We are faced with a multitude of stressors daily. Our bodies are such incredible creations, but they weren’t meant to handle the amount that they are exposed to on a daily basis in this modern world. We all have our own “stress bucket”. It’s a way of thinking about how we handle the different stressors in our lives. Your body represents the bucket and the different stressors in your life are the drops of water that fill up the bucket.
Over time, stressors in our bucket can fill up faster than we can get rid of them, and they can start to overflow. When it overflows, our body’s “check engine light” goes on. This is when symptoms can appear, like digestive issues, inflammation, fatigue, insomnia, insulin resistance, and joint pain to name just some. The stressors that fill up the bucket must be decreased so that the burden on the body can be reduced and resilience improved. If stressors don’t get removed, conditions and sometimes disease can appear.
Types of Stressors:
When we think of stress, we may think mainly of work deadlines, traffic jams, financial challenges, the loss of a loved one, and relationship problems. However, stress can come in many other forms.
Some of the stresses that may be less obvious include:
- Under eating
- Too much or too little exercise
- Dehydration
- Refined sugar
- Processed foods
- Unhealthy fats
- Excessive alcohol
- Food sensitivities
- Allergies
- Chemicals
- Mycotoxins
- Plastics
- Heavy metals
- Pesticides
- Overuse of antibiotics
- Frequent use of anti-inflammatory medications
- Hormonal birth control
- Gut infections
- Insufficient digestive secretions
- Lack of sleep
- Overpacked schedule
- Lack of boundaries
- Toxic relationships
Factors Influencing Stress Buckets:
The size of our buckets, as well as genetics, epigenetics, and lifestyle, can all play a role in how well we can empty the stressors from our buckets. Our bodies are amazing and are working behind the scenes and all the time. Our immune systems and detoxification pathways work tirelessly to try to empty our bucket. None of us can stay away completely from the toxins that we encounter in life. However, our bodies also cannot continue taking on the load we encounter daily today without some support.
Practical Steps to Build Resilience:
- Eat three regular meals daily, and snacks if needed.
- Focus on eating a nutrient-dense diet, including good quality animal protein, whole food carbohydrates, and healthy fats. A diet high in processed foods and refined sugars will use up our antioxidants, cause a lot of inflammation, and shut down detox pathways. Read Foods to Eat for A Healthy Gut to learn more about a nutrient-dense diet.
- Avoid fasting for more than 12-14 hours.
- Avoid coffee on an empty stomach-instead sip on it during a meal or have it soon after.
- Go for a walk in the morning sun. This helps balance your circadian rhythm which helps to decrease stress and improve sleep.1
- Sweat regularly. Helping our bodies sweat assists in removing heavy metals like arsenic, cadmium, lead, and mercury, and also may help with removing toxicants as observed in New York rescue workers, flame retardants, and bisphenol-A.2
- Drink filtered waters with electrolytes.
- Limit alcohol.
- Connect with loved ones.
- Spend time in the Bible. Spending time in scripture provides hope, encouragement, and unconditional love. This was key in helping me heal….and will always be essential in helping me keep my nervous system and mindset healthy.
- Set appropriate boundaries.
- Give up the need for perfection. Perfection is unsustainable and holds us to an impossible standard. Reframing our thinking to not expect perfection from ourselves helps us approach our day with grace and less stress.
- Get 7-8 hours of good quality sleep. Read this article for some tips on supporting a good night’s sleep.
- Chew your food thoroughly. This supports digestion and absorption of the nutrients in your food that are needed for a healthy nervous system.
- Change over to low or non-toxic cleaning and self-care products. This greatly helps our liver, our main detox organ. Don’t worry, changes don’t have to be done overnight. When one product gets used up, swap it out for a less toxic one.
In a world where our bodies are constantly exposed to stressors, understanding the contents of our own “stress buckets” becomes so important. Our bodies, incredible as they are, were not designed to endure consistent exposure to this many stressors. As these stressors build up, our health can suffer, and our bodies signal distress through our symptoms.
This post is not meant to instill fear or overwhelm in you, but to provide more awareness of the stressors we encounter in this modern world, as well as bring to light all the ways we can help support our bodies. When we have more awareness, we can change things for the better. Don’t forget that reducing the stressors in our buckets doesn’t have to be done overnight. Just start somewhere….and keep going. Each change will add up over time!
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References:
- Boubekri, M., Cheung, I. N., Reid, K. J., Wang, C. H., & Zee, P. C. (2014). Impact of windows and daylight exposure on overall health and sleep quality of office workers: a case-control pilot study. Journal of clinical sleep medicine : JCSM : official publication of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, 10(6), 603–611.
- Sears ME, Kerr KJ, Bray RI. Arsenic, cadmium, lead, and mercury in sweat: a systematic review. J Environ Public Health. 2012;2012:184745. doi: 10.1155/2012/184745. Epub 2012 Feb 22.
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