If you spot this on your neck, your cortisol is dangerously high

now you might have noticed on some people if you're just people watching at the mall or at Starbucks some have this big fleshy hump at the top of their neck that seems to be a little bit unnatural for an area to have fat so what does this have to do with a stress hormone called cortisol well cortisol or elevated stress hormones can impact a wide ranging amount of systems in the body from your digestion to your menstrual cycle to your migraines themselves but in this case we're going to talk about a few specific reflex zones that are affected by chronically high stress levels of this hormone hey guys I'm Dr Alex hin board licensed doctor of acupuncture and traditional Chinese medicine and author of the health book master of the day so let's jump in now if you've ever seen this what's called buffalo hump what this phenomenon is is something that is potentially called Cushing syndrome now Cushing syndrome develops when the person has chronically elevated levels of a stress hormone called cortisol of course cortisol affects many different systems in the body but it can result from endogenous factors I.E those produced in the body whether it's from an illness or from something more serious or it can result from exogenous factors so factors outside of the body like for example sometimes people are chronically taking cortical steroids for asthma for autoimmune disease or for other conditions and because of that it is causing chronically elevated cortisol levels as well now in the rare event that you actually have Cushing syndrome what are the main signs and symptoms the first is that yes you may notice more fat storage you may notice that in this particular area really at the back of the neck here but of course that can come from lots of different conditions and it can just come from overeating or eating poor Foods the second sign is that you may notice the fat distribution changes the increased fat around the neck or the fatty hump between the shoulder blades or that they're even necessarily skin changes for example you might have thin or fragile skin that bruises easily or even has kind of like a bluish or grayish Hue but one thing I want to leave you here is that just because you have high stress hormones doesn't mean you will develop Cushing syndrome it's just a very distinct phenomenon that I wanted to talk about here today because for example I just took a serum cortisol test myself two weeks ago and my cortisol levels were twice the high range but let's talk about what do we actually do about this when we talk about cortisol from the perspective of traditional Chinese medicine our ancient ancestors have been here for thousands tens of thousands hundreds of thousands of years cortisol stress hormones life or death fight or flight is our most intimate best friend since the dawn of time because no matter what you may be seeing on the TV or on the Internet or on social media it has never been safer to be alive in the world today you have never had to struggle less to get food or shelter or stay warm and not be damaged from frostbite or from heat stroke it is by far the safest it's ever been there are no Waring tribes in our developed countries most of the time and yet our most intimate experience of human life has been fear because fear is our best friend fear is what keeps us safe and one of one of those hormones that manifest when we're afraid is cortisol when we think about it from a traditional Chinese medicine point of view you know when we're talking about the connection between this kind of fear anxiety and cortisol the higher your stress hormones often the more anxious you will be we live in this sort of time where anxiety levels depression levels are some of the highest they've ever been clinically and people are more medicated and more overmedicated for these anxiety and depression than just about anything and those numbers have only gone up so if you imagine this interesting Paradox of we live in the safest time ever and yet most of us are living in fight or flight to some degree if you imagine the body's physiological response to high cortisol or adrenaline elevated heart rate sweaty Palms shutting off of digestive system these kinds of sematic Sensations these physiological responses often are relate to the heart and the kidneys in traditional Chinese medicine you know if you look at a diagnosis for anxiety that's called heart Chi deficiency and the heart is the mirror of the nervous system in Chinese medicine heart Yang deficiency or heart Chi deficiency what it really means means is palpitations fast heart rate anxiety can't sleep is this ringing a bell this is often elevated stress hormones 2,000 years ago there was no sophisticated lab testing or even the knowledge of what a hormone was they would probably just call that Chi nowadays we have a very granular and a very surgically precise analysis of the chemistry that happens when you're exposed to an acute threat your heart rate goes through the roof but the formulas that will treat the heart sheat deficiency will treat that elevated cortisol they will treat the palpitations the high heart rate the insomnia if you're having symptoms of high cortisol in the stress response what we're talking about is often the heart and the adrenals or kidney in Chinese medicine often the formulas that treat the kidneys will treat the adrenal gland now if anxiety is one of the main symptoms you're struggling with and you're struggling with being in fight or flight then maybe you should really consider trying to figure out how to regulate your nervous system in a sematic way well I'm putting on a one-time live Workshop it's limited to 500 people and it's all about the five practices from traditional Chinese medicine to decrease your anxiety and reset your nervous system and your adrenals check out the first link below this video because I'm going to do it live and there'll be a Q&A there I'll stay as long as you have questions I do this only once per season so it's four times per year and again last time we did it all 500 seats were filled up because it's a free event so make sure you sign up for this event it's going to be really great and really live and I'll stay as long as you have any questions first link below this video here now when we talk about the diagnosis of what we call Heart Yang deficiency or heart Chi deficiency on a emot level it looks like feeling in a heightened state of fight or flight easily frustrated or easily crying on a dime dropping a pin on a physical level it means heightened physical tension tight neck tight shoulders tight back TMJ tension headaches it often means physically that people will have more indigestion than normal a higher heart rate palpitations or a regular heart rate more anxiety symptoms or even their threshold for stress is not what it used to be so whereas they could work a stressful day now they'll say even the littlest thing just sets me off it's like I have no tolerance for it these are symptoms of nervous system disregulation so I want to leave a final note here on the kinds of formulas that can help now there's a research paper here talking about a formula called guer gansa decoction it talks about a specific acid and certain compounds in cinnamon bark and cinnamon twig that we use and it says it can increase coronary circulation and protect against the development of arhythmia and they are effective constituents of a certain herb pair for the cardiovascular system now in China this formula grer gansa decoction has been used widely for centuries to treat cardiovascular diseases in the clinic and I will tell you high doses of this herb more than anything are the most effective for this chronic stress response so don't forget you guys sign up for that live Workshop I'm doing on anxiety and nervous system regulation and the adrenal kind of reset practices from Chinese medicine don't forget I also work with a limited number of new patients in my clinic in Los Angeles or virtually via tele medicine the first link below this video you can go to or go to Dr Alex hind.com Clinic there's also the clinic phone number and email right below this video if you want to reach out and then I have another great video on this exact topic right up here