Doing so increases our chances of outliving anything that could potentially kill us - it’s what all species do. The autonomic nervous system is our body’s way of helping us to survive when a threat presents itself. Simply put, the autonomic nervous system has two modes:
Sympathetic (AKA fight-or-flight)
Parasympathetic (AKA rest-and-digest)
In reality, the autonomic nervous system is far more complex and nuanced than this, but for the sake of this post, I want to keep it simple.
As the names imply, Sympathetic (SNS) is activated when a threat or danger is present. When activated, it triggers a cascade of events that enhance our ability to fight or flee the threat, including:
shifts blood flow to large muscle groups
increases heart rate
increases lung capacity
releases adrenaline, noradrenaline
releases cortisol to pull glucose out of storage and turn it into energy
Parasympathetic (PNS) is primarily activated when we are not in the presence of a threat - put differently, when the priority is not survival. When active, our body is able to prioritize:
digestive function, including motility, digestive juices, detoxification, and elimination
tissue and cell repair
detoxification through liver, lymph, urine, and feces
protein synthesis for muscle building
sex hormones production and metabolism
here’s where it can go wrong
1) STRESS = THREAT
As we discussed earlier in the post, our brains cannot differentiate between bigger threats and smaller stresses - in both cases, the SNS is activated, and survival becomes the main priority. The SNS will continue to stay activated as long as the stressor is still present, in order to keep you alive.
This is why stress reduction techniques, supplements, and manifestations will always miss the mark.
2) MODERN STRESSORS ARE MORE ABUNDANT AND LESS NOTICEABLE
Our nomadic ancestors encountered avalanches, exposure to extreme heat or cold, food scarcity, and yes, being hunted by large animal predators. I think we’d all agree these are all inarguably threats to our survival.
Modern stressors don’t feel like much of a threat to survival, but according to our brains, they are all tigers. Modern stressors might include relationship conflicts and stress, excessively busy work and play schedules, traffic, meetings, deadlines, appointments, conflicting personalities at work or in families, social media comparison, inaccessible healthcare, caregiving of family members who live much longer than anyone used to.
These are the more obvious stressors, but we also encounter things we don’t realize are activating our SNS, such as undiagnosed gut infections (candida, SIBO, parasites, viruses), unprocessed developmental or emotional trauma, people-pleasing behaviors, and adrenaline-seeking activities (overexercising, restricting calories or foods, thrill-seeking).
3) WE FOCUS ON STAYING CALM, RATHER THAN ALLOWING STRESS TO RUN ITS COURSE
Think of it this way:
If you encountered a bear in the woods, would you take a nap? A bath? Start journaling?
NO - you’d run like hell, which is what your body has prepared to do in that moment.
You run, that energy gets released, your brain recognizes the threat is gone, and naturally returns to a state of rest and repair.
Our focus on staying calm all the time works against our body’s natural ability to move stress through our body and return to a state of calm.
You don’t need more stress reduction techniques - you need more release.
what can you do about it?
You can see from this post that survival physiology is far different from recovery physiology. You don’t need me to list off stress reduction techniques or recommend supplements to help you reduce stress.
If you are being honest with yourself, you already know how to evaluate your life and pinpoint what and who are causing unnecessary stress threats to your nervous system.
What you need is to learn how to release, when to release, and how to find and address those hidden threats that are keeping your SNS activated.
If you are ready to get to the bottom of your PCOS symptoms (now PMOS!), metabolic health, chronic pain and stiffness, and digestive symptoms, and make changes that actually stick, THIS ONLINE COURSE needs to be your next step toward whole-body healing.
Not sure if that’s right for you?
learn something new?
What was your most profound takeaway from this post?
I hope you’ll share your thoughts in the comments below!
