When Stress Hijacks Your Brain
Our topic this week comes from two people I have in mind.
One female client came with severe stress and anxiety. She was wondering how a program based in nutrition and therapies would help her to feel better.
The second comes from my son who was going through some growth challenges of his own recently.
During conversations with both I was able to witness them being in that sympathetic dominant state right there in the moment, and I knew there was no getting through at that time. But after some downregulating and they were in a more perceptive state we talked about strategies for what to do when those thoughts are taking over. We put a focus on where they wanted to go and helped come up with strategies when they weren't in stress. It was so much fun hearing my son at 9 years old say back to me the things he hears me say repeatedly. “I caught my thought,” he said. And, “My choice thought is…”. And finally, “I found out that my body feels worse when I don’t eat for a long time.” What an epiphany!
All of this prompted me to think about our trauma nutrition program.
Not a week goes by that we don't get asked what trauma nutrition is. And I want it to be well understood. Nutrition is such a different game. It's working with a body that is in a cooperative state and it's experiencing natural and normal growth and changes.
Trauma nutrition is working with a body in an altered and sometimes halted or regressed growth state. Not only are the needs vastly different as far as nutritional levels but the actual body's physiology and what it's capable of doing is completely different. Trauma nutrition involves needs nutrition rather than growth and optimal nutrition, and it incorporates specific eating styles, food choices, and supplemental nutrients to support biochemistry and mood regulation.
Let’s explore further:
I specialize in trauma nutrition, people often wonder what that is exactly. In our world today it's almost possible not to learn about trauma informed care. We underestimate the function of nutrition in general but trauma nutrition is a completely different ball game. nutrition is about the support and maintenance and healthy building of your regulated body. Sometimes this body gets off track but for the most part it's normal nutrition that can build and repair.
Trauma nutrition however is working with a body that is not acting out of normal optimal functioning. In fact a lot of functioning isn't happening during the time that a person is in a state of trauma stress or anxiety. It's not a normal functioning body it's a survival body and the needs are vastly different.
Let me demonstrate…
When you're running from a tiger and you pass a blueberry bush are you going to stop and eat from it? No, so we've already got undereating and possible malnourishment if we're working with a person that has been running from their metaphorical tiger for a long time. Also it doesn't even matter if the tiger is chasing them currently, this could be a tiger that was chasing them that they never got over keeping them in a chronic state of that fight or flight
Next if you do eat from that blueberry bush and you're busy running from a tiger are you going to digest it? No so now we're bringing malabsorption to the table which is going to involve stomach changes, bowel habit changes, possibly constipation and when we're in a rejective state often food sensitivities that weren't there before, a hypervigilance not only to surroundings and emotions but to even nutrients that enter the body.
Then, If we're in a state of malabsorption and rejective this can activate addictive biochemical pathways in the brain and so now it's not just a nutrition and digestion problem it's a brain problem. have you seen these kids or adults that are now in your system because they're involved with drugs alcohol sex abuse, or risk behaviors?
Next if you're running from a tiger, the organs supported are the:
Muscles which become extra strong with intense hormones and elevated cortisol and alter glucose in order to meet the demand of the possible danger this tiger is putting them in. This means these people can be extra physically strong crazily so. This can cause a demand from the body for greater energy, leading to sugar cravings. This changes their dopamine levels which change their catecholamines which change their happy mood chemicals. This is the secondary partner problem now to addictive behavior because of the constant strive to try to feel the way those chemicals make them feel. People will learn to crave stress because that's what brings those levels up and in fact people can develop an addiction to the most common stress hormone cortisol. this person will now need substances and risk to reach that high.
Another organ supported when running from a tiger is the heart so you might notice agitation in a person, a twitchiness, or extreme emotional fluctuations.
The lungs follow suit so you might notice asthma and breathing changes in a person which triggers the vagus nerve, creating a constant feedback loop for a stress pattern only now the stress is coming from internal stressors in addition to external stressors. Essentially they are fighting the world AND themselves. Ever have those kids that you just can’t understand why they just won’t learn?
Remember, when running from a tiger it's survival of the self. No other functions matter at this point and with the help of the changed biochemistry now we have a shut off switch to the prefrontal cortex in the brain. You might notice lack of remorse, lack of thinking about others. remember this is survival of the self not survival of the species. It has nothing to do with personality and character traits. it has everything to do with an innate sense of survival that the nervous system is programmed to do for each one of us. That’s why these may be the sweetest kids with good hearts that just can’t seem to do the “right thing”.
So we have an individual that had stressors and tigers chasing them so we have external stressors anyway. Now we add the nervous system hypervigilance and the emotions that all of this continues to perpetuate you've gotta nice thick vicious cycle.
Can you see how this is a problem?
How do we help?
First our values:
I have 2 strong core values behind our mission at ANMC. 1. we cannot heal if the nervous system is in fear and 2. we cannot heal without significance.
I believe that we should provide in our health care functional care first with nutrition as primary practice . I believe our communities need support processes that make it easy to be healthy and OK to be happy. ANMC has an investment into this community to work with others to help bring this about. But our work needs to be more than medical it needs to be formed around a holistic approach in my opinion.
So how do we answer this what can we supply to our community.
We supply therapeutic programs. They may be a six month curated therapeutic program with generalized guidance or they may be a customized program with varying timelines and objectives.
Our programs allow us to work on the fight or flight response, increasing the parasympathetic nervous system activity, addressing addictive biochemical pathways, reducing cortisol addiction, down regulating the sympathetic dominance. We provide education, accountability , and practice for basic functional activities like functional diet and movement. We clinically monitor functional systems with cellular bioenergetics and nutrition analysis. We provide therapies to increase parasympathetic nervous system activity , and therapies to train self regulation and build resilience. We might use specific mood regulating nutrition or special program called safe and sound protocol. We employ psychoneuroimmunology, understanding how the mind, experiences and thoughts impact the nervous system which then dictates the immune system. This may look like spans of six weeks multiplied as needed, or a 6 month therapeutic program, or a specialized program.
If you have been in a state of chronic stress, feel symptoms of anxiety, or want to simply talk more, reach out! We’re here, together.