Latest / The Body Rhythm: Nervous System Health, Digestion & Daily Rhythms for Women / Is Pushing Through Stress Making Your Inflammation Worse?

Transcript

Is Pushing Through Stress Making Your Inflammation Worse? · The Body Rhythm: Nervous System Health, Digestion & Daily Rhythms for Women

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: You push because people depend on you.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_00: Because it's what you were taught that rest is something that you have to earn, that slowing down feels like falling behind, that slowing down feels like a flaw.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: And it's a skill that you got very good at being able to push through.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: But it's a skill that's costing you now.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Body Rhythm Podcast, the podcast for women who are ready to stop pushing through and start feeling like themselves again.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_00: I'm CJ, Ayurvedic Wellness Guide, helping women reconnect to the natural rhythm their body's been craving.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_00: But it wasn't that long ago that I was exhausted in a way that sleep didn't fix, loaded no matter what I ate, and lying awake at 3 a.m.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: with my mind already running tomorrow's to-do list.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: I thought I just needed to be more consistent, more disciplined.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't realize that my body wasn't feeling me.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: It was completely overwhelmed because you're not broken.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: You've just been living outside your natural rhythm for a long time.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: Hello and welcome to another episode of The Body Rhythm.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: I am so glad you can join me today.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: Today we're talking about inflammation and why pushing through stress may be making it worse.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: So imagine this: you're tired.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: You know you're tired, and yet you do it anyway, whatever that is.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: You push through the afternoon, maybe with your fourth or fifth cup of coffee, you push through that evening's workout, yeah, push through the week just to get to the weekend.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: And then you've probably told yourself, uh, this is what everyone else is doing, I have to do it too.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: What if your continued pushing is part of the reason of why your body feels so inflamed?
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: So I think of a woman that I worked with, and she was capable and reliable.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_00: She was always there for everyone else.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: And when she was tired, she had the next cup of coffee.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_00: When she was sore, she went to the gym anyway and ran five miles.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_00: When her stomach was off, she skipped lunch or skipped dinner and kept going.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_00: And her body kept sending her messages.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: The joints that ached and swelled and were worse by midday, maybe stiff in the morning.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: And then the joints began to get a little bit better as she was moving.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: Or maybe it was skin that flared for no apparent reason, or a gut that never quite settled.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: Heartburn, gas, bloating was always there.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_00: And she wasn't doing anything that she had never done before.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_00: Her pattern had just become she was doing exactly what she'd always done, which was push through.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: And her body had stopped being able to keep up with the continued pushing.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_00: So what is inflammation?
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: Well, inflammation is a natural response in the body, it's part of our immune system.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: Inflammation responds to injury, to infection, to surgery, right?
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_00: Our immune system helps fight when we have the colds or flu or COVID, right?
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_00: And so the short-term inflammation is the body doing its job.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_00: But the problem is when inflammation is continuous and it never gets the signal that it needs to turn off.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_00: And so, what does pushing through have to do with inflammation?
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_00: Well, when you override tiredness and hunger and pain, you keep your nervous system in a sustained state of activation and your stress response stays on.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_00: And research has linked chronic stress to increased inflammation.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: And so this can be one of the patterns that we're working with.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_00: Think of it maybe as a smoke alarm going off, but you decide to keep overriding it and you continue to hear it, but you just you're not going to go over there to turn it off because it's too much trouble.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_00: It's late at night, right?
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_00: And then imagine what pushing through a day actually looks like.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_00: It's less sleep, skip-torushed meals, more caffeine to cover the tiredness, more sugar to get through the afternoon, a hard workout on an already depleted body.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_00: And each one of these things is a small signal of strain to the body.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: And a body under strain has less to work with when it's trying to calm inflammation.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: So in Ayurveda, we look at inflammation through a couple of different lenses.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_00: One is through Agni or our digestive fire.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_00: And our digestive fire is the ability, the capacity to take in food and life experiences and process it, take what we need and then release what we don't.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_00: And when we override our body day after day after day, when we eat processed foods, when we eat on the run, when we eat answering emails, our agni weakens.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_00: The digestive fire, our capacity gets less and less.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_00: And when our agni weakens, what can't be processed becomes ama or a type of toxin in Ayurveda.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_00: And this toxic residue settles on top of over the tissues in the body, and in the joints, it blocks the nourishment from being received by the tissues, and stiffness and swelling follows.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_00: And so as we have a low digestive fire that's causing an increase in toxins, that's creating a sense of stiffness and inflammation in the body, we're depleting our natural vitality, our natural immunity, which in Ayurveda is called ojas.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_00: That sense of pushing through day after day is depleting our natural reserve of ojas, our natural reserve of vitality and sweetness and love and connection.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_00: When in Ayurveda, when we're talking about inflammation, we're talking about the qualities of heat.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_00: We're talking about red, hot, swollen, flaring qualities.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_00: And then when we think about the stress of pushing through, of always driving intensity, ambition, caffeine, spicy, outside foods, high pressure days, all of these also have the quality of heat and intensess to it.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_00: So you have heat happening externally, you have heat happening internally, like increases like, and they're just working off of each other, creating more heat and inflammation in the body.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_00: And heat in the body can show up as joint pain, as allergies, as bleeding gums, as irritability and brain fog, perfectionism, difficulty in making decisions in our soul layer.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_00: Inflammation can look like a loss of drive or losing touch with what brings us joy and um losing a sense of what makes us feel safe and supported.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_00: So inflammation becomes a mind, body, soul connection issue.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_00: And for a woman who always pushes through, she just has this continuous cycle that's happening.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_00: And I know why you push.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_00: Because it's what you were taught that rest is something that you have to earn, that slowing down feels like falling behind, that slowing down feels like a flaw.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_00: And it's a skill that you got very good at being able to push through.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_00: But it's a skill that's costing you now because the inflammation that's happening in your body is not one more thing to push down and ignore.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_00: It's not one more thing that you have to power through.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_00: You begin to restore an inflamed body through increasing our digestive capacity, through reducing toxicity and rejuvenating vitality and immunity.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_00: And more is not the answer here.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_00: It's living in a life that sustains you.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_00: So if you are feeling inflamed in your body, there are some foods and oils that you can incorporate into your daily routine to help combat this internal inflammation.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_00: Things like coconut oil are really valuable.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_00: Ghee, olive oil.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_00: These are the three main good fats to add to your diet.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_00: Adding more bitter greens, things like spinach, kale, swishard, mustard greens are excellent things to begin adding to the body that helps reduce that inflammatory quality within.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_00: Regular meal times help move the body from chronic activation mold into rest and digest.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_00: Reducing the intake of processed foods, eating our biggest meal at midday helps the body deal with inflammation.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_00: Aloe vera juice, a teaspoon of aloe vera juice every day helps with inflammation in the gut, in the joints.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_00: Reducing caffeine and alcohol, spicy and fried food also help the body reduce inflammation.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_00: Getting out in nature, spending time with the trees, with the sun, with the breeze, moving gently and consistently.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's a short walk after dinner time, swimming or gentle yoga, some breath work, meditation, prayer.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_00: All of these things begin to help bring cues of safety and support to the body, which helps move the body into a state of rest and digest rather than activation.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_00: Close the eyes, put the hand over your heart.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_00: Take an inhale through the nose, a sigh out through the mouth.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_00: And just see an image, a word, a feeling for how your body feels.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_00: Notice where you're pushing through, where you're overriding your body's signals.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_00: Opening up the eyes, maybe writing that down.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_00: The first step in feeling better, living longer, is noticing what is actually happening in the mind and the body.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_00: And if you're curious about what your symptoms might be showing you, about your patterns and how it's showing up, the hidden signs of burnout, a body checklist is in the show notes.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_00: And it's a great place to just look and see what might be happening inside your body and what the pattern might be that you've been running that you're not even aware of.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for joining me on this episode of the body rhythm.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_00: And if you've enjoyed this episode, then you'll love next week's episode.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_00: Be sure to subscribe so you get it when it comes out.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_00: Be well and nourished.