Learning the Gift of Self-Regulation
This isn't to say that the average adult isn't stressed out!
The average adult living in a First World country is certainly under a great deal of stress.
Stress is a nuanced subject and means different things to different people. Most people default to emotional or psychological stress. But, stress as you'll see below is a much larger entity. And, small doses of stress are actually essential for life and growth.
But, that's not what we're talking about.
For the context of this discussion let's define stress.
Stress is a stimulus or a set of demands that exceed the body's capacity to respond or adapt to while maintaining balance, or homeostasis. Stress is not just the presence of a challenge, but more importantly a mismatch between the load placed
on the body and its adaptive reserves and recovery capacity.
“Stress is not what happens to you; it's how your body and mind respond and adapt to what happens to you.”
What this means is that the stressor triggers responses (neural, endocrine, immune) that either overload, become prolonged, or fail to resolve, leading to maladaptation.
Simply put: when the demands of the situation outweigh the body's ability to adjust and return to balance, the experience and effects of stress emerge.
This is why the title isn't a riddle. If stress is a mismatch between signal and response you have two levers, but almost everyone puts their focus on pulling on the first.
You can try to reduce the load (signal). You know the target – fewer demands, cleaner email inbox, easier job, quieter life. Is that a realistic and sustainable goal?
Or you can raise your capacity (response). That one is trainable.
Here's what you haven't been told...
...your body is fully capable of self-regulating itself so that you express radiant health throughout your life. You do not have a shortage of drugs in your body and NO drug is going to improve your health.
THE ROLE OF THE NERVOUS SYSTEM
When we are discussing the impact of stress, we need to discuss the Autonomic Nervous System (ANS). The two branches of the ANS are:
Sympathetic Nervous System: this is classically referred to as the "Fight-or-Flight" system. This is the part of the nervous system tasked with survival. It prepares the body for "fight or flight" by increasing alertness and mobilizing energy. It is the "gas pedal".
Vagus Nerve (Parasympathetic Nervous System): this system is commonly referred to as the "Rest and Digest" system. It is essential for rest, recovery, healing, sleep, relaxation, digestion, immune function, and human connection. It is the "brake".
The problem with stress is never a short term exposure and response. The issue with stress in modern culture is that it is never ending and when you stack that onto a more and more dysregulated system you are traveling the highway toward a host of Neolithic Diseases.
A Modern Issue...An Overactive Sympathetic System
The most common manifestation of ANS Dysregulation is a Sympathetic System that is overactive resulting in inhibition of the Vagus Nerve. Some of the more common everyday symptoms of this include:
- Cardiovascular: resting tachycardia (elevated heart rate), palpitations, elevated blood pressure, cold hands/feet, and exaggerated heart-rate or BP response to minor stressors
- Respiratory and sensory: shortness of breath, hyperventilation, and heightened startle response or hypervigilance.
- Sleep and mood: chronic anxiety, agitation, irritability, "wired and tired" insomnia, racing thoughts, and difficulty relaxing.
- Pain and musculoskeletal: chronic muscle tension (jaw, neck, shoulders), tension headaches, and stress-related muscle pain.
- Gastrointestinal: indigestion, reflux, nausea, reduced appetite or IBS-like symptoms when stressed.
Read the list again and notice how many you have been conditioned to consider normal.
The clenching jaw. The cold hands. The antacids for the reflux. Nobody goes to the doctor with these and more all at once. So the pattern is rarely recognized.
It is one system driving those symptoms. And, in our culture it is often stuck on.
Left unabated these symptoms can lead to the development of
- Hypertension and cardiovascular disease: chronic sympathetic overactivity contributes to sustained high blood pressure and higher cardiovascular mortality risk.
- Anxiety and stress-related disorders: generalized anxiety, panic disorder, and stress-related insomnia.
- Metabolic and inflammatory conditions: chronic stress-sympathetic
activation is associated with weight gain, insulin resistance, type 2 diabetes, and systemic inflammation.
- Functional syndromes: overlaps with POTS (Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome), some cases of chronic pain, tension-type headaches, and IBS-like presentations.
We could easily draw a line from the above list to the development of a large list of chronic degenerative ailments. Make a list of the top ailments people experience and you will find imbalance in the Autonomic Nervous System.
So, might you be interested in learning how to self-regulate your nervous system?
This is one of the gifts of learning functional breathwork and my experience motivated me to become an Oxygen Advantage Certified Breathwork Coach.
What is modern medicine doing to address this imbalance?
Medications like Xanax, Valium, Beta-blockers (propranolol, metoprolol), Alpha-2 Agonists, SSRIs (sertraline, fluoxetine), Benzodiazepines, Gabapentinoids (gabapentin, pregabalin), Trazodone, Melatonin.
Nothing! Nothing! Nothing! Nothing!
None of the above medications or any others will ever restore Autonomic Nervous System balance!
I want to be respectful here because some of you reading this are taking one or more of them.
I'm not telling you to stop. That's not my intent here.
What I am saying is that none of them are training your nervous system. They are managing the downstream output while the system remains unchanged.
The Nervous System's Role
I liken the nervous system to the conductor of the orchestra. It is monitoring all body functions 24/7 and responds with messages or instructions to continually adjust in a continual attempt to maintain homeostasis.
When the frequency, strength or both of a stressor exceeds the capacity of the nervous system to respond appropriately the result is....
... what we would typically refer to as STRESS!
The Hidden Sources of Stress
Stress is clearly on the upswing...
"The American Psychological Association's "Stress in America" work shows long-term stress since the COVID-19 pandemic is associated with rising rates of chronic illness and mental health diagnoses, especially in adults aged 35-44, where self-reported chronic illness increased from 48% in 2019 to 58% in 2023
and mental health diagnoses rose from 31% to 45%.
But, that is another very myopic view of stress. And, there's no solution revealed in this recognition of stress.
Here's how I've come to frame stress from an evolutionary perspective...
And, how this reveals the most transformative path forward...
The #1 Priority of the Human Nervous System!
We call the Sympathetic Nervous System the "Fight-or-Flight" System. Our nervous systems have one overriding directive and that is survival.
The Sympathetic System is our survival system. When activated it mobilizes resources and energy with the goal of ensuring our survival for another day.
And, if your nervous system is shifting into survival mode then nothing else matters. All the body processes that support long-term function take a back seat to survival. Things like...
Digestion...digesting food is not a priority if your system is responding like you
might not make it until tomorrow.
Sleep...is no longer a priority as alertness and vigilance take precedence.
Your heart beats faster and your blood pressure rises in preparation to fight or flee.
The immune system is less active since any potential infection or illness is less critical than short-term survival.
In general all the processes that support rest, recovery, repair, and healing become inhibited in favor of the activity of the mechanisms that would better support a fight for survival.
Notice that. Everything on the list from digestion to sleep to immune function is something adults your age go to a doctor for. One at a time.
But, they are not individual problems. They are all manifestations of one imbalance.
Where are all these threats to Survival?
After all, in the First World we live in rather safe times.
The real threats to our survival on a daily basis are few and far between. And, certainly the odds are stacked in favor of survival.
We've eliminated most of the predators that might threaten our lives. We are the ultimate apex predator.
So, where is all this stress?
The clues are found in the changes to our world and how we live
It's estimated that human genetic changes that dictate how we respond to the environment unfold over tens to thousands of generations. A generation is considered to be about 27 years so a 100 generations is 2500-3000 years. Hundreds to a few thousand generations translates to changes taking place over 10,000 to 100,000 years.
Why do I bring this up?
Let's look at just a few of the dramatic changes over the last 125 years, never mind the last 500 to 1000 years.
The Turning Point...
It was 1879 when Thomas Edison improved the incandescent light bulb making it more long lasting and more practical.
But, we needed an electric grid for those light bulbs to have any widespread utility.
While a small electric grid went live in NYC in 1882 it took years for any significant percentage of Americans to have electricity in their homes.
By 1925 about 25-30% of US households were electrified.
70% by 1935.
And, about 90% by 1940 in cities.
So, it's been less than 100 years since most people in the US began to be exposed to
man made light on a regular frequency.
Before that the only light that humans were exposed to was light from the sun or light from fire.
In addition to artificial light this was also the beginning of our exposure to a wider and wider range of human engineered Electro Magnetic Frequencies (EMF).
Most people consider this an amazing time of progress that ushered in an ever-growing number of technological advancements that has made life easier.
It has certainly changed how we live.
And, there's a strong argument that it has made a lot of things easier.
But, I've come to believe it also serves as the genesis of a long list of ailments that are the source of the most significant chronic degenerative diseases we suffer from.
Back to Evolution for a Minute
This “technological advancement” of the development of artificial light or what is often termed “non-native EMF” is a tremendous inflection point in our evolution and consequently how we interact with and respond to the natural world.
Light is a critical daily signal to our body that synchronizes our circadian clock.
For thousands of generations we lived in synchrony with the daily rhythms of light and dark. Light is a powerful message to our body to tell us where we are in time and space. It helps signal to our body the production of the hormones cortisol and melatonin.
Cortisol is often termed the “stress hormone” though it is critical to our daily function. It does have an inverse relationship with melatonin.
Melatonin is typically called the "sleep hormone" since it rises in preparation for sleep.
In order for a healthy circadian rhythm and deep restorative sleep there is an inverse relationship between cortisol and melatonin as demonstrated on the chart below.
CIRCADIAN RHYTHM Daily Cortisol & Melatonin Cycles
| Time | Cortisol | Melatonin |
|---|---|---|
| 6am | Low | High |
| 9am | High | Low |
| 12pm | High | Low |
| 3pm | Medium | Low |
| 6pm | Low | Low |
| 9pm | Low | Medium |
| 12am | Low | High |
| 3am | Low | High |
| 6am | High | Low |
| 9am | High | Low |
Light is the most powerful signal in our body's synchronizing our internal clock.
You have non-visual light receptors in the eyes called opsins that help signal your brain and set your clock.
You also have receptors in your skin that signal the production of a number of essential peptide hormones, neuropeptides, and neurotransmitters.
Why does this matter in our discussion of stress?
Throughout the vast majority of human history (over 99%) the only daily signals to our biology to synchronize our biological clocks were the sun and darkness.
Now we routinely expose ourselves to a very narrow and artificial band of light often long before the sun rises and long after the sun sets.
Modern lighting, especially since the widespread adoption of LED lights lacks UV, Red, and Infrared light wavelengths. It is rich in blue light.
So, again why is this important?
First, sunlight always contains 50-60% red and infrared light.
This balance has been eliminated in modern light bulbs in an effort to be more energy efficient. What has been ignored is the heat emitted from incandescent bulbs is an essential spectrum of light in the infrared range.
It's The Hormones...
And...
Modern bulbs are up to 40% blue light while sunlight has 20 to 25% blue light and the sun is always balanced by the full spectrum of light.
Blue light in isolation is a powerful modulator of cortisol, increasing levels during the day and at night when a healthy circadian rhythm would have cortisol dropping as the level of melatonin rises.
The rising cortisol later in the day can often result in that "second wind" you have experienced.
As the day progresses your energy starts to drop and you tire. And, then that second wind comes and you have the alertness and energy to stay up far beyond what your body might desire as optimal for rest and recovery.
That second wind is a stress response.
The aberrant cortisol rhythm can have a wide ranging effect on your physiology...
Sleep: interfere with sleep quality and quantity.
Metabolic and Cardiovascular: weight gain, insulin resistance, Type 2 diabetes, hypertension and increased risk of heart disease and stroke.
Immune and Inflammation: suppressed immune function, susceptibility to infection, slower wound healing, higher autoimmune risk.
Neurological and Psychological: anxiety, depression, mood swings, headaches, sleep disturbances.
GI and Reproductive: constipation, bloating, IBS-like symptoms, reduced libido, irregular menstrual cycle, erectile dysfunction.
Take Home
All of that can result from an imbalance and altered time of light and its impact on melatonin and cortisol.
Back to Stress and Dysregulation!
That's the potential impact of altering the timing and type of our exposure to light.
We could have a discussion (and I will in another issue) of the impact of sunglasses, sunscreen and UV filtering clothing.
Or...the numerous other EMF frequencies from computers, TVs, phones, electrical wiring.
Or how our bodies respond to routinely traveling 70 mph in a vehicle.
Or the significant response most of us have to our reduced exposure to sunlight.
Or the reduction in modern society in our connection to other humans.
Or social media.
Or...
The list could go on and on.
We have dramatically altered how we live on this planet and we've come to accept these changes as "normal" and "natural".
But, they are neither normal nor natural
And, the vast majority of the dramatic changes to daily and weekly human life have taken place in 0.06% of human history.
Our physiology is still operating as it has for hundreds of thousands of years but we have changed the game so drastically in such a short time that our nervous systems
have not had a chance to adapt and evolve.
Dysregulation
The result of all these dramatic changes is that our nervous system often responds to these stimuli as though they are a threat. Each one is often a relatively mild stimulus and many individually might be rather benign.
But, cumulatively they most often result in a progressive overactivity of the "fight or flight" system and a corresponding inhibition of the Vagus Nerve.
This increased sympathetic activity can for years feel good. It gives us energy and focus. We get things done and it can be productive when it comes to our work lives.
You can take advantage of this imbalance and "succeed" dramatically in business and finance for decades until...
You hit the wall and...
Your blood pressure continues to rise.
The lack of sufficient and quality sleep catches up.
Systemic inflammation and visceral fat rises.
And, you experience a decline that seems rapid.
The dysregulation is often not an obstacle to accomplishment – for years it can actually fuel it. Until it doesn't.
The imbalance that can make you effective for years is the same thing causing a range of challenges. Often it doesn't come on gradually. It seems to show up all at once, usually when you hit your fifties, and it feels like it showed up overnight.
From Dysregulation to Regulation
The more you do to re-establish and maintain a healthy balance in your Autonomic Nervous System the more capable your body becomes to respond appropriately to the magnitude and relative harm of the numerous stresses you are routinely exposed to.
You don't have to concern yourself with activating your Sympathetic System.
That's hardwired for survival.
For the vast majority of us to restore ANS regulation and develop the ability to self-regulate we need to train our Vagus Nerve and improve the "tone" of the vagus.
There are a number of practices and activities that improve Vagus Nerve activity. They are all good and in my experience most result in a short term activation. That's certainly beneficial since the more you get a response from your nervous system the easier that response is to elicit.
That's how we get into the state of dysregulation, by repeatedly activating the Sympathetic "fight or flight" System and inhibiting the Vagus Nerve. We're simply reverse engineering the process.
Here are a few ways to activate the Vagus Nerve
1 - Cold Exposure (this deserves an entire issue)
2 - Singing, Chanting, Humming
3 - Yoga
4 - Meditation
5 - Human Social Connection
6 - Laughter
7 - Exercise
8 - Massage
9 - Omega 3 Fats
10 - Gargling
And, in my experience the most consistently powerful way to shift long-term Vagus Nerve activity is...
11 - Changing how you breathe
This is another in depth topic that I will dedicate an entire issue to.
And, in my experience it is a complete game changer!
This has transformed my nervous system, my ability to self-regulate and most importantly how stress does and does not impact me.
Here's the rationale behind breathwork and the power of how you breathe
You obviously breathe 24/7 and do so without conscious effort.
And, breathing is unique among physiological processes in that you can easily consciously alter the rhythm, speed, depth, and volume of your breath.
This is worth considering. You can't consciously lower your blood pressure, influence your insulin, or any number of other body processes. Breath is the one autonomic process you can influence.
It is the lever that moves the system.
With all the stress signals we've discussed, the sympathetic system is activated and this results in breathing more from the upper chest rather than the diaphragm and the breathing becomes more rapid and shallower.
This shifts our nervous system into at bare minimum a potentially chronic state of low level sympathetic activation.
The acute onslaught of stressors hits us and our sympathetic system becomes more and more active and more and more dominant. Regardless of where we start, our breathing tends to trend in ways that support the "fight or flight" activation and the progressive inhibition of the Vagus Nerve.
Training yourself to change how you breathe will provide a foundation of healthy Vagus Nerve activity and potentially transform how your nervous system responds to stress.
I know it has for me. Over the past 10 years I have shifted how I breathe 24/7 and it has transformed my experience of stress.
Let me share a bit more about "how I breathe" since that could mean a lot of different things.
I breathe through my nose. All the time - awake, asleep, working out. If I'm not
eating, drinking, or talking I'm breathing through my nose. It translates to slower and deeper into the diaphragm. It's less air than most people assume it is best.
The last part is a bit counterintuitive. Breathe slower and less. Most of us are chronically over-breathing and it activates the "fight or flight" system. More air is not better.
I plan on covering this topic of breathing in depth in its own issue.
There are a number of what I call First Aid breathing exercises that will change your stress level in a few minutes. While they are powerful they didn't result in a significant shift in my nervous system until I changed how I breathe.
Some of the more popular breathing exercises are
- 4-7-8 made popular by Andrew Weil, MD. This is an adaptation from Yoga Pranayama.
- Box Breathing made popular from snipers and special forces.
- 2:1 Breathing.
Before you go - measure your baseline
I've been telling you your nervous system is trainable. Let's give you something to do about it. Here is where I start with anyone. It takes less than a minute.
It's called the BOLT score - Body Oxygen Level Test. It's the baseline measurement in the Oxygen Advantage method I use and is a rough estimate of your system's tolerance or sensitivity to carbon dioxide and tracks with your tendency to shift to sympathetic drive.
Before you go — measure your baseline
Here’s the one step I suggest everyone start with. It takes less than a minute and costs nothing.
It’s called the BOLT score – Body Oxygen Level Test. It’s the initial measurement in the Oxygen Advantage method. It gives an idea of how sensitive your brain has become to carbon dioxide, which correlates with breathing rate and tendency to activate the sympathetic system.
Sit still for a few minutes breathing normally in and out through your nose. After a normal exhale pinch your nose closed and start a timer. Stop the timer at the first definite urge to breathe. The first real signal to take a breath.
If your score is under 10 seconds you have a lot of work to do. Anything under 30 seconds is low. The target is forty seconds. The number is your starting point and you will see it climb as your breathing improves.
A really fascinating look into the science and art of breathwork is Breath by James Nestor.
An excellent and more in-depth exploration of the most powerful breathing practice to establish healthy regulation and help develop self-regulation is “The Oxygen Advantage” by Patrick McKeown.
This was so impactful to me that I have become a certified Oxygen Advantage breathwork coach.
This is the approach I have used to transform my nervous system and the approach I use when working with clients. In a future issue I will dive deeper into some practical ways to shift your breathing with the intention of greater ANS regulation and developing the skill of self-regulation.
Next issue I dive into the controversy surrounding sun exposure and its potential harms and benefits.
To Your Health Sovereignty,
Bill
MetabolicResilience.com