Heard this phrase before?
“Wired and tired” refers to being exhausted, but too anxious to sleep. You might feel this way if, while laying in bed at night, your body is tired, but your mind is wide awake. Like you just can’t get to falling asleep and your mind is racing.
This is also described as burned out. If you’re feeling this way, then you’ve probably been under prolonged stress for a while now, whether you know it or not. Research has shown that prolonged stress can lead to allot of health risks and symptoms that that lead to further stress, discomfort and changes in your moods and vigor for life.
This has been a very common topic in practise over the past year, with all that’s going on in the world.
Lets delve in a bit deeper….
Prolonged stress leads to disharmony in the body and specifically affects the sympathetic nervous system and the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis. Dysfunction in this HPA axis is caused by increased cortisol levels and neurotransmitter imbalances.
So how does this dysfunction occur? – there are four general types of stressors affecting the HPA axis.
1. Sleep disorders and poor sleep hygiene
2. Glycemic and metabolic dysregulation
3. Chronic inflammation
4. Mental and emotional stress
So you think you may have this dysfunction?
What can you do to balance things out and feel better? – The key to regulating cortisol levels is to correct any HPA axis stressors, such as the ones listed above.
Here’s how you can do that:
1. Reduce inflammation.
Reducing chronic stressors that stimulate the inflammatory response can help restore balance to your cortisol levels. To effectively reduce inflammation, it’s best to tackle this from a holistic approach. Think food choices, relationship with food, daily movement, and lifestyle choices.
2. Exercise. If you know me, you know how I love to prescribe holistic approach programs and they always include some form of movement! It’s a great stress-relieving tactic for reducing emotional and psychological stress.
Fitting daily exercise into your routine might seem impossible due to the current stressors of the pandemic, but trust me you will thank me later3.
3. Improve your bedtime routine.
Your night-time routine might need a makeover if you want better sleep. Need some work in this department read my article by clicking here .
4. Breathing exercise – can be a great stress-combating tool used correctly, just a few minutes a day can do the trick.
Want to chat more or interested in getting on top of your ‘tired and wired’ feelings… click here and let’s chat.
X M
the holistic approach 