healthandwellness – The Lifetonic Club

Understanding Your Stress Response.

Hi friends

Do you find yourself coming down with a cold or virus as soon as you go on annual leave?

You’re not alone! Research indicates that around 1 in 5 of us will come down with the common cold during a period of annual leave.

And this recent article by the New York Times cited that being under severe stress for more than one month but less than six months doubled a person’s risk of a cold, compared with people experiencing only routine stress.

But what is routine versus severe stress? And what does it have to do with us catching a cold?

Well, it’s all down to how you respond to the stress in your life and in this month’s lifetonic, we’re going to be digging deeper into what your stress response is, why stress can sometimes be good for you and how to look out for the ‘bad’ stress that’s not so good!

You’ll also learn about your three in-built responses to stress, looking at three of the most powerful ways you can control the physiological effects of stress with your TLC tools and resources.

So if you’re looking to book that annual leave for the Christmas Holidays and actually get to make the most of it, then this is the lifetonic for you!

What is stress?

Quite simply, stress occurs when pressure exceeds your perceived ability to cope.

This is really important to understand, because it’s not just about external pressures like hitting deadlines, but whether you believe that you can cope with a situation that you perceive as important or threatening.

That means stress is going to be different for every body!

The good news is, through experience, understanding your stress response and developing helpful coping mechanism, you can actually get good at stress and it can help to make you more resilient for whatever life throughs at you.

This line of thinking is rooted in positive psychology and is often called developing a ‘growth mindset.’

Understanding Your Stress Response

The stress response is a biological set of processes that start in the brain and body and are triggered once you become stressed (Palmer and Cooper, 2015).

It is important to note that there are two biological responses to stress; a short term stress response, which is a natural response to dealing with threating situations, and a long term or ‘chronic’ stress response, which can lead to a number of different physical and mental health conditions if left unmanaged.

The diagram below is actually a diagram I put together for my stress coaching certification. It helps to explain the long and short term stress response, including the main hormones involved.

The blue areas illustrate the short term or ‘acute‘ stress response. Acute stress is the ‘good’ stress or the healthy response to stress. This is the stress that protects you from the threat of danger and can help motivate you to get things done, achieve a goal or complete a project on time.

Here’s the cool bit – acute stress supports your immunue system. For example, the release of stress hormones such as adrenaline and noradrenaline help to prepare your heart, lungs and major muscles groups for action (fight or flight mode), whilst fats and sugars are released into your blood to provide energy.

Combined, they’re actually working for you, helping you to stay safe or ‘get the job done.’ This response prepares you for action. When you take that action, or ‘get the job done,’ your using up that energy your body has given you to remove the stress, helping it to return to balance. This is called regulating your stress response.

Where we can run into hot water, is where we don’t take any action to regulate our stress system. Instead, we just let stress go round and round, taking ourselves into a cycle of chronic or long term stress.

The orange area illustrate the longer term, ‘chronic‘ stress cycle and is epitomised by the ‘always on’ culture. .

The chronic stress response is made in your HPA Axis (Hypothalamus, Pituitary, Adrenal).

Constant stimulation of the HPA axis can lower the body’s immune system and increase blood pressure leading to hypertension and regular headaches and colds.

And although adrenal fatigue is not a real condition, it goes some way to describing the ‘stress’ that the adrenal gland is put out during periods of chronic stress. Chronic stress puts it at risk of malfunction, which can result in tiredness, digestive difficulties, sleep disturbances, dizziness and a craving for sweet and starchy food.

Sound familiar?

Our in-built responses to stress

There are only three 3 ways your body responds to stress. These are:

physiologically (tension headaches, back pain and tightness in the body, migranes, IBS, dry mouth, pain or tightness in the chest, shortness of breath, dizzy spells)
cognitively (thoughts and feelings that skew negatively like anger, depression, jealousy, images of things going wrong, low energy)
behaviorally (your actions including things like comfort eating, increased alcohol consumption, poor time management, procrastination, increased absenteeism from work).

In this lifetonic, we’re mainly going to be looking at the physiological responses but stand by for future lifetonics, which will look at important aspects of the other two.

Resetting your Stress Response

Whether you’re aware of it or not, the tools and resources that you have access to within the lifetonic Club offer you a mind / body / life approach to managing your stress response and boosting your wellbeing.

The only thing you have to do is to take action!

This is the hard part of most of us. No longer do we have tigers chasing us, so taking action on our stress response has become less about survival. It’s a mind set shift we have to make – it IS still very much about our survival, the long term survival of our health, our relationships and our life!

Let’s look at how some of the tools and resources with TLC are set up to support this:

Wellbeing Resources

Get ahead of your stress response by starting each week asking yourself how you want to feel? The use your Lifetonic Quick Start Guide to draw out your own unique feel good vibe – keep this somewhere you can see it and notice the things that take you away from this feeling. Remove or eliminate them.
You can also use this guide to plan out the time of day that’s best for you to do pilates.
Use your Progress Book to audit the key relationships in your life on a regular basis

10 minutes is better than none

One of the best known ways to lower your stress levels is through exercise (White, 2017,; Palmer and Cooper, 2015). In his book ‘The Stress Solution,’ Dr. Raangan Chatterjee states that exercise is one of the best ways to pull yourself out of a “damaging stress state,” caused by too many “Micro Stress Doses” (MSD).

This is a term he uses to describe the modern day ‘always on’ culture (texts, emails, alerts, notifications). MSD cause your body to pump out cortisol over and over again. Moving helps to use up that cortisol and sends a ‘safe’ signal to your brain, triggering the rest and digest response.

One of the best findings of recent years is that it’s no longer about duration or intensity, but the importance of moving your body as much as possible each day, and paying attention to how you feel before and after that can really have the most impact (Chatterjee, 2017).

Set a reminder on your phone to complete at least one workout a week from your Bodytonic Library
Struggling with motivation? Default to the 7 minute warm up routine. Done is better than none.
Tick off your workout on your monthly calendar and keep it somewhere you can see it – it’s a powerful way of keeping you motivated
Create your own monthly calendar using the blank template from your dashboard
Use your Progress Book to keep check in on how you feel – you can audit your energy and sense of calm using this book
Listen to this super short podcast on the power of movement and how to make it easy (hint: the lifetonic club is built around this whole idea!)

Eat more anti-inflammatory foods

Maintaining a healthy diet plays an important part in maintaining a healthy body and mind (White, 2017).

Chronic stress increases chronic inflammaton in the body but the good new is, eating well can help reduce inflammation (Charterjee, 2017) and prevent things like heart disease, type 2 diabetes, obesity, high blood pressure and even cancer.

Central to this is eating a balanced, healthy diet. This can include things like healthy fats (avocado, nuts, seeds, olive oil, oily fish like salmon), complex carbohydrates and foods that are high in fibre (green, leafy veg, wholegrain pasta, rice, bread, sweet potato and fruit), protein (lean meat, chicken eggs, lentils) and avoiding refined sugar, overly processed food and unhealthy fats (saturated and trans fats) (White, 2017; Palmer and Cooper, 2015).

Did you know that anti-inflammatory foods can also help you to regulate your mood and perform better?

To help us dive a little deeper into this subject, I’m delighted to bring you a BONUS series this month called ‘Food for Mood.’

These short videos, (all under 10 minutes), have been created for us by our brilliant in-house nutritionist, Moira Newiss and you watch them below for some helpful hints and tips about how to use food for mood!

Learn to relax

There are many mind body techniques that can use used to help enter a state of calm and relaxation and reduce the effects of stress and tension, including meditation, breathwork, relaxation imagery and pilates (Chatterjee, 2018).

All of these techniques work by enhancing the para-sympathetic nervous system helping you to access your ‘rest and digest’ state.

Palmer and Cooper (2015) state that “mediative techniques can lead to 50 per cent fewer visits to hospital as either an in or out patient.”

Tag a Mindtonic onto the end of your pilates routine (stay in relaxation position for this)
Roll our your mat and do 10 minutes of breathing for relaxation
Try the Pilates for a Better Night’s Sleep routine, that can be found in your 10 Min Bodytonic Library (bonus points if you then follow it with a Mindtonic)
Journal and start by asking yourself the question ‘what am I most worried about right now’ then let your pen flow
Keep a gratitude list. Just note down 3 simple things – this works best for me at the end of each day.
Surround yourself with good people

In my opinion, movement that strengthens and nourishes your body, a diet that’s fulled by whole, real foods and taking time out to promote healing and relaxation in your body and mind are the holy trinity of controlling your response to stress at a physiological level.

Work towards building your own unique toolkit for respoinding to your stress by picking one or two things to focus on for this month.

I hope you are starting to feel the benefits of what taking small, intentional steps with your health can really do for you.

Have a peaceful October.

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Brain health

Hi friends

For this month’s Lifetonic, we’re turning our attention towards focusing on a part of our body that we often don’t realise needs a lot of care and attention…

…and that’s our brain!

We rely on our brains to help us do everything we can possibly do in a day, making decisions, moving our bodies, talking to ourselves positively, interacting with others, problem solving, communicating. Most of these things we do automatically and we can take our brain function hugely for granted, but our brains are an important part of our bodies to care for.

When we care for our brains regularly, we improve our chances of delaying or avoiding age-related cognitive decline and neurodegenerative disorders. We can also improve our overall cognitive function.

But what does that mean for us?

Brain health is essential for long-term healthy living and daily function. While it’s important to start taking care of our brains early on, it becomes even more important the older we get.

That’s why this month’s Lifetonic is to focus on ways to boost our brain health!

Neuroinflammation, or inflammation of the brain, can happen over time, causing the brain to age or atrophy. Symptoms of neuroinflammation can include “brain fog,” slowed thinking, fatigue, and even depression.

While it’s necessary for our bodies to have some inflammation to fight illness, too much inflammation can lead to long-term diseases and declines in our overall health, including brain function.

Here are a few positive steps you can actively and mindfully take, to improve your brain’s overall health:

Get enough quality sleep! By getting the right amount of restorative sleep, you can improve your memory, creativity, and focus.

Reduce your refined sugar intake. I know, this can be hard, but there is no nutritional value in refined sugar and it can actually create more inflammation in the body. Sugar hides in just about everything that comes processed or pre-packaged so try and make a mindful swap or two on anything that you are maybe prone to popping in the shopping basket. For example, can you make your pesto instead of buying a jar? You can also aim to slowly increase your intake of colorful fruits, like citrus, berries, and apples, which are filled with flavonoids and are known to improve memory.

Eat a variety of colorful fruits and vegetables. By doing this, you can actively increase the number of polyphenols—which help to counter neuroinflammation—and do something wonderful for your body, too!

Add certain brain-power foods to your shopping list. Consider putting items like oily fish (organic salmon is a good option ), avocados and walnuts (healthy fats), and even moderate amounts of coffee, tea and good-quality dark chocolate on your grocery list. These foods have proven to have a positive effect on the brain because they contain antioxidants.

Move your body! Aerobic exercise increases blood flow to the entire body, including your brain, while helping to reduce “brain fog.” This leads to better memory and learning. In fact, exercise, like Pilates, which requires coordination, also increases the flow of blood and oxygen and has been shown to be exceptional for the brain!

Nurture your relationships. Spending time with loved ones and making an effort to nurture positive relationships is also linked to improved brain health. So, be sure to schedule in time with those you love. Make more of an effort here if you are going to be continually homeworking post lockdown. We need to make sure we are still connecting with people; quality time and conversations are so good for your health.

Exercise your brain, too. We don’t often think about how fun activities can be good for our brains but they are! The next time you’re trying to decide on a relaxing activity, consider these options: play a card game, try a jigsaw, read a new book, try a sudoku puzzle, listen to or play some music, learn a new skill (didn’t you always want to learn French?!) or even teach one to someone else!

Relax your mind and get some fresh air. There are proven benefits to meditation and spending time in nature. Getting outdoors helps us to give the prefrontal cortex of our brains a rest, which increases our creativity and allows us to focus better.

Avoid toxic habits whenever possible. Did you know that smoking and consuming too much alcohol can be detrimental to your overall brain health? If you smoke, consider joining a local support group to kick the habit once and for all. And while a little red wine once in a while can be good for heart health, remember to consume alcohol in moderation.

“Reducing inflammation is pretty much the most effective anti-aging strategy of all.” – Dave Asprey

As we get older, our bodies and brains change and adapt. That’s why it’s so important to take care of them as they go through this process.

Many people don’t notice the effects of their lifestyles until they get older. And while genetics do play a part in our overall health, we can make mindful choices to help us continue on the path to good physical and brain health.

I hope you’ll join me this month in caring for our brain health together. Taking intentional steps to care for your body and brain for long-term health benefits is truly empowering and helps keep us young!

Love Julie x

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This simple and quick morning pilates routine is a perfect way to set the tone for the rest of your day, allowing you to move through it with simplicity and ease.

You’ll get some delicious, gentle movement into tight areas like your back and hips and also build strength in that all important core, so as it’s ready to support you for the day ahead.

The benefits of moving your body in the morning

I find moving my body in the morning one of the most productive ways to set me up for a productive and positive day head. Some of the amazing benefits of morning exercise include:

establishing a routine
more energy
better mood
improved sleep
lower blood pressure
less stress

Time in the morning can feel like a luxury, especially if you are juggling family priorites and I know not everyone has the time, or energy, to smash out a 30 minute HIIT session.

That’s one of the main reason’s why I developed The Lifetonic Club – to make it easy for you to fit in a workout that will leave you feeling great but won’t be a drain on either of those things. You can follow this link to find out more about TLC (don’t you just love that the acronym is TLC!).

Getting into a morning routine

It can take a while to get into a routine with exercise in the morning, but I’ve found having a goal to move myself for just 10 or 15 minutes, and focusing on how I’m going to feel after it, is enough motivation for me to roll out my mat.

In fact, I actually look forward to setting my alarm clock to get up that little bit earlier!

And if you’re reading this wondering how you could possibly find the time for yourself first thing, then let me introduce you to a little secret about how to master it – you steal it from your evening.

I had to change my habits many years ago when I suffered from chronic low back pain. The morning was often the worst time for me. I’d wake up stiff, sore and tired, which often translated into a less than positive mood! Often it would take at least 15 minutes just to get up and moving around.

It wasn’t until I discovered pilates and incorporated some simple 10 to 15 minute stretches into my morning routine, that I felt a huge difference, not just in the pain I was having but in my mood too.

And all I really had to do, was get up a little bit earlier than I was actually used to, but the pay off was huge; I’ve not had back pain for over 15 years now.

julie doing the pilates cobra — A simple morning pilates routine is a quick and effective way to shake off stiff muscles first thing in the morning.

So yes, I’ve tried and tested the theory that you don’t have to get up hours before work to ‘fit in’ exercise and feel good. Nor do you have to go to bed hours before you get up!

Making your routine work for you

I’ve discovered a way that makes exercise work for me, for my routine, and in a way that helps me to reap all of the incredible benefits of pilates in a very short space of time.

One that leaves me feeling energised, healthy and eager to get up and on my mat every day because of how I feel at the end of it and it doesn’t take up hours of my day.

That’s what feeling good should be all about – easy, accessible and convenient for you.

I think often when we hear the word ‘routine’ we can be misled into thinking it’s about getting up hours before to do 100 different tasks to bring us into a zen like state.

Let me simplify things by telling you that your morning routine should come with ease and instill a sense of calm, which is what this workout is designed to do.

So, I hope you enjoy it! It’s a perfect daily pilates routine for beginners, it will also benefit anyone with a more advanced practice; you’ll get all the healthy movement your body needs in one simple, mood boosting burst!

Use it to bring in some fresh energy for the day ahead and to set you up on a note of positivity for whatever comes your way.

And if you’re looking for a little added inspiration for your morning routine, then you can check out this blog post where I share 5 Tips for a Mindful Morning.

Start your day on a note of positivity with this quick and simple morning pilates routine

Leave me a comment to let me know what you think and don’t forget to subscribe to my YouTube Channel so as you can be notified when other pilates routines, just like this one, go live!

Love Julie x

P.S. After some more quick and simple pilates routines to help you feel good? Then don’t forget to download my FREE PDF – 5 simple pilates exercises you can do everyday below!

I’d like to thank my wonderful friend, James for writing this fantastic piece about looking after your back! James is a man who knows a thing or two about backs – a graduate of Cambridge University, he’s a Consultant Spinal Surgeon with the NHS and is the man you’ll end up in front of it you don’t look after your back! He’s also recovering from covid-19, which he contracted whilst working during the pandemic. A true hero and legend – if you don’t believe me about looking after your back, then you must believe him!

Back pain is a major cause of health problems world wide with up to 70% of adults experiencing back pain during their life time. Despite the attempts of Marty Mcfly going ‘Back to the Future’ remains rather difficult, meaning we cannot predict who will have problems with back pain.

In the majority of people back pain is a result of wear and tear changes in the lower levels of the spine where it joins the pelvis.
Mr. james tomlinson, nhs spinal consultant, frcs

Spine wear and tear will affect 100% of the population by a ‘certain age’ and is a natural part of the ageing process rather than a sign that something is wrong. Improvements in standards of living and healthcare have led to increased life expectancy, and higher levels of spine wear and tear due to longer lives. The treatment of back pain remains a difficult problem – largely driven by the fact that we still don’t understand the underlying causes, and why some individuals are so badly affected. The levels of spine wear and tear in those with and without low back pain may be very similar, and some of those who have significant pain may have no or little degeneration in their spine.

Back pain is more common in industrialised nations, and it has been suggested this may be due to lower levels of physical activity and physical deconditioning with weakness of the muscles supporting the spine.
Mr James tomlinson, nhs spinal consultant, frcs

Physical activity and movement will keep the spine muscles working and reduce the atrophy or loss of muscle bulk over time in those who have very low levels of physical activity. Any form of exercise that strengthens the low back muscles is useful to try and keep the spine healthy, but it is important to increase activity levels gradually!

Medical treatments for those who develop low back pain are usually pain relief and physiotherapy in the majority of patients with a lack of successful medical treatments for most cases. Physiotherapy often focuses on reconditioning the spine muscles and establishing normal movement patterns in the spine.

There is evidence that Pilates may help with keeping the spine muscles conditioned and can both help prevent back pain developing, and also improve symptoms in those who have low back problems.
Mr james tomlinson, nhs spinal consultant, frcs

In the words of Desiderius Erasmus the Dutch philosopher ‘prevention is better than cure’. It is of vital importance that we maintain our physical condition and health as we live longer and longer.

Given the lack of successful medical treatments for low back pain, maintaining spine movement and conditioning is critical and may play a key role in prevention of low back pain so get moving!

P.S. In case you missed it, here’s my 8 pilates exercises to ease low back pain

This post was originally published on the 13 June 2020 at Ostarapilates.com/blog and has had over 132 views.

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Did you know I ended up in pilates because I suffered chronic low back pain for over 2 years when I was in my mid twenties? It’s true. I was 25 and couldn’t even bend over to tie my shoes.

I had over 30 physio sessions, took prescribed sleeping tablets, had 2 MRI scans and a set of injections in my lumbar facet joints and not one single thing made a difference to the pain I felt day in and day out. It was truly debilitating in every way. I spent hours in the dead of night reciting Philip Larkin poems, willing the day to come. When it did, I spent hours lying on the floor stretching. I had to trade my beloved heels for not so beloved flat shoes and had to alternate between standing and sitting everywhere I went, and yet no position felt comfortable. I had to have a zillion adjustments made at work and used a wedge cushion for driving.

And then along came a newly graduated, fresh faced physio from Down Under who took one look at me and said, “you need to do pilates.” At that point in time, the only person I’d heard of who did pilates was Madonna and the only place to do it was in LA! However, if he had said get yourself and on a plane to Arizona and jump off the Grand Canyon to sort it, I would have done it! As luck would have it, I didn’t have to do that, nor did I have to go to LA to hang out with Madonna. Instead the gym at RBS Gogarburn, where I was working like a dog, was about to launch a run of pilates classes so I immediately signed up.

I remember every single thing about that lesson. There was a total of 5 exercises with the rest of the class being structured around learning completely alien things to me like spinal alignment, finding a neutral pelvis and how to make best friends with your ‘corset’ of support to support your back (corset = your deep abdominal muscles). I remember having to do a curl up and was shocked to find that I could barely lift my head off the mat, let alone my back! But in that 60 minutes something magical happened; for the first time in 2 years, I left that room with zero pain. How could that be? After everything I’d done to try and manage my back pain in 2 years, including a medical intervention, how could 60 minutes of 5 exercises melt it away? It left me feeling light and happy and I was hooked. The pain came back but the more I went to pilates the less and less it came back until eventually it didn’t come back at all!

That was way back in 2005. It’s a true story and, fifteen years on, is the reason I still do pilates everyday – be in 10 minutes or 60. I never want to feel that pain again – anyone who has suffered chronic low back pain will get my drift here. It is the pitts and effects everything in your life.

I felt stronger, calmer and more able to enjoy life with each and every class. I started to live my life in a different way and as time went on, I also started to notice things that were out of kilter with my new found way of living, particularly the fact that I had been spending faaaarrrr too long chained to a desk all day, working in a high performing team for a high performing company and busting a gut to keep up. It was stressful, fast paced and – dare I say it – cut throat at times. Recognise it? Yip, all of that contributed to my back issues too. In fact, within a year of conquering my back pain through pilates, I quit my high performing job and went to work for a smaller business that still had high expectations of delivery but without the competitive, internal politics of the big global corporation I was slogging away for. It was also handily located within the city centre which meant I could ditch the 1 hour commute to work each way and actually walk to work (and also meant I could fit in 2 pilates classes a week instead of 1).

Pilates really has been the only thing that has helped my back – it has been worth every penny of investment I have made on it. It is so easy to slip it in to your day – spending just 10 minutes on 4 or 5 exercises every day, or every other day, will leave you feeling stronger, calmer and better about everything; do if for long enough and you’ll start to see those little magical shifts in how you go about your every life stuff. I promise.

It is incredibly difficult to truly ‘damage’ your back but like any living thing (yes your spine is a living, breathing thing!), if you don’t look after it, it will stop working. There is lots of medical research to support the fact that you no longer have to hold an anatomical position and work the back mechanically; movement in all directions is best. Here are my 8 go to pilates exercises to help loosen off a stiff or sore low back – do all 8 or pick and choose a few. Aim for around 8 -10 reps of each 2 or 3 times a day if you can; they are truly magical for your back:

Sore back? Feeling stressed? Looking for a way to exercise that fits neatly into your every day life in a way that will build strength, reduce stress and will 100% leave you feeling better than before you rolled your mat out? Then join the other 100+ people signed up to my newsletter for hints, tips and guides on how the magic of pilates can help you every day too.

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