On this day, let’s learn together..
To hone our power to choose one thought over another & let the stress ebb away
National Stress Awareness Day is celebrated the first Wednesday in November.
Being mid-week on Wednesday (usually the most exhausting, stressful day) to remind individuals and companies that stress management is fundamental to optimum performance.
Research tells us that chronic stress leads to impaired cognitive and physiological functions
Would you want to age before your time?
Absolutely not!
Aging is inevitable, but it has an undeservedly fearsome reputation.
No man can stop the clock, but most can slow its tick and enjoy life as they age with grace and vigour.
Jonathan Swift was right when he said, “Every man desires to live long, but no man would be old.”
Chronic stress, specifically, failure to manage it for a long time and remaining in a prolonged and constant feeling of stress can lead to life-threatening and aging problems.
From hypertension, heart diseases, decreased immunity, loss of sociability, and decreased mental vitality, stress is not to be taken lightly!
National Stress Awareness Day
Take a Deep Breath & Embrace Peace & Compassion
• Stress is the feeling of being under too much mental or emotional pressure.
• When stressed, the body releases stress hormones including adrenaline and cortisol.
• Stress is simple the body’s reaction to help deal with pressure or threats.
Frequently tagged “fight or flight” response
Stress hormone levels generally return to normal once the pressure or threat has passed.
A small amount of stress can be beneficial
• It can motivate to take action and get tasks completed.
• It addition it can make you feel alive and excited.
However, too much stress can cause negative effects such as:
• a change in your mood
• your body
• relationship issues
• disrupted work and lifestyle routine
Do you feel like you’re burning the candle at both ends?
Tense?
Difficult to unwind?
Daily stress has become equivalent with 21st century living.
Tis not surprising, the last couple of years have been tough mental ones! With lockdowns and multi-tasking lifestyles often leave brief time for healthy meals, exercise and incorporating relaxation and play into life.
Living a fast paced lifestyle leads to some shape of subsequent burn out.
Fight or flight?
The human race developed in response to the threat of being attacked.
Regrettably, the present “saber toothed big cats” demonstrate in a multitude of methods (work stress, raising children stress, EMF’s from mobile phones and computers, financial stress, relationship pressures, etc.), and these stresses are often constant.
When chronic stress is left unchecked it can lead to an avalanche of negative effects on the body.
4 major stress varieties:
Physical: poor nutrition, lack of sleep, intense physical exertion
Mental: worry, anxiety, perfectionism, imposter syndrome
Emotional: Fear, guilt, anger, shame, regret
Psycho-spiritual: lack of spiritual alignment, difficult relationships, life challenges
When bodies are stressed, the adrenals (the glands on top of the kidneys) release different stress hormones, cortisol and adrenaline, being the common participants.
The prolong release of hormones can lead to a multitude of health issues including:
• impaired thyroid function
• digestive issues
• hormone imbalances (especially in women)
• imbalanced blood sugar levels
• blood pressure issues
• heart disease
• frequent colds and flu
• the list goes on…
The good news; We can help fight off stress
A holistic approach is required to ensure the many different forms of stress are constantly kept in check.
Key dietary and lifestyle hacks
• Nourish your body with protein rich meals
• Eating protein rich meals at regular intervals is key when it comes to balancing blood sugar levels – which helps take stress off the adrenals.
• Quality protein sources include: nuts and seeds (tiger nuts, quinoa), beans (lentils and kidney beans for adrenal health), algae including chlorella and spirulina, kefir cheese, bone and vegetarian seaweed broths.
• Use broth as the foundation of your meals. In place of vegetable cooking water, poaching, as a base for miso soup and sauces.
• Eliminate damaging foods, sugars and high-carb foods, and toxins.
• Build up your health with real food and fermented food in moderation.
• It is important to make changes slowly. Your body needs time to adjust to each change.
• Trying to change too much at once will only create more stress, causing more healing and detoxifying symptoms than are necessary which will overwhelm you and your body.
Gluten-Free + Grain-free + Sugar-free + Everything-free
The stress we can put oneself under trying to eliminate 100% gluten and grains from the diet would likely more than offset any minor benefit we would get from it.
Intolerance / allergies …Whether the reason be from weakened systems due to decades of abusive eating habits, or from polluted environments, or just for the fact that variety is the “spice of life”, alternative food sources can be explored with some caution.
Balance is Key
The key word in food is “balance” a concept you have heard often enough and do not require me to preach.
Food is life!
Most people should be able to get completely well on The Gut Academy program within 2-3 months, but others may take a lot longer.
• Some very sick people and older people with debilitating diseases may need to take up to one year to get completely well.
• In the meantime, all the nutrients you are getting are still helping you progress towards health.
Book Club every month
Live Group Q & A every month
With Lynnie Stein…I love cultivated food, wild ferments and other bacterial transformations. Because it just tastes so good and is so much fun to prepare. I contribute the love to an amazing sauerkraut making grandma – Matilda Augusta Stein.
Join in the fun and let’s ferment together!
Terms: $7 / Month
PLEASE NOTE: You have access to the Book Club by purchasing any of our products (excluding 10 for $10 course)
Fermented Foods
The gut/mind connection is of tremendous importance when it comes to keeping stress at bay.
Recent research has found that the healthy bowel flora can greatly assist in reducing anxiety, and is the heart of the human immune system response.
Consuming fermented foods is paramount in order to introduce probiotics (meaning for-life) to the gut on a regular basis.
Popular fermented foods include: raw unpasteurised sauerkraut, dill pickles, kimchi, coconut yogurt, kefir, kombucha and miso soup.
YOU’RE IN THE RIGHT PLACE IF…
YOU ARE A NOVICE FERMENTER + THOSE NEEDING MOTIVATION TO BE A MASTER FERMENTER
The Gut Academy Create Awesome Fermented food is 7 modules that you can take at your own pace, from the comfort of your own home, and once you purchase the course, it’s yours for a lifetime.
Fermented foods beneficial bacteria builds immunity, improves digestion, and keeps you healthy.
Are you ready to safely create fermented foods the step-by-step proven way?
Include Omega 3 essential fats
Adequate omegas 3 fats are very important for stress reduction.
EPA and DHA play an important role in helping with adrenal health and brain behaviour.
Rich food sources: wild salmon, sardines, sprouted chia and flax seeds and blue green algae.
Supplements include: fish, krill oil and vegan based algae oil.
Little things done daily add up to big changes
How about starting with one for this week and add another for next week?
• Plan & prepare … Weekly / fortnightly food plan … spare a few hours with food prep
• Veggies + sauerkraut tonic with every meal
• Eliminate one fake food
• Slowly introduce kefir and sauerkraut brine / kvass
• Introduce and get to know broth, seaweed, aloe vera, healthy fats and turmeric
• Clean the kitchen as you go
• Feed yourself first
• Sit down to eat without distractions
• Eat slowly
• Stay hydrated
• Lower those stress levels
• Quality sleep
• Movement / exercise
• Singing / humming
Recent research suggests that chronic sitting may be as or more detrimental to your health than smoking!
Consider creating a standing desk for your work, or just for your everyday computer use.
• List Your Routines
• Add a New Routine of Your Own
• Follow Your Routines
While diet has one of the most profound impacts upon our health, there are other important lifestyle factors that equally impact our wellbeing
• adequate sleep
• play
• connection with others
• time spent in the sunshine and outdoors generally
• our mental thoughts
• our ability to cope with and manage stress
• the amount and way we exercise and how and what we breathe
• Pushing your body too hard or overtreating it by doing too many things at one time, interferes with your progress, creating more unnecessary symptoms and reactions.
Movement & Breath
walking, gardening, yoga, and meditation practice at an intensity and for lengths of time that suits and how you are feeling.
Why not give it a try!
What do you have control over right now … your breath?
Changing from short, shallow, clavicle breathing to purposeful, deep, slow, big full belly breath stimulates the vagus nerve to calm the body and reduce anxiety.
Try square breathing (4 in, 4 hold, 4 out, 4 hold and repeat) or 1:2 breath (5 in, 10 out)
Try inhaling through your nose and exhaling through your mouth to help create a more conscious process.
Reduce the number of breath cycles in a minute helps swing the body into healing mode.
Mindset & Spirit
Let the good times roll. Trade to-do lists for not-to-do lists.
It is the law of yin and yang. It is hard to see when stuck in what feels like a never-ending downer.
Plenty we can do to get out of it
• Turn off the news…
• Try to limit social media scrolling for 10 minutes and get into squats because working the glutes can break the downward spiral and negative self-talk.
• Glutes are the ‘rise-up’ muscle but as they are getting weaker with sedentary lifestyle, the gloomy vibe grows stronger.
Also, pivot while everyone is distracted with doom and gloom.
No beating yourself up
– if you fall off the bandwagon.
If you are attending a party … fill yourself full of peace and compassion and enjoy the super-duper birthday cake.
Feeling out of control with what you put in your mouth is not an empowered feeling
In fact, it can leave you doubting your self-worth; basing your entire identity on your inability to make healthier lifestyle choices.
If sugar and processed, refined carbohydrates are your drugs of choice, you know how real the struggle is, even when your suffering is invisible to other people.
I have begun to personally appreciate that the most nutrient-dense diet in the world is no substitute for lack of sleep and overtraining.
So, the things I am working on are:
(A) prioritising at least 8 hours of sleep per night
(B) doing my own interval training, yoga, and meditation practice at an intensity and for lengths of time that suits me and how I am feeling
(C) incorporating more play into my life
(D) forgiving myself
(E) dealing with stress
Stress plays a prominent role in virtually everyone’s life
From endless to-do lists and extended workdays to responsibilities and deadlines, financial difficulties at every turn, chronic stress is the norm in modern life.
The detrimental effects of stress are often discussed—-poor heart health, emotional upheaval, inability to concentrate, and digestive disruptions—but what you may not have considered is that stress influences the balance of your gut bacteria.
Decreases in the beneficial bacteria Lactobacillus and Bifidobacterium, and increased susceptibility to infections have been demonstrated in animal studies evaluating the effects of stress on the gut. Researchers have also found shifts in the proportions of some gut bacterial species in people experiencing stress from anger or fear.
Chronic stress has been found to decrease the abundance of Bacteroides bacteria (generally considered beneficial) and increase Clostridium bacteria (some are potentially pathogenic) along with inflammation.
And emotional stress can lead to long-term reductions in both Lactobacilli and Bifidobacteria.
Recent studies support the role of probiotics in alleviating stress-induced alterations of gut function, particularly by reducing intestinal permeability, or leaky gut, which further highlights the importance of gut bacterial balance for people under stress.
Bifidobacteria have also been found to be extremely sensitive to emotional stress as well as stressful physical demands.
In addition to altering the gut bacteria, chronic stress also disturbs the intestinal lining, increasing leaky gut and the amount of bacterial toxins in circulation. Fortunately, probiotics can reverse these effects. In one study, probiotics were found to decrease stress response by preventing the destruction of the intestinal lining and decreasing the amount of circulating bacterial toxins.
By rebalancing the gut, the harmful effects of stress can be reversed
Now that is a stress reliever!
We are only human and despite our best intentions, at times we can fall down the rabbit hole…
So, we can also work on practicing forgiveness and not beating ourselves up.
10 Tips for a new beginning
1. The answer may be right in front of you.
2. Time is often the best medicine.
3. Speak kindly to yourself.
4. The air we breathe matters.
5. Movement is essential.
6. Relinquishment is a balm for the soul.
7. Symptoms will instruct if we listen.
8. Sometimes you are the expert.
9. Allow hindsight to move you forward.
10. The next step is enough.
Join a Community of Like Minded
Gut Goddess started The Gut Academy in a mind of putting deep love, gratitude, positive intentions, and the best of vegetables one can find, in a jar. This was my calling to heal the people I love – my friends and family.
The friendships we have formed over the years are as mighty as the invisible organisms.
Thank you for loving what we do & and Thank you for all the support!!!
• Changing your diet can be stressful. Of course, not changing your diet is even more stressful in the long run! We all need help and support when we begin something new.
Reaching out to a community is the best way to get the support you need.
Let us face it, some of your friends and family probably do not understand why you are so excited by tasty, authentic, and responsibly made food.
They do not get why you would want to put yourself to this much trouble. They are worried that you are putting yourself at risk of further stress and illness by adopting this new diet.
Everyone in our community has been where you are at now. We have all had lots of questions, had to learn new ways to feed ourselves and been criticized for our choice.
I think we have all felt a bit isolated at times.
• Reaching out is a great remedy for whatever troubles you during this transition.
Unsure of whether your ferment is good? Just need a laugh. You will find that too!
Take One Step at a Time … It can be very overwhelming to be sick with so many symptoms and face the amount of information that you need to learn to get healthy & stress free!
Therefore, it is very important that you approach your healing, one step at a time.
Gratitude
For those who have enhanced our existence just by being the beautiful souls they are …
The peeps who are there for you on your darkest nights
Are the ones worth spending your brightest days with …
Our tribe is a group of 🦄 🦄 🦄 who know the value of gratitude 🙏
Who embrace each other with much love and respect, appreciation and compassion
Our strength alone is multiplied with the strength of our hearts a thousand times more!
We shall never be alone when we have our tribe to support us during those dark times,
Don’t ever forget we share a bond of love and peace 🙏
No matter what time, what distance,
What distress,
What turmoil,
We are deeply committed to each other,
And we are deeply loved by each other,
Through the good times as well as the toughest times,
I love you all most powerfully,
And I cherish you more than words could ever express.
Here for you!
Big Love and Bacteria, Xo Lynnie
