You Can’t Heal in Fight-or-Flight: Stress Guide
Before we dive into advanced nutrition interventions like gut protocols, detoxes, liver cleanses, and weight loss, we need to prepare your body — and that starts with reducing stress, both external and internal.
Your body has two sides of the nervous system, or operating modes: Fight or Flight (stress mode) and Rest and Digest (healing and recovery mode). Fight or Flight was historically for emergencies—like running from a bear and life or death moments. Even though modern stress isn’t life-threatening (emails, deadlines, worrying about the future), your body reacts the same way and thinks you are running from a bear, not that you are trying to meet a deadline. You can think of your body like a company with limited employees. When stress is present, all the "employees" (your body's resources) are pulled away from Rest and Digest, or from digestion, absorption, healing, recharging, and metabolism to deal with the crisis at hand. It puts all its energy into fighting stress and completely ignores the rest.
Stress is an inevitable part of being human but being stressed ALL the time is not. The goal is to decrease the internal stressors as much as possible and for the external ones, to send signals to your body throughout the day that you are not fighting for your life.
On top of everything, stress also fuels inflammation, which works the same way. Your body sends all its "employees" to fight the fire, leaving little energy for nourishment. This is why stress is at the foundation of health — I can give you the best nutrients in the world but if your body does not focus on absorbing them and burns right through them instead, you will not feel the benefits.
Forms of Stress Management to consider:
Meditation: if this is a new concept to you and something you are willing to try, I highly recommend guided meditation on YouTube! I would start with shorter videos and build your way up.
Diaphragm or Box Breathing: practice deep breaths or 4-4-4-4, which is a deep inhale for 4 seconds, hold for 4 seconds, exhale for 4 seconds, hold for 4 seconds
Breathing deeply is one of the fastest ways to calm your nervous system down!
Vagus Nerve Stimulation: This is the longest nerve in your body going from your brain all the way through your heart, lungs, and digestive system. It's really important to stimulate the “rest and digest”: side of your nervous system and can support the gut-brain connection. When it is dysregulated, it can increase inflammation, fatigue, and anxiety. Best ways to do this include gargling, humming, and singing.
Cold Therapy (30-60 second cold water in the shower, ice bath, or cryotherapy): great for inflammation due to reduced blood flow to inflamed areas, boosts metabolism and fat oxidation, enhances mood, focus, and boosts dopamine, enhances heart health and helps with blood pressure because it can strengthen vascular function.
Spending time outside and getting natural sunlight: contact with nature can lower cortisol and stress. Another great thing is to get in tune with the sun and time of the day. Natural light and darkness, also known as circadian rhythms, send signals to your brain about which hormones to produce, so getting in touch with the sun can greatly improve. Additionally, I would recommend buying some blue light glasses to wear at night and try to block as much synthetic light as possible. This will help keep cortisol levels down before bed, and higher in the morning (as it should be).
Finding something social you enjoy doing and finding a community: this can go from sports to knitting classes! Whatever you enjoy.
Restful and high quality sleep: Sleep is when your body does its deepest healing; especially for your hormones, brain, and immune system. Aim for 7–9 hours of uninterrupted sleep in a cool, dark room. Keep a consistent bedtime and wake time (even on weekends) to support your circadian rhythm. Limit screens 1–2 hours before bed, or wear blue light blocking glasses.
Gentle Movement: Im not talking about high intensity workouts but those that relax and ground you. Some examples include: yoga, pilates, stretching, and walking.
While this list isn’t exhaustive, and it mainly focuses on calming external stressors—but it’s a powerful place to start. Every body is different, and what helps one person feel grounded might not work for another. Internal stressors like inflammation, nutrient deficiencies, blood sugar swings, or gut imbalances are more complex and deserve a personalized approach.
If you're ready to go deeper and explore what’s happening inside your body, I’d love to support you. Book a free 20-minute strategy call to learn how we can work together to reduce stress at the root and help your body thrive from the inside out.
