How Rest Helps Combat Stress

Stress is a physiological reaction by the body in response to a real or perceived threat.

Note that I’ve used the word perceived here, quite specifically. Many ‘threats’ to use these days are not real threats, they are potential threats, or they feel threatening to us but don’t truly threaten our lives. Our body doesn’t know the difference between a real life threat and a perceived threat, and therefore it responds in the same way!

Being in a state of stress is also known as being in the sympathetic nervous system state, commonly known as ‘fight, flight, or freeze’. Our body pumps out cortisol and adrenaline, heart rate increases, blood is diverted to our limbs, our pupils dilate, and we prepare for battle.

The other, much preferred option is known as the parasympathetic nervous system state, ‘rest, digest, and reproduce’. Our muscles relax, blood heads toward our abdomen to digest our food, breath slows down, and our heart rate decreases. In this state we digest our food, create important hormones and neurotransmitters, and feel calm.

The problem today is that our body doesn’t know the difference between actual life-threatening situations (the classic example is being chased by a sabre-toothed tiger), or a perceived, future threat (an email ping from your demanding boss, a call from your frosty mother-in-law, *insert your choice of unpleasantness here*).

Stress is necessary to keep us safe and alive, which is a pretty important task. However, prolonged, high stress states can lead to serious, detrimental health consequences. Unfortunately, I see these health consequences all too regularly with my patients.

So, what can we do about this?

Firstly, if your stressful situation is able to be changed - please do so in a timely manner! Unfortunately, this is not always the case.

So we need to support our body as much as possible until the stress levels have decreased or the stressor is removed. The antidote is rest. Rest does not mean sleep, although optimal sleep is extremely important.

Rest means not doing anything, not multi-tasking, not walking while checking emails while listening to a podcast. It means lying in the sun. Doing yin yoga. Taking a nap if you want. It’s not exercise, it’s rest.

Som of my yin prop collection that helps to support my rest practice

I personally love reading before bed to wind down, and doing short yin sessions at home throughout my week. Even if I only have 10 minutes, I will do 10 minutes and then feel the benefits for the following hours.

I asked over on my instagram what forms of rest do people enjoy and got some amazing answers:

• Listening to my body

• Taking a nap or having a sleep when I need to

• Yin yoga

• Yoga nidra

• Float tanks

• Massages

• Eating mindfully

• Implementing NPS; no plans Sunday

• Do what brings me joy

• Infrared saunas

• Reiki

If you are struggling with stress would like help with managing and supporting this, feel free to book in a session with me here.

Jaclyn is a qualified Naturopath with a focus on hormonal complaints, cycle health, reproductive and fertility care, skin issues, and adrenal health.

Author
Jaclyn Cave
BHSc (Nat), BComm (Soc)
Masters Womens Health Med (UNSW - completing)