You're Stuck in the Fight or Flight Loop
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This isn't surprising, most people experience stress. The Stress Loop, also known as the Fight or Flight Loop, is an important concept for everyone to know. It can be life-changing to escape this vicious cycle. As a Functional Neurologist, it makes me crazy that this isn’t common knowledge or part of all middle-school health curriculum!
Stress can be caused by obvious sources, such as an unsatisfying job, difficult co-workers, long work hours, toxic people in your life, money concerns, unstable housing, the death of a loved one, or the loss of a relationship. But sometimes stress is caused by less obvious sources, such as:
- Highly processed food
- Chronic, low-lying infections
- Nutrient deficiencies
- Environmental toxins (in personal care products, air, water, etc.)
- Negative thoughts
- Drugs (including some prescription medicines)
- Mold
- Hormone imbalances
- Shallow breathing
- Genetic mutations
You might be thinking, not all of those things can be changed, but they absolutely can! And, for every little bit of relief that you give your body, your health will improve.
Looking at the graphic, let’s start with the bright red section, Stress. When stress enters your life, it causes your adrenal glands to pump out Cortisol, commonly referred to as your ‘Stress Hormone.’ It is notorious for putting fat on your belly, it slows bone formation and suppresses your immune system.
Cortisol is also your ‘wake’ hormone as part of your circadian rhythm. Its opposite, melatonin, is your ‘sleep’ hormone. When cortisol is high, people often have trouble sleeping. But what many people do not know is that cortisol and melatonin are not the only players in your circadian rhythm. Insulin, leptin, and ghrelin are also tied into your waking/sleep cycle.
Speaking of insulin, glucose rises with high cortisol, so many people who are regularly stressed develop blood sugar issues. Have you ever heard that a diabetic person cannot control or reverse their insulin resistance if they are stressed? It’s true. Even the perfect diet and supplement/drug plan will only take you so far with blood sugar management if the key component of stress is not addressed!
Read More About The Stress Loop ⬇️
I'm Dr. Rosario
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I founded Teach Them Well after 7 years of practicing functional medicine, helping patients regain their health after suffering from chronic and complicated illnesses that were simply being band-aided through traditional healthcare management. My online courses and memberships bring in-depth health education to my patients and community.
I love teaching entire families about functional medicine principles, so the positive health outcomes can be generational.
Resources to Escape The Stress Loop
Stress Loop Continued
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Leptin and ghrelin are components of your hunger signaling system. People often say they just are not hungry, commonly in the morning, but sometimes never! Others are always hungry and overeat. These are symptoms of a faulty hunger signaling system and are a clue that you are in this stress loop.
So, what happens when your circadian rhythm is dysfunctional and your sleep, blood sugar, and/or hunger signaling are dysfunctional? Increased inflammation occurs.
Inflammation in your brain can lead to memory trouble, inability to focus, and other brain function problems.
In addition, an inflammatory cell called interleukin-6 (IL-6) has many receptors on a section of the brain that controls the sympathetic ‘fight or flight’ response throughout your body. When inflammation is high and IL-6 floods that part of your brain, the ‘fight or flight response isn’t dampened. This leads to symptoms such as digestive trouble, non-restful sleep, decreased ability to handle stressors, increased heart rate, blood pressure dysfunction, dry mouth, sexual dysfunction, exercise intolerance, and many others.
The tricky thing is, this is where the loop closes itself. What does the sympathetic ‘fight or flight’ response do to the adrenals? It stimulates epinephrine and norepinephrine to be produced, further stressing the adrenal glands, thereby starting the cycle all over again. And around and around you go, stuck in a feedback loop of ‘fight or flight.’
If your body is stuck in this vicious cycle, you have your own weak spots where you will tend to slip back into this loop. Exiting this cycle is often much more complicated than just changing your diet and stress level, and the approach is as unique as you are.
Activate Your Brain to Escape Fight or Flight
The combination of the blood sugar issues and the inflammation that results from being in the ‘fight or flight’ loop is a nightmare for your brain. One really important approach to escaping is to activate your brain.
When inflammation in your body increases, your blood-brain barrier becomes compromised. Putting it simply, things can get into the brain that are never supposed to access brain tissue. This could include heavy metals or toxins, which are obviously harmful.
In addition, white blood cells can get into your brain. While that doesn’t sound too bad, you should know that your brain has its own version of white blood cells called glial cells. White blood cells are our friends when they are located in our bodies, but when they get into our brain they eat away at everything including healthy brain tissue. This can lead to many neurological problems, both immediate and long-term.
First, find out which areas of your brain aren’t firing high enough (or are firing too high) and examine how the different areas of your brain are communicating. Why? Because when your brain is functioning well, it signals down into your midbrain and brainstem where nuclei quiet the ‘fight or flight' response. This is a mini loop inside our larger ‘fight or flight’ loop. When your brain isn’t functioning well, it’s also not dampening the ‘fight or flight’ response, which then keeps you in the loop. Are you dizzy yet?
How do you know when and how to properly exercise your brain? Functional Neurology is the most effective way to assess the function of your brain, and with an assessment complete, you can use individualized exercises to get your brain back in tip-top shape.
Check Your BBB Before You Detox
We all agree a functional blood-brain barrier is incredibly important. So for the love of neurons, PLEASE do not do any kind of detox unless you are sure your blood-brain barrier is intact!
Let’s say you go through a liver detox, a general detox, or even more devastating, you undergo chelation therapy. If you do a detox without checking on the health of your blood-brain barrier, all the toxins, and heavy metals that have been stored in your tissues are released into your bloodstream, through your leaky blood-brain barrier, and into your brain! You can remove toxins and heavy metals from many tissues, but not from your brain. As you can imagine, the results can be devastating.
Add onto that nightmare, another potentially horrible result - brain autoimmunity. When your immune system finds an ‘enemy’ to attack, like a virus or a bacteria, it carries around a little bit of the enemy’s protein structure as a flag to alert other immune cells to be on the lookout for more enemies that look the same.
But, environmental toxins don’t have a protein structure so your immune cells grab the protein structure of the tissue the toxin has planted itself on. So, if toxins get into your brain and plant there, there is a chance that your immune system can be carrying around a flag that targets your brain tissue. This scenario will cause autoimmunity (an immune reaction to your own healthy tissue) in your brain. This is to be avoided at all costs!
To summarize, detoxes can be helpful but can be dangerous under certain circumstances. Make sure you seek skilled medical guidance ahead of any detox program. And work with a Functional Neurologist to get a clear picture of how stress and the ‘fight or flight’ loop is functioning in your body and brain.
Popular Blogs to Help You Escape the Fight or Flight Loop
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