OH! Magazine - Australian Version December 2013 (Australian Version) | страница 12

PAUL
TAYLOR

THE 80/20 LIFESTYLE:

REPROGRAM YOUR GENES FOR HEALTH,
HAPPINESS AND VITALITY

PART 3:

BUILD RESILIENCE TO STRESS
ur stress response has been finely
honed over millions of years to
cope with a range of survival threats, but
in many cases it is inappropriate for the
modern world.
Many people are familiar with our
flight or flight response, which is driven
by our sympathetic nervous system and
the hormone adrenaline. This is a very
fast acting response that mobilises
energy, dumps blood sugar into the
bloodstream, and diverts blood to the
muscles to enable us to deal with the
three minutes of screaming terror of
being chased by a lion on the African
Savannah. By running away or fighting,
we burn up those stress hormones and
our body returns to equilibrium.
Nowadays, however, lions have been
replaced with chronic low-level stressors
of living, such as traffic, work deadlines,
relationships issues, money worries, etc.
The result is that our stress response
system stays switched on. When stress

O

FIGURE 1. THE STRESS CYCLE

persists, another system kicks in – the
HPA axis. This slower-acting system
involves a number of hormones, but
ultimately ends up with cortisol being
released from the adrenal glands.
To simplify things, think lions for the
flight or fight system, and famine for the
HPA axis – one of the impacts of chronic
cortisol release is that it suppresses our
metabolic rate, and encourages us to
store fat (especially the dangerous fat
around our midsection).
Figure 1 shows what I call ‘the stress
cycle’. The first two elements (perception
and coping strategy) are largely within
our control, so put your focus here to
deal with stress. It’s crucial to
understand that we are the only species
whose thoughts can activate our stress
response systems, so if you are having
negative thoughts or think something is
stressful, it will be.
This is where ‘the catastrophe scale’
comes in, as it is very effective at

changing our perception. Think of what
would be close to a 10 in terms of stress,
such as your whole family being killed in
front of you. With this scale an 8 might
be having your house burn down and a 5
or 6 breaking a leg. When we think of it
in these terms, most of us get upset
about what I call ‘First World Problems’.
Having effective coping strategies also
stops stress from impacting on our sleep
and subsequently our metabolism (poor
sleep quality raises the hunger hormone
ghrelin, levels of damaging inflammation
and cortisol – making us more stressed
the next day).
Exercise is great, as it burns up stress
hormones, which is why I’m a fan of
sprinting on the spot for 30 seconds, or
running up a few flights of stairs several
times a day. Likewise, hitting the gym at
the end of a stressful day is very effective
for stress management, as are other
strategies such as meditation, yoga, Tai
Chi or deep breathing.

FIGURE 2. THE CATASTROPHE SCALE

Perception

1
Metabolic
consequences

Coping
strategy

Sleep quality

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ISSUE 5 ( OH! MAGAZINE )

2

Regrettable

3

4

Moderately
inconvenient

5

6

Fairly nasty

7

8

Unusually
stressful

9

10

Awful,
terrible

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