Video

Transcript

now today we’re going to talk about how

anxiety and worry can affect your cells

i do want to mention though

stress is good for us to adapt to it and

to become better i’m mainly talking

about chronic stress because the key

factor is duration

how much chronic stress does someone go

through

without recovery if you’re recovering

along the way stress is essential okay

you can’t live without stress but i’m

not talking about that i’m talking about

chronic worry anxiety

over

weeks and weeks and weeks and what that

does

to your cells now let’s start with your

immune cells what’s fascinating is that

when someone experiences

worry anxiety and stress their immune

cells become paralyzed okay

very specifically the t cells the t

cells are responsible for a lot of

things including killing cancer cells

including

viruses and so if that army that

protects you becomes paralyzed that can

leave you susceptible to having a lot of

problems

this is why stress always tends to come

right before someone gets an infection

someone ends up with a sore throat or

they get sick so if you’re trying to

think of what would improve your immune

system it’s the absence of stress okay

now let’s think of a panic attack right

what happens is you kind of stop

breathing you sometimes even forget

about breathing and that can greatly

affect your physiology if you don’t get

oxygen but in a panic attack you

basically lose control it’s the feeling

of losing control and some a reactive

mechanism kicks in there okay

dictated by

a certain part of the brain called the

amygdala which is all about

how the body responds in a state of fear

as well as adrenals which is also

relating to stress and involving the

flight or fight mechanisms and so you

have hormones in different parts of your

body that are reacting when you’re under

a stress state that are going to prepare

the body for stress but typically what

happens overall in

a chronic worry or anxiety state is your

cells stop moving everything kind of

slows down even the mitochondria slow

down and stop doing their function and

they actually start creating this thing

called apoptosis which is dying it’s

like a cellular suicide but typically

what we have in this state is we have

the cells just stop moving even the

frontal lobe of your brain

stops firing so you have a lack of

it’s called executive function which is

decision making

planning

organizing that shuts down i mean think

about the last time you were under a lot

of stress or panic you’re not in this

creative

planning trying to solve problems of

your life you basically are getting

problems and not being able to solve

them

and so there’s a lot of indecision

that’s connected with the state of worry

and anxiety and stress

i mean even when people are um

i don’t know in sports and they’re

playing a tennis match right and there’s

a lot of pressure on someone let’s say

they’re in a tennis game right to win

this

last match

and then they choke right because

somehow this pressure was too

overwhelming and they lost some of that

executive function that athletic

performance you can get brain freeze you

can also have writer’s block right i

mean try to write a book when you’re

under stress your creativity your

imagination

is crucial

for

writing playing sports

solving problems running a business

and doing your profession and so stress

worry and anxiety tend to knock the wind

out of someone where they lose their

cognitive

power

and their mental capacity becomes

crippled so they may lose their appetite

they don’t sleep well they’re not

recovering and the body can start going

downhill so how do we solve this well

there are certain parts of your body

that are voluntary and certain parts

that are involuntary okay and that means

that there’s certain parts of your body

that are under your control and certain

ones that are not under your control the

ones that are under your control have to

do with muscles okay now you might say

your breathing okay is under your

control well your lungs by themselves

don’t do anything they’re passive it’s

the diaphragm that moves the lungs and

the diaphragm is a muscle so the muscles

are something that you can control and

so when you’re in a panic attack and

you’re not breathing and the body’s in

the stress state you want to start to

put motion back into the body and

breathing is probably the first thing

you need to do there’s a fascinating

video that i did on breathing and just a

simple breathing technique to pull

yourself out of a panic attack to pull

yourself out of a stress state

simply by regulating your breathing and

so as you hyperventilate now we have an

imbalance with oxygen and carbon dioxide

and now that oxygen cannot go into the

tissues and it feels like you just can’t

breathe so it can create a lot of issues

so anytime you’re stuck in this

worry anxiety stress mode there’s a lot

of things you can do food wise nutrition

wise but also there’s some things you

can do just by getting your body into

motion okay

start to get outside and exercise in

nature start speeding up your body okay

because you’re countering this slowing

down motion and that alone will pull you

out of the stress state number three

start controlling your breathing as well

as your skeletal muscles the two types

of exercise programs that i highly

recommend

would be one yoga exercises okay and i’m

not even talking about getting into the

philosophy of yoga but the yoga

exercises are great for stress because

you

yourself are controlling your body and

your breathing

in a controlled way the other system

that i really like is pilates that’s

another program where you’re controlling

your emotions in a certain way and that

is very powerful to pull yourself out of

a stress day but it’s all about putting

yourself in control of your body because

in a state of worry and anxiety

basically you’re out of control the

other thing i’m going to mention with

the frontal cortex

they don’t really know exactly what that

part of the brain does exactly they have

some ideas but it does have something to

do with executive function planning

organizing

getting things done

those things

so

the more that you can get an action and

get things done

the better it’s going to pull you out of

that worry stress mode so on that note i

think the next video for you to watch

would be this one on the breathing

technique i mentioned right here

you