Corona-virus Anxiety and the Importance of Reducing Stress for Your Immune System

Thanks for joining me guys through what's probably for for all of us a very uncertain time to say the least and Is it okay to feel afraid right now? Is it okay to feel? Great deal of unease probably of course. It's okay. Of course. It's okay to feel like that. It's a very normal thing to feel and what I'm going to talk about in this video is how we can navigate this uncertain period maybe a little bit better and I've written the word stress up here because It's important to stay informed about the current situation. Of course, it is and to check news Maybe if you want to check the news And we we were kind of constantly vigilant about what's happening outside and what's happening inside is for a lot of this stress is building up and I'm going to talk about the effects that stress has on Of course your mental health Well on your immune system I'm going to kind of make a case here for okay, stay informed. Don't be in denial about what's going on outside But if we can start to reduce the stress levels throughout this entire experience There's enormous benefit for us in that not only in terms of our mental health, but also our physical health and our immune system It's going to drive that point forward at home. I want to say just for imagine hypothetically Just imagine that there was no external situation going on right there right now. Okay, the news and all that changes and nothing's happening hypothetically But in this hypothetical situation you still have stress Well, what will happen is I'm going to talk about what will happen And if we can just focus for a minute forget the external situation and just focus on what happens in my body to my health to my emotional well-being When I experience prolonged stress, short bursts of stress are fine. The human body is very very capable of handling short-term stress. Long-term stress We are not good at and it's something that we could work on. It's huge benefits if we get that sorted So it's of course Do what you can follow the guidelines people are putting out there. I'm not a health expert I'm not telling anybody. I would tell people to follow guidelines really on this and be sensible about this, you know But what I am super interested in is how we can remain sort of calm and reduce low I have low levels of stress throughout this entire thing. Firstly what I'm going to talk about I'm going to talk over here a few practical things But here I'm going to talk about okay Well, imagine if I am feeling stress and I'm allowed maybe I'm checking new sites every 15 minutes And the stress is building as a result of that. Well, what is that doing inside my body if stress is going on? first thing here guys is antibodies, so the role of antibodies in your body in your immune system is to actually go in and Identify and remove foreign invaders or foreign intruders into the body So super important these antibodies, but when the body experiences stress, especially In fact in short-term stress your body's immune system goes up. So short-term stress is not an issue. Everyone knows that Regular exercise for instance is a good thing for your immune system And that's a stressor to your body, but long-term stress what psychologists call an anticipatory stress Stress about an imagined scenario happening in the future that type of stress Cortisol levels go up And what happens is the production of these antibodies Goes down So it's it's the last thing you want to do is build up high levels of levels of stress for your immune system your immune system will be Really bolstered, but if you can leave the distress somewhat low, okay Especially over a long period of time. It's okay to get triggered It's okay to get afraid but try not to and I'll talk in a few minutes about how we can maybe do this a bit better But don't let the stress stay in your body for too long This advice I'm talking about here particularly for all of us. It applies to all of us, but the type a personality the person who is maybe always feeling time-restricted and busy all the time Does things for the sake of doing things, right? One of the aspects of the type a personality is often they're quite Emotionally volatile and they're maybe quick to get angry or upset type a personalities Often one of the aspects of it is quick to anger part of it and Type a personality if they do have that quick to anger thing or to have a strong emotional responses to external situations or stimulus is It's really good bad for Cardiovascular health so prolonged stress for the type a personality it shows up Some studies have shown that it's the type a personality if it has this aspect to it the hostility like that It can be worse for your your cardiovascular system your heart system than smoking regularly or obesity Okay, so really what we're beginning to so much research is done in this now showing that Stress is a huge huge aspect of health. Okay, Hans Selye back in the 30s. I think it was That's when he started his career. Anyway, did all this research into stress and since then there's been reams of research on this Another thing that shows that Stress is very very important in terms of our health is what it does to digestion. So when you get stressed prolonged stress anticipatory stress For a lot of people it'll eventually start to go into their digestive system and they might get develop ulcers Really what's happening with ulcers is the bacteria in the stomach isn't being generated anymore and that bacteria is used for to repair the body So, you know yourself if you ever feel stressed and you're giving a speech or something that your mouth gets dry and you lose your appetite So digestion is suppressed during this and the absorption of food If we're in prolonged stress Goes down we don't get the nutrients from the food that we normally do and that's very detrimental for our immune system again if it's prolonged So with all of that said there's other things too. I mean think about it One thing we know growth hormone goes down when we're in prolonged stress we get There's hair loss, there's high blood pressure cardiovascular disease all these things Very detrimental for our health. So I hope I've made the point here because it's not me making the point There's reams as I said of research on this that say Stress is prolonged for long periods of time anticipatory stress your immune system gets suppressed So what if we just focus or at least put some of our focus? I would say a lot of our focus into let's just try to remain calm Let's just see if I can practice daily things that will keep my stress levels low and it'll do wonders for my health Of course, I'll stay informed and I'll do any practical things that are sensible But really that's not that complicated You know What is more complicated is the human body's response to stress because so many of us are experiencing it and it's a normal thing but good news on this is That your body when you start to get a handle on stress If there has been any suppressed immunity or anything like that, your body is remarkably good Coming back Restoring its health and building up its immune system again. It's very very quick to do that So a few things I would say are I'm gonna put this over here in blue These are like more practical things that we can start to think about right? First of them is to just become aware So when we're watching the news or watching TV or Reading articles or on Twitter or we're doing whatever we're doing, you know become aware of okay I'm gonna be informed but then what's in my control right now What's a super important thing for me is this not to be experiencing too much stress in all of this If I become aware of it I'm gonna say I'm gonna start to take practical measures now I'm gonna find something in my life that helps me with stress that could be you know Practical things I'll talk about some of those now as well, but find some kind of an approach For yourself. I mean I'm working on online courses and those courses are designed to help a lot of my clients with this The different various stressors that they feel And I'm actually working on a new approach Mediset therapy it's an entire approach to stress and So that's just an example Really, but find something to become aware of how important this issue is and I'm going to start doing things for it, right? The news okay. I'm going to talk about checking the news so if Again, there's nothing wrong with checking the news. It's good to be informed. But before you check the news, maybe just check Check the news mindfully, okay before I go online Okay I'm gonna do some breathing and remind myself the purpose of this is to just stay informed so that I can I can help myself stay safe and help my community and Then after the news just say okay that was That was an intense experience. Okay, that news was you can say it was bad news. You can say it's good news, whatever it is But just do it mindfully and then just breathe after that and make sure that you check in with your body after you check the news Maybe if you're checking the news, you know too many times every day scale that back stay informed, but just scale it back a little bit Another thing I'm going to talk about here is related to this and the type of media that we're checking Okay, so anyone who is talking about doom Okay now this Point I'm going to make here is I'm not saying in this video. Everything's great. Okay, but what I am saying is I personally can't predict the future and I Bet most of the people watching this video if they're honest with themselves will agree that they too cannot predict the future So anybody who says that they can predict the future and they're making very very negative claims about that or positive claims But certainly this negative thing is this is going to feed into stress and for you You should be watching out for this anyone who says that they can predict the future. I would just say no Nobody can predict the future. Okay, so if I apply that to myself Right. It's okay to say that about someone else as long as you can say it about yourself. I cannot predict the future I cannot predict any doomsday scenario here and I'm not going to try So I would suggest anyone that's doing that just okay Interesting and maybe move away from that that would be my suggestion on that Nobody can predict the future and everybody when we get into that thing of predicting the future oftentimes it can be castrate Predicting catastrophe, okay Other things we can do is start to use this time maybe if you're if you're isolating yourself for Self-care self-care is important right now and Self-care not self-scare self-care is important right now. So it's like I'm moving it to new routines. Maybe my maybe I'm working from home maybe different things How am I going to do things schedule things in on my day that are going to make me feel good? Remember I'm aware of the issue now and stress is the thing to keep myself calm because it's a healthy thing one of the healthiest things I can do for myself so self-care Also what you can start to do is you know If you're if you're carrying any negative emotions in your body even unrelated to that just be curious about those things if you're going through A hard time in your relationships any of those things. You just spend some time with the emotional blocks that are there as well self-soothing things like that And also the self-care thing in my my course I do on procrastination Self-care is one of the most important parts of that in terms of if I'm going to be in my home And maybe I'm working from home It's to Really look and master self-care because it's one of the most important things in maintaining productivity It's just an essential aspect to maintain productivity And the final thing I'm going to talk about in terms of this is more terms of a sense of community, and it's to be It's to be grateful So Talking about the people in your community, right? People are out there. Just it's just such a healthy thing to recognize that there are people around you That are giving of themselves and For us to in any way we can ourselves help if it's appropriate So many people out there, you know, they're still working in shops Obviously medical staff and hospitals things like this But there's there's so many people people are still going around taking people's trash out every day so much gratitude for those people that are doing these things and To maintain that sense of perspective on there is a lot of love out there in the world And there's a lot of really great people and if we maintain this gratitude It'll build a sense of community and it's one of the best things we can do in any Adversity that we face is to maintain gratitude and a sense of connection to people around us even when we're isolated Okay So I'm gonna leave it there. But those are a few of the things. I really think that the news thing is important right now For a lot of us because we are isolated and we'll come to terms with that And a lot of our time can be spent online Checking the news every 10-15 minutes or something. Just do it mindfully do it consciously Okay with the goal of I'm gonna leave my stress levels low Take care of yourself Reach out to people connect show gratitude. Maybe if you do have to go to the supermarket or something like that To show gratitude for people because it's a very very healthy thing you can do for yourself It makes you feel connected and stress levels go down because of that So I just want you to remember it's normal to feel fear guys Being upset by anything is never the problem itself. We all get upset by different things and we can all experience fear we can start to proactively do things to Minimize how long stress stays in our body and it's one of the healthiest things we can do for ourselves in this period of time so thanks so much for watching and Stay safe out there. Be sensible and take care of yourself. Really take care of yourself because You have so much control over this and it's one of the healthiest things you can do for yourself I'll leave it there for now guys, but I'll talk to you again soon. Bye for now