Metabolic Intro Series - Part 4
What IS Stress?
So what the hell is this “stress” stuff I keep talking about?…and what the hell does it have to do with energy?
In this video I talk about some of the stressors we face on a daily basis, and why physical stress affects us in exactly the same way as psychological stress.
Resources - Beginners
Reading
Does Hormesis make you Stronger? - An excellent article from Jay Feldman discussing hormesis and whether or not a little stress really does help.
Hormesis Part 2 - Part two of the above article bringing in concepts like low carb, fasting, and the problems with calorie restriction.
Happy Hormones - A free ebook written by Keith Littlewood and is probably the easiest to understand quick text on hormones and stress that I know of.
Listening/Watching
The Stress Response - A short radio recording of Ray peat talking about the stress response and the importance of sugar in meeting that response.
Why your 1200 Calorie diet is Making you Fat - Kitty Bloomfield and Kate Deering on the dangers of low calorie diets in relation to stress and metabolism.
Healing Metabolism by Consuming More Sugar - A long and wonderful talk with Kate Deering covering various aspects of stress as well as diet.
FAQ’s
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Well....yes....I have experienced it now so many times myself that, as long as I keep my nutrition and energy up and my reserves filled, I just don't get angry and triggered anymore to the same extent that I used to. I ifght FAR less with my wife, I much less bothered by my screaming and complaining children, and my resistance to stress of all varieties is simply much greater than it ever was during my low carb and fasting days, or even during my vegan and fruitarian days.
I know that getting enough sugar into myself, along with sunshine, calcium, salt, vitamins, minerals, and play, helps me to feel more rested, relaxed, warm, and alive whether I'm running a race or having an argument.
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So my understanding of trauma has now also changed from what it used to be. In the past I understood trauma as being a very psychological thing...that something happened at some point, and the only real way of "fixing" my experience of it was to do a whole bunch of therapy, processing, and talking type work.
So - something happened at some point in time, and what makes it a "traumatic event" is, as I now understand it, directly related to the level of energy I had access to during that moment. There are of course situations in which, like rape or physcial abuse, no amount of energy in the moment is enough to truly resist what is being done, and that moment might then become "traumatic", by which I understand that the deficit I had to go in to was so great that it alters my energetic state going forward....the stress levels were so high and caused so much cellular damage that something just stopped flowing so well.
Now my sense of trauma is that trauma is something we are experiencing NOW, and my experience of the now is based on my current energetic state. So, since i started with this energetic and regenerative work, supplements, and food, many of the things that in the past used to feel traumatic, to me, no longer do, because I have done enough work to have been able to repair the damage done during those moments, and I have plenty of energy NOW.
Of course there is a lot of room for therapy, processing, and trauma work...however I believe that, without fixing the underlying energetic deficit, true healing is hard to come by, as my own experience was that I did A LOT of process work for many years without any real change to my daily life or sense of lessening trauma.
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That's a BIG question...and I can appreciate its an important one...and its difficult to say.
Depending on your age, your current health and energy levels, and what you're willing to learn, put in, and try out, it could take a week and it could take 4 years. However I can say thats its not an automatic jump from one place to the next, and my experience tells me that people are able to make substantial shifts and change in how they feel on a day to day basis within a surprisingly short period of time - my 20 year insomnia changed within a few days!
If you are feeling like a 4/10 on a scale of 1-10, then its more than likely that you could get to a 6/10 within a few weeks depending on what you do and what you try, though some people will need more supplemental support than others.
I can say that getting back to how you felt in your teens for instance will likely take a while - it took years for your health to get slowly worse...and it takes time for it to grow again.
Resources - Science Minded
Reading
The Dark Side of Stress - Dr. Ray Peat’s brilliant article on serotonin, and learned helplessness offers a perfect route to beginning to understand stress.
Three Youth Associated Hormones - Dr. Ray Peat writing about the importance of pregnenolone, progesterone, and DHEA in sustaining youthful health.
The Stress of Life - Dr. Han Selye’s seminal work on what stress is, how it affects the body, and the mechanisms involved.
Listening/Watching
Stress Physiology and Nitric Oxide - An excellent discussion with Keith Littlewood on the stress response with particular emphasis on nitric oxide.
Mitochondria and Metabolic Stress - Kyle Mamounis and Danny Roddy discussing mitochondrial health, carnivore diets, and Gilbert Ling.
Stress and Trauma - Full radio interview with Dr. Ray Peat as he discusses the links between physical and psychological stress and the responses to stress.