Stress And Your Nervous System

I think of stress as anything that feels challenging or threatening on some level. Stress isn’t bad, it just is a part of life. And when we experience stress, our bodies move into a state of fight or flight.

Fight-or-flight physiology causes an increase in hormones including adrenaline and cortisol. These hormones are designed to give us the energy and ability to deal with challenging situations in the short term. Then, ideally, once the stressful situation has passed, those hormones drop back down and our nervous system can return to a more parasympathetic and regulated state.

When a situation continues to feel stressful, however, we may stay in a heightened state for longer. This can lead to feelings of anxiety, feeling jittery, difficulty sleeping, a “wired and tired” feeling, or the sense that even when you have time to relax, you just can’t. Making decisions can feel more challenging, and you might simply not feel like yourself.

Ideally, we want a responsive nervous system-one that can respond appropriately to a stressful situation and then, when the stress has passed, settle back into the parasympathetic, rest-and-digest part of our nervous system. This is where we can feel more grounded and connected to ourselves, and where life can feel pleasant and easy (or at least easier).

When we go through times of stress, it can actually be harder to find the time and energy to do the things that help us navigate stress! It can be harder to eat well, find time to exercise, or connect with friends and supportive people. And yet, these are some of the things that can help us the most during challenging times.

I find it helpful to remind myself that it won’t last forever. Sometimes there isn’t an end in sight, but often we do know that there is a time constraint on when something will change. And even when you can’t see the end of a stressful period, you know from past experiences that things will change. Knowing that there is an ebb and flow in life can help you ride the waves with a bit more ease.

Here are a couple of very simple ways you can support yourself while in the midst of stress:

Be gentle with yourself.

You don’t need to do it all, accomplish all your goals, start a new workout plan, or completely revamp your routines while you’re in the midst of stress. Kindness and gentleness toward ourselves can go a very long way. Try offering yourself what you would offer someone else when they need extra care and kindness.

Try to prioritize sleep and rest.

During times of stress, sleep can go out the window- and without good sleep, everything feels harder. Focusing on sleep and rest can help so much. Even if you can’t sleep, resting, feeling your breath, and closing your eyes can give your body a chance to slow down and recover.

Move your body.

This doesn’t need to be a full workout or anything complicated. Walking, gentle stretching, or simply moving in a way that feels good to you can help.

If you’re going through a stressful time, Somatic Experiencing coaching can help you understand what is happening in your nervous system and support you in moving through this time with greater ease. Reach out to see if working together would be helpful.

Tips for Navigating Injury, Pain or Illness

Sometimes you’re just going along enjoying life. You’re eating well, exercising, feeling good in your body and something happens. Maybe it’s an accident, you fall or step off a curb wrong, and you have an injury, or you get sick and it wipes you out, or another big life stressor happens. All of a sudden, your energy must be used toward that and you’re pulled out of your regular routine.

These are not particularly unique experiences, I think we will all go through this throughout life. But they can still be very challenging and frustrating. So how do you navigate injury, illness, and life changes that throw you off your routine and feeling good in your body?

This winter and spring, I’ve had several clients navigate injuries (sprains, breaks, falls) as well as personally navigated more sickness this spring than I normally do. I’ve been reflecting on what this experience is like as well as ways that we can support ourselves when injury and illness happen.

Here are some things that I have personally found helpful and ways I’ve been supporting clients recently:

• It’s ok to be bummed out! It makes sense to be frustrated or upset that this happened, and I think it is important to allow your body to feel into the sensation. We experience so much through our body's sensations, but we often override these experiences, especially if it is unpleasant or we think we shouldn’t feel that way. So tune into your body, feel into the sensation, acknowledge any feelings or emotions that come up, see if there’s any movement that your body wants to do with the sensation or the emotion.

• Understand that pain changes our brain (especially chronic pain, which is pain that has continued for over three months). The brain can become hyper focused on pain, the body moves in a way that guards and protects against the pain. This guarding can contribute to tightness and more discomfort and pain as well as different movement patterns that can potentially create more issues! While you might not be able to change this completely, I think knowing it is happening is helpful. You can try gentle things to remind your body that you’re ok! One way to do this is to notice an area of the body where you feel better. This could be an area that feels good, or it might be an area that feels less bad. This reminds your body and your brain that you can feel good, or better, and that even while you have pain, the pain ebbs and flows throughout the day.

• Find support! We are so lucky to have fantastic practitioners in our town and there are so many options for support. In addition to doctors, we also have bodyworkers, physical therapists, acupuncturists and more, who can all be helpful when dealing with an injury. Of course listen to what your doctor recommends regarding your options.

• Keep moving as much as you can. Movement is so crucial to our wellbeing. Even if you need to modify or reduce how and what you are doing, continuing to get some movement will help you feel better in your body as you are healing. In the Pilates studio, we can do shorter sessions, focus on or avoid specific movements or body parts, and these modified sessions are still very helpful!

Take it one day at a time. Take some deep breaths and remind yourself of how resilient and capable of healing you are. You’ve got this! Reach out if you’d like support while navigating injury or illness.

My Experience with Bee Venom Therapy to Treat Chronic Lyme Disease

As many of you know, I was diagnosed with Lyme Disease in 2015. I got sick in 2012 and I suspect I actually got Lyme as a child, but it became problematic for me during a time in my life where I experienced a multitude of stressors.

Fast forward to a few years ago. The Lyme treatments I had done were somewhat successful, in that I didn’t have debilitating symptoms anymore, and my life was mostly back to normal. I did have pretty consistent fatigue and some flares of symptoms that would pop up every so often. In 2021, I realized that I was being exposed to mold again, which made the Lyme symptoms worse, and I recognized that I wasn’t as healed and healthy as I wanted to be. I knew about Bee Venom Therapy (BVT) for Lyme Disease and decided it was time.

The process of using BVT for Lyme is not for the faint of heart. Or those allergic to bee stings. I sting myself with honeybees three times a week. I have been doing this for two years, and most people sting for 2-3 years to eradicate chronic Lyme.

Bee venom has been used for healing for a variety of ailments for thousands of years. There is some research that shows that components in bee venom kill Borrelia burgdorferi, the main bacteria that causes Lyme disease, and that bee venom has better efficacy than antibiotics for late stage chronic Lyme. As someone who appreciates alternative medicine and is not allergic to bees, I figured I didn’t have much to lose!

Bee venom has several components that are antibacterial and anti-inflammatory. Melittin is the main peptide in bee venom that disrupts bacteria cell membranes and is anti-inflammatory. Lyme disease, in a chronic state, lives hidden away in your tissues, your joints, your brain, just waiting until the environment is right for it to become more active. Simply, the bee venom kills the Lyme and supports your immune system.

The protocol is to work up slowly until you are stinging with ten bees, three times a week. Then maintain that schedule for 2-3 years! Slow and steady, the bee venom kills Lyme, your immune system gets stronger, and your body gets rid of Lyme disease. Whenever I share about this, I always get lots of questions, so here are answers to some of the ones I get the most:

How do you get your bees?

I order bees online and they get shipped to me via the postal service. They come in a small box and when they arrive I put them in a small wooden bee house that I keep in my house. I give them water and food (they eat a ‘candy’ I make out of confectioners sugar and honey.

Bees in the bee hut and long tweezers

How do you get the bees to sting you?

When I’m ready to sting, I use long tweezers to take them out of the house. Honeybees are gentle creatures but easily sting when you place the stinger against your skin.

Where do you sting yourself?

I sting on either side of my spine, five stings on each side, and I use a mirror to sting in the correct place. The stingers stay in my back and I leave them in for 15 minutes. I alternate stinging my lower and upper back. The reason for stinging on either side of the spine is so the bee venom can travel along the peripheral nerves and reach all parts of the body.

Does it hurt?

Yes, it hurts! However, bee stings are much less painful than wasp or yellow jacket stings, and I find that as I’ve done this so frequently, much of the time it hurts only very mildly. When it does hurt more, it can relate to if I haven’t slept well, if I’ve experienced more stress recently or if I’ve eaten more spicy foods.

Getting ready for a sting session

How do you feel after stinging?

I often feel worse after stinging. Part of the process is killing off bacteria, and often the result of this is to have an increase in symptoms. These might be flu-like symptoms, fatigue, brain fog, anxiety, etc. However, when I support my body’s natural detox systems, it helps this a lot. I remind myself that this is all to help me have a healthier body and life in the long run!

Directly after stnging the stings are red and swollen. This fades pretty quickly and looks worse than it feels!

Do you feel bad for the bees?

Honeybees have about a two week life cycle and they do die after they sting. I thank them for their healing powers, and I feel very grateful for them. Honeybees aren't endangered and this treatment brings more awareness to the benefits of bees, and many people who do this treatment end up becoming beekeepers.

Do you worry about any risks?

I have an EpiPen just in case! I have a coach that supports me, and I can ask her questions as needed. And my doctor knows (and supports) that I’m doing this treatment. Traditional medicine has such poor options for treatment of late stage chronic Lyme, and I’ve found healthcare providers pretty open and receptive to me doing this.

Have you noticed a difference?

This treatment is making a big difference in my life! I feel better in my body than I have in years and even though there are still ups and downs, the trend is positive and I’m very glad I took this step!

Increasing Your Capacity to Experience Joy and Ease

With both exercise and working with the nervous system, we are working on increasing capacity — capacity to do more, to get stronger, or to increase flexibility.

More capacity can be achieved by teaching your body to learn a different range of motion or movement pattern. Over time, it can be lifting heavier weights so your body is stronger and has a greater capacity for load. It can feel like having different sensations that change your relationship with pain and discomfort. It can be learning to sit with the discomfort of big emotions and staying present with the sensations that go along with those feelings.

We build capacity to get stronger, to be able to better navigate hard experiences, and to learn to enjoy and be present with joyful and pleasurable experiences. 

If you’ve experienced a lot of pain, emotional stress, hard times or trauma, our brains and nervous systems learn to overly focus on scanning for danger. In this process, we become focused on what isn’t working. This comes from your nervous system trying to keep you safe (thank you, nervous system!). As we work on shifting this pattern, we want to build the capacity to notice where there is ease and safety. This can be as simple as bringing your awareness to areas of the body where there is less discomfort or a more neutral experience or sensation. This allows your body to sense how it feels when things feel good. 

Spring is the perfect season to experience this. The days are longer, the birds are singing, flowers are bursting, and the seasons are moving from a place of darkness, cold and constriction to a place of expansion.

One way to play with this is to notice how you feel in your body. For example, you could look at a flower (or a tree or some other thing that brings you simple joy) and notice what you like about the flower. Is it the colors, the shape, the way the sun shines on the petals? As you notice what you like about the flower, notice what you feel in your body. Is there a feeling of softening? Does your breath change? Does your body feel heavier?

As you become aware of these changes, see if you can stay with them and allow your cells, your muscles and your nervous system to take in the feeling. This experience and experiences like this, over time, build capacity to enjoy the good stuff in life.

Why We Need to Talk About Endometriosis

This is my sister Holly’s story. Her personal experience with endometriosis has impacted her in many ways, and she’s been offering a wealth of information for other women.

March is Endometriosis Awareness Month, a time to bring attention to a condition that affects an estimated 1 in 10 women and people assigned female at birth worldwide. Despite being so common, endometriosis remains widely misunderstood, under-researched and under-funded. For many people living with it, including myself, the road to diagnosis can take years or even decades.

I was diagnosed with endometriosis in my early 30s, but my symptoms began when I was just 13 years old. Like many teenagers, I was told that painful periods were normal. Severe cramps, fatigue and other symptoms were often minimized or explained away. Over the years, I saw doctors and tried to manage the pain as best as I could, but not once was endometriosis mentioned as a possible cause. We so often misinterpret common for normal. It wasn’t until the day of my diagnosis that I even heard the word from a medical professional.

Endometriosis occurs when tissue similar to the lining of the uterus grows outside the uterus, causing inflammation, scarring and chronic pain. While often discussed as a reproductive condition, it is increasingly recognized as a systemic inflammatory disease that can affect the bowels, bladder, nerves and other systems. Because symptoms vary and diagnostic methods are limited, the average time to diagnosis is seven to ten years. During that time, many are dismissed or told their pain is simply “part of being a woman.” This delay has serious consequences for physical health, mental well-being and overall quality of life.

My story is not unique, and that’s exactly the problem. Endometriosis Awareness Month is about breaking the silence, supporting those living with chronic pain, and pushing for the research and medical training needed to improve care. No one should have to wait nearly two decades to hear the name of the condition shaping their health. By sharing our stories, we can help ensure that the next generation is heard sooner, diagnosed earlier and supported better than those who came before them.

Knowledge is power. For more information and resources on endometriosis, visit enodfound.org and learn more from Holly on her Substack.