10 Signs You Are Stressed Even If You Feel Relaxed

Hello Health Champions. Stress may be the one  thing that nobody really pays attention to  

that can have the greatest impact on your  health and by recognizing the subtle signs of  

stress that we're going to talk about in this  video and most importantly by understanding  

what they mean and how they affect the body you  can really make a difference in your health. When  

a doctor takes the time with the patient to make  a proper history very often they'll find out that  

in as much as 80 percent of the cases they had a  stressful event right before the onset of whatever  

the problem is. The CDC believes that as much as  75 percent of all doctors visit for all reasons  

are actually stress related but if we ask OSHA  then they say that that number is 90 percent of  

all doctors visits are related to stress and we've  all heard that stress is bad stress is involved  

with all kinds of different conditions but in this  video we want to really understand and explore how  

does that happen? How does stress do that? How does  stress make you feel bad? How does stress break  

body parts? Stress can be very blatant kind of in  your face but it can also be much more subtle so  

one of the most common things that people don't  realize is stress is just feeling uneasy you're  

just not feeling quite right there's something  off you're not totally at ease or totally happy  

and that could be because you're feeling busy  you're feeling like I have to do something  

there's always something left undone or it could  be that there's so many moving parts in your life  

and you feel that you have to control them  that it's your job that something bad is going  

to happen if you don't take charge and handle all  of them it can be that you're always on call like  

with phones and emails you're always waiting for  that next message that next notification and that  

email to respond to and we could summarize that as  simply the feeling of I should but stress is not  

just about how you feel it's about the stress  response it's about how your body has been  

conditioned to respond to all the events of  your everyday life and that may or may not be  

something that you're aware of that's why we have  to really learn to pay attention to these things  

you have something called the autonomic nervous  system that's the part of your nervous system that  

you're not aware of it handles everything about  your body that you don't have to think about and  

it has two branches they're called the sympathetic  and the parasympathetic nervous system more  

commonly we call them the fight flight system  and the feed breed system and another way of  

remembering that is as the four f's we have  fighting, fleeing, feeding, and procreating of course  

but the thing to understand about these  is that it's a resource allocation system  

you have only so many resources in the body and  all of those resources whether they're food or  

nutrients or oxygen they're distributed through  the blood so basically what this comes down to  

is how does the body distribute the blood how does  it allocate the resources and you want to think of  

that as a balance scale that whenever one side  goes up the other one has to come down and that's  

how this works as well so when you have a stress  response you're going to increase the sympathetics  

and you will decrease the parasympathetics  and vice versa but 99.999 percent of the time  

in our modern society our problem is that we  keep turning on the sympathetic, the fight flight  

response and the fight flight response is exactly  what it sounds like it's there to help us in a  

situation of fight flight so when we're stressed  when we have something chasing us when we need to  

run away from something to save our lives then our  heart rate will increase and our blood pressure  

will increase we have certain hormones to help us  through that they're called adrenaline that will  

create vasoconstriction to get the blood running  faster out to the muscles that can do the work  

but also things like cortisol that will increase  blood sugar to give us fast energy if we have to  

run so fast that we develop lactic acid and also  of course to run we need muscle tension so all of  

these things are hardwired in and they happen  in a millisecond before you're even aware that  

something has happened in your external world your  nervous system has detected it just in case you  

need to jump out of the way really really fast so  in other words the sympathetic is about speeding  

things up it's about revving up the engine to  take care of emergencies and defend yourself  

the parasympathetic is the exact opposite when  there is no emergency then the sympathetic can  

back off a little bit and we can increase the  parasympathetic and get back into balance and the  

parasympathetic is responsible for digestion for  cell-based immune function fighting off diseases  

for reproduction and of repair so  healing body parts healing vital organs  

and even the DNA repair that they're learning  more and more about that your body actually  

goes through and repairs your DNA molecules all of  these things are part of your parasympathetic so  

whenever you have an increase in stress and  again whether it's real or imagined whether  

it's something actually chasing you or you're  just imagining a stressful event or you're  

feeling a little tense whenever that goes  up the parasympathetic is going to go down  

and we talked about blood flow so think about  this as two faucets that whenever you turn  

one on you're going to turn the other one off to  some degree so when you increase the sympathetic  

it's like you're turning off the faucet for your  parasympathetic you're shutting off or shutting  

down reducing the resources for your digestion  your immune system your reproduction and your  

repair and once we understand that principle  a lot of these symptoms become very very  

obvious so as a direct result of sympathetic  activity we have neck tension and headaches  

because when you have the muscle tension not  only is the running muscles that you tense up  

but it's the protective muscles so you pull up  your shoulders up and forward you clench your jaw  

so right here you have neck tension and TMJ and  whenever you engage those muscles you're very  

prone to get headaches as well so that's number  two number three is heart arrhythmias because the  

sympathetic is going to speed up heart rate while  the parasympathetic tries to slow it down so with  

a lot of sympathetic activation while the heart is  trying to slow down naturally is going to cause a  

lot of imbalance and confusion and number four  is hypertension or high blood pressure and that  

also makes sense because when you're running from  something when you're exercising you should have  

higher blood pressure because that blood pressure  moves the blood faster out to the muscles doing  

the work but when it comes to blood pressure we  need to understand that there's two components  

and the first is metabolic and if you have  insulin resistance metabolic syndrome then that  

high insulin level is going to cause sodium  retention in the kidneys high insulin is going  

to trick or confuse the kidneys it's going to  make them more prone to retain sodium and with  

sodium follows water so now there is one aspect  of high blood pressure but the other aspect is  

what we talked about the neurological that  if you're feeling stressed whether it's a  

real or imagined situation even if you did run and  defend yourself but then you come back to safety  

now if you're still feeling tense about it your  body is not ready to let go and with a little bit  

of tension you're still going to have that high  blood pressure I think the single biggest problem  

with our health care system or so-called health  care system today is that we have forgotten the  

most basic truth and here it is health is when  everything works and I tell my patient this  

disease is when something is not working and  this sounds like kindergarten but we have a whole  

healthcare system that has forgotten this and when  i talk to people i say the thing that you came in  

for the problem that you have the arrhythmia the  headache the shoulder pain the autoimmune disease  

is it because everything's working or because  something's not working and they always say that  

it's because something is not working so then I  asked them do you think we should leave it alone  

or should we make it work again and I always get  the same answer of course we should make it work  

again because then the body returns to health but  when was the last time that you went to a doctor  

and they said why don't we make it work  again because it's not part of their model  

it's not part of our health care model we treat  symptoms with medication or with therapy but  

every focus is on the symptom we don't try to  figure out what's not working and that begs the  

question of course what is it that has to work  and whether you call it god or source or innate  

intelligence or anything else I think we can all  agree that there's an organizing power in the body  

there's something that makes it work that we don't  quite understand that's bigger than we are your  

heart beats 100 000 times per day and then think  about when you go to the gym and you're exhausted  

because you did 100 reps right imagine the heart  100 000 reps and it gets no breaks ever no little  

pit stops for replacement ever it just keeps going  and keep going keep going and with every heartbeat  

it moves somewhere between 50 to 100 milliliters  of blood so that's four to eight liters per minute  

360 liters per hour 8 000 liters of blood every  day that's a huge container of blood and in this  

bloodstream you have some 25 trillion red  blood cells and they're traveling through  

60 000 miles of vessels and every red blood  cell every one out of the 25 trillion completes  

a complete tour through the 60 000 miles of  vessels every minute of your life now do something  

for me take a deep breath in one two three four  well guess what happened during that breath  

you just lost 15 million red blood cells but don't  worry because in the same time period you made 15  

million more red blood cells and don't worry the  dead ones they're going to be filtered out through  

your spleen they're going to be put to good use  all the spare parts are going to be magically put  

in order again and now take one more breath for  me one two three four and during that breath  

every one of your 40 trillion cells performed some  500 000 chemical reactions each that means that  

every breath you have two times 10 to the 19  chemical reactions taking place in your body  

and you don't have to lift a finger you don't have  to think about it it does it for you and these are  

reactions to make energy these are reactions  to neutralize toxins to eliminate waste to  

make hormones to make enzymes to assemble new body  parts even in all these quadrillions of reactions  

they are not just happening they are not random  they are being coordinated every molecule is where  

exactly where it's supposed to be but here's  the point and listen very carefully when you are  

stressed you are telling your body that all of  these things that we just said that the body does  

they're not all that important right now when  i'm stressed the only thing important is to put  

out that fire to defend myself healing gets put  on the back burner and if we have chronic stress  

if you have these stresses and they turn into  a pattern and a behavior and a personality  

then we're saying that that healing part is never  very important the next set of symptoms have to do  

with a decreased parasympathetic activation and  how can that happen well remember our seesaw our  

balance scale whenever the sympathetic activity  goes up the parasympathetic goes down by default  

by hardwiring and why does the sympathetic always  come first always because it's about defending you  

in this moment whereas the parasympathetic is  about repairing and putting you back in shape  

for tomorrow and next month and next year which  seems really important but if you don't survive  

this next second then there is no tomorrow to take  care about so the sympathetic always comes first  

and the next symptom is number five  frequent infections and I can still remember  

in chiropractic school when we had finals we were  sitting in this big room with a hundred people  

and during that test there would be not  a silent moment everyone was coughing  

and sneezing and sniffling everyone had a cold  because they had not enough sleep too much stress  

too much coffee too much sugar number six is IBS  irritable bowel syndrome which is alternating  

constipation diarrhea or really any other  digestive upset any irregularity and why is that  

because when you're stressed you're shutting down  your parasympathetic and your parasympathetic  

is 100% responsible for the motility for the  digestive juices for your hydrochloric acid  

for your enzymes and so on and number seven  is a decreased sex drive erectile dysfunction  

and infertility and again that makes sense because  your body is really smart it prioritizes things  

and if you're being chased by a bear then you're  not going to be saved by an erection so the body  

puts those functions on the back burner and as  much stress as we have today is there any wonder  

that infertility clinics are popping up like fast  food restaurants then there's some symptoms based  

on indirect sympathetic mechanisms and that would  be food and sugar cravings and why is that because  

most of the time especially when you're relaxed  your body relies on an aerobic metabolism so it's  

burning fat and carbohydrate in the presence  of oxygen but when you're stressed when it's  

anticipating maybe having to run for it then it's  preparing to go more into glycolysis if you have  

to run really fast then you're going to break  down glucose and make lactic acid you're going to  

shift into glycolysis and then your body prepares  itself by raising the blood sugar some and you can  

do that with cortisol which is a stress hormone  or you can eat something and typically the body  

wants to make sure it's got all bases covered  so it's going to try to make you eat something  

number nine is autoimmunity and even if we  don't know exactly how the stress causes the  

immune system to get all that confused it's very  well documented that most immune issues are going  

to get altered with stress and they found that  with childhood trauma or abuse even a single  

or a couple of severe incidents then they've seen  65 to 95 percent increase in multiple sclerosis  

they have found a hundred percent increase in  rheumatoid arthritis based on childhood trauma  

and a 300 percent increase in Lupus and these were  just a few that I found in a few minutes I bet you  

pretty much any disease that you google  or that you search you do some research on  

you're gonna find a strong connection between  autoimmune disease and stress and trauma and  

like a lot of things you want to think  of stress as momentum it's like a skill  

that you build up and once it gets going and  you have that skill then you're going to feed  

it and it's going to keep going on its own so a  stress response they've done some research on this  

and they had people sit down and imagine sitting  in traffic for a couple of minutes that's all they  

did and then they measured cortisol which is a  stress hormone and they measured immunoglobulin A

which is an immune marker and what they found was  as soon as they imagined the stress they weren't  

even in an actual situation they just had them in  a comfortable chair and they thought about it for  

a couple of minutes their cortisol would shoot up  and their immune level, their IgA, would go down but  

then they told them okay thank you now go about  your day but they measured this throughout the day  

and eight hours later they were still in a  stress response just from thinking about it  

for a couple of minutes whereas if they had them  do some relaxation exercises if they had them  

practice something to kind of break that momentum  then it was back in five minutes they were back to  

normal so every time you have a stress response  it tends to stay on unless you pay attention if  

you are mindful if you start noticing how you  feel then you can do something about it and  

i don't think that there's anything more important  that we can do in our lives than to notice how we  

feel notice as we go through our day before you  pick up the phone before you answer the phone  

whenever you get into meet with a person whenever  you're going to do something or write something  

notice how you feel because if you calm yourself  down instead of being agitated the results of what  

you're going to produce is going to be completely  different it's going to change your life  

so pay attention and if you don't feel great and  peaceful then just take a deep breath and notice  

where you are and notice is this how I want to  feel and then just choose how you want to feel  

and the second thing you can do of course long  term is meditation because this is practicing  

every day on a regular basis to break that  momentum and to install another momentum  

piece by piece symptom number 10 is poor focus  and how does that happen how does stress do that  

well the brain uses a lot of energy twenty percent  of all your energy that means twenty percent of  

all the blood flow is to supply the brain with  oxygen and nutrients but when we're stressed  

then that blood flow leaves the frontal lobe  and goes down to the brain stem so it kind of  

looks like this from the frontal part and down  to the brain stem which is our animalistic part  

it's our more primitive part where we can react  instinctively and of course it's not a complete  

on off it's a percentage of the blood the body  makes a reprioritization and says the brain stem  

is more important right now so all of the things  that make us uniquely human are a result of our  

frontal lobes so things like creativity and  planning things like motivation, the ability to  

visualize things all of those things are going to  be reduced and they're going to be replaced with  

spontaneous knee-jerk reflex action and one more  thing to really understand is that most of what  

the brain does is to turn things off the way that  we achieve balance in life is the brain receives  

information and it responds to some and it shuts  off others that's how we can focus pay attention  

and have peace and balance but if we lose some of  that frontal lobe activity now there's going to be  

a lack of inhibition the brain is not going  to turn off so many things anymore and now  

things we don't want are going to start popping  up and things like anxiety and muscle tension  

are not going to be as controlled as they were and  as a result we could also get poor posture because  

a defensive muscle tension posture sort of looks  like that so a lot of the things that you see  

with people rounded shoulders turned in hands  forward head carriage that is a direct result  

of stress so stress and stress responses are  actually really good things despite everything  

that we've talked about because we need the stress  response to stay alive in the moment but then we  

need to learn how to turn it off we can't let  it develop that momentum and take over our lives  

that's why dogs are so happy and so peaceful  because they get stressed but when the danger  

is over they know how to shut it down they know  how to get back into balance and we can too if we  

just learn to notice how we feel. If you enjoyed  this video, you're going to love that one. And if  

you truly want to master health by understanding  how the body really works make sure you subscribe,  

hit that bell, and turn on all the notifications  so you never miss a life-saving video.