Podcast Episode 11: Stress Physiology Part 2 (with transcription)
Jul 12, 2022
Welcome to our 11th episode of True Health Solutions Podcast with Dr. Lonnie Bagwell and Brigitte Spurgeon.
In this episode, we discuss the negative effects of stress and how to combat stress physiology with nutrition, mindset, movement, and herbs.
Want to see the original audio or video? Join me on the True Health Solutions Podcast:
🎥 Watch: YouTube
🔊 Listen: Podcast Platforms
Join my Facebook Community for valuable health and wellness tips:
Book a Free 15 Minute Weight Loss Consultation with me:
Dr. Lonnie Bagwell, DC (00:00):
Instead of addressing the feeling of stress or what you think you, uh, like emotionally need to handle the stress, which a lot of times is in, in those escapism, or it's, it's looking for like comfort things, like comfort food or, or carbohydrates. Uh, my number one thing is to focus on physiology and what you need physiologically.
Brigitte Spurgeon (00:26):
Welcome to the True Health Solutions Podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Lonnie Bagwell, stress, inflammation and functional health clinician,
Dr. Lonnie Bagwell, DC (00:32):
And I'm your co-host Brigitte Spurgeon Metabolism and nutrition expert. This
Brigitte Spurgeon (00:36):
Podcast is where we bring hope, truth, and inspiration for your holistic
Dr. Lonnie Bagwell, DC (00:40):
Health journey, because the world needs the best version of you.
Brigitte Spurgeon (00:47):
All right, And welcome back to True Health Solutions Podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Lonnie Bagwell, here with
Dr. Lonnie Bagwell, DC (00:52):
Bridget Spurgeon,
Brigitte Spurgeon (00:54):
With part two to our stress discussion. Um, stressed out syndrome, sos uh, <laugh>, as I call it. Um, and, uh, and we're gonna talk about what most people probably anticipated us to be talking about when we have a stress podcast, which is all the bad side. So hopefully we got everybody's attention. We got them to understand more of what that stress response is, um, to embrace it, right? To realize that it really, it's the key to the, it's not just this only negative thing. It's this incredible positive opportunity. It's powerful either way. So it can be used for good or it can be used for bad, right? And, uh, and so, um, hopefully we took the first steps in people being more resilient, and we ended the podcast with, um, talking about hormesis and how actually, um, micro-dosing stress ultimately creates a more resilient, uh, body and better performance at a cellular level, all the way up to, you know, obviously, uh, you know, training programs, micro stressing training programs in order to, you know, be able to achieve our athletic goals.
(01:51):
Even so, um, stress not just a bad thing. And we said there were four types of stresses we said there. And, and last episode we talked more about, um, good stress and acute stress, which is a perfect response if we're running from a bear in a woods or someone who breaks into our house, right? Or we can use it for good, like we talked about. Now, this episode, we're gonna talk about more of where people unfortunately are more often, which is falling under the category of dealing with bad stress or chronic stress. And really, um, I talked about a bell curve, uh, last time, and we talked about how you need stress to perform, and there's an optimal amount of stress creates peak performance, right? That's the peak of the bell curve. And, uh, but unfortunately, what happens when you overtrain, what happens when you push past the peak of the bell curve, we start to lose performance. Um, you know, what if, and I guess I, I didn't, and we didn't talk about this beforehand, but I'm sure at some point you experienced physically in your own training, you know, where you pushed yourself too far, you know, past the bell curve, uh, and it cost you something. So share with listeners maybe an example of when something like that might have happened.
Dr. Lonnie Bagwell, DC (03:04):
Yeah, actually that happened when I trained for Ironman. So, you know, I peaked, my training peaked at about 20 hours a week. I'll be honest, I felt amazing. This was 20 mm-hmm. <affirmative>, 2019. I climbed Kilimanjaro. I, I, you know, did multiple races. Uh, you know, we had a lot going on in our weight loss business. Uh, and so I was in high performance. My brain was sharp, I was organized. I, I woke up every morning at four or four 15, you know, at, got workouts in, got to work, and I was energized, you know, like ra ra for, for the day. It felt amazing. And then was, as you know, I, I did have a back, back injury that I was dealing with and had a back injury before the race. But once again, still performed, still did well, got back recovered on some the day after the race.
(04:03):
I did not e I didn't even have any muscle pain. Like, I woke up at six 30 after finishing the race at 10, 10 o'clock the night before felt amazing. And then a couple of weeks later, it's like, you feel good until you don't. And two weeks later, my energy tanked. My GI was disrupted. I started gaining weight. My, like, I could just, like, my whole body was off. We started doing some testing and after, you know, some different labs, we determined that my thyroid was way underperforming. In fact, it even got to that point of, um, a hypothyroidism, oh, sorry, of, um, Hashimotos. And, you know, when we dug deeper, it was because I was high performing, um, anemic and didn't even, didn't even know it. So like, the stressors that were working well for me, I was performing well and it was even overcoming these deficiencies that I had. And then at some point it, like everything runs out. Like you just run out of gas in the, in the tank. And then I had to go into serious intentional recovery mode to address the root causes of the problem.
Brigitte Spurgeon (05:21):
That's good. And, and when I go into just a little bit of insight here too, when I go into corporate America, um, we call, when I, first thing I do is I rename the crowd, you know, that's listening right there. And I said, I'm speaking to you as a corporate athlete. And the point there is, is that we, is that we should be. Cause people might be listening and say, Wow, that's crazy Ironman, you know, but we should all be approaching our life as an athlete. If you're a stay-at-home mom, you're now stay-at-home mom athlete. You know, if you're, um, if you're school teacher, you're now teacher athlete, you know, like we have to have these i these concepts and ideas of peak performance and recovery, peak performance and recovery, because we might be using stress, that use stress, like we talked about last episode for good, right?
(06:07):
Um, but we also have to be making sure that we're recovering like an athlete also, and, and giving a focus to that. And we'll talk about the strategies for recovering from, you know, from peak stress experiences here, you know, here in a little bit. But, um, when we don't recover, we don't focus on it and stress becomes chronic or we go through too many negative bad stressors all at the same time. We can get things like headaches. I'm just gonna run through some symptoms here because, and, and there's a point to saying all of these. So I'll, I'll, I'll summarize in a second. Headaches, increased depression, insomnia, heartburn, rapid breathing and respiratory issues, weakened immunity, risk of heart attack, high blood sugar, high blood pressure, pounding heart. So arrhythmias and pounding, heart fertility issues, erectile dysfunction in missed periods, stomach dysfunction, all kinds of different kinds of stomach dysfunction, low sex drive tense muscles, achy joints and pain.
(07:07):
And my point in going through all of those is because that represents about 95%, I'm gonna say, of all of the patients that walk through the door. And it represents a, uh, you know, whether it's weight loss, whether it's chiropractic, or whether it's for functional health issues like pe 95% people are experiencing some degree of some combination of, of those symptoms. And so when we say 20, you know, uh, uh, stress being the underlying cause of 21st century disease and being a, you know, a, a multi-billion dollar cost to our healthcare system, it's not an idea or just a, just a flippant comment, you know, it is the absolute, it's the raw data. It's the literal truth of it. And so, um, and so if we don't get this stress thing under control, um, then it will take, um, it will take years from our life. I mean, that's been well documented. The more stress we have, it's inversely proportional. The more stress, uh, unregulated bad chronic stress that you have, the shorter the lifespan. But more importantly, as I've said for years, it's, it's about the years taken from your life, uh, and the life taken from your years. I'm sorry. You know, it's, it's about the years that you end up living less than, right? Dealing with like focused on health issues instead of focused on family, um, et cetera, right? And the compound stress that creates,
Dr. Lonnie Bagwell, DC (08:27):
Yeah, our society has normalized living with the stress and through the stress. And so what happens is we never deal with it, and we never hit the reset button. So if, if we deal with the stressor, heal, hit the reset but button, then the next stressor can be a UREs. But if we are in chronic stress, what should be a UREs becomes a, like, fuel on the fire of chronic stress, and that's when someone then ends and things like adrenal fatigue, et cetera.
Brigitte Spurgeon (09:05):
Absolutely. And so I just wanted to go through, on our last episode, we went through the physiological response and we talked about how we want to embrace that physiology and, and use it for good. Um, but I wanna walk through it again, Same, same list. Um, and then put a little bit of a different twist on it. So we talked about how, you know, before the ath at, or the athletic event, before the speech, before the big day ahead of us, whatever it is, you know, we get our head, right? We start to change our physiological state. Cortisol starts to go up, adrenaline goes up, heart rate goes up. Vasoconstriction then increases our blood pressure, our body dumps glucose into our bloodstream cuz we need quick energy. It also dumps fat into our bloodstream because we need long term energy. We develop a, a temporary state of insulin resistance.
(09:52):
So it's like pre-diabetes, but that's just so we don't reabsorb the sugars. Um, we're not so focused on short-term memory concentration and our immune system is down, and that's okay for that acute state. The problem is, is once this becomes chronic, so now you're chronically having elevated blood pressure, chronically elevated blood glucose, chronically elevated blood lipid levels, we're literally, so again, this idea that that stress is a, as a killer, if you look at this list here, that's, and it's in front of me on my screen right now, but if you should take the, the top third of the list, that is heart disease, which is the number one disease killer in the United States, right? And if you take the bottom part of the list that is cancer, those, those are the physi, the chronic physiological responses that create a, a state inside environment inside your body that facilitates cancer.
(10:46):
Um, and then the, um, the other two chunks that I would pull out, there's one chunk, one part of the list that actually is all diabetes. You probably heard that as I was going through the list. And then the last part, which we didn't talk as much about, but it relates to what people most often assume stress to be, which that emotional thing, it's our mental health crisis. And so the, so again, the the top four most, uh, deadly or most disruptive things to life that we experience as Americans are literally a stress response that's gone outta control. So it's not even a question of, you know, chronic stress, if we don't, you know, embrace this thing, um, it absolutely will take years from our life and life from our years. And there's just, it's black and white. It's as black and white as can be.
Dr. Lonnie Bagwell, DC (11:36):
I think Dr. Bagwell, that most people though, like they can relate to everything you're saying and, and, and they experience that and they know that it's bad, but like one, if they're not identifying it, uh, you know, they, they dunno how to handle it. But I think, I think a lot of people would say, but I just don't know what to do. Like, how do I combat the stress? How, like, how do I heal? Like, or, or, or how, how do I live in the lane of my job and my kids and my finances and, and my goals?
Brigitte Spurgeon (12:08):
Yeah. Yeah. That's good.
Dr. Lonnie Bagwell, DC (12:11):
Buzzing around me <laugh>.
Brigitte Spurgeon (12:13):
That's alright. Um, and, uh, and it, it adds just a little bit of tress for the better performance of the podcast. No big deal. Um, the, uh, the, the idea here is first, first and foremost, again, just knowing what stress is, not not making it the ominous unknown. I we're, I think we've done a good job of that over a couple of podcasts, you know, and just really embrace this idea that it's a, an appropriate response in my body. And it can be regulated and it can be, I mean, we could do 10 more episodes on, I mean, 20 more episodes on stress and start getting into the neurology and all those things. But at the end of the day, um, you know, just knowing it for what it is at a 30,000 foot view and not being so afraid of it anymore, um, and knowing that there is something that you can do about it.
(12:55):
And then the next thing is, I am gonna talk about time. I just really felt compelled to talk about that because in society today, um, you know, just, uh, this is something that I think that we don't have a great handle on. Um, and, uh, and if you want to google this, it's called Covey's Quadrants. I think my first strategy, other than understanding what stress really is, is to start to look at life through the four quadrants that Covey gave us. And, um, and if you've ever heard of this before, on one side of the quadrant, it talks about important or not important. And on the other side of the quadrant, it talks about urgent or not urgent. And I don't wanna get into the details of it and try to use words to explain graphics on a podcast or whatever. So again, look up Covey's quadrants.
(13:36):
Um, but bottom line is if we're spending, there's things that we can't control here. So if there's something that's urgent and important, that's like an emergency, okay? So we have an incredible acute stress response that will get, help us get through those instances really, really well. But the non important urgent things like interruptions that are constantly happening throughout our day that we don't do a good job of defending against, we don't have good boundaries, we don't have good, um, you know, protective mechanisms in our schedule and in our life, and we allow intrusion from other people or devices or whatever it might be. We spend so much of our time really ramped up over non important things. Or worse, we spend, we just give through escapism from those things. We spend so much time in not urgent, not important things. These are just total time wasters.
(14:30):
These are like, um, these are like, um, again, escapism, you know, this is the, this is like video games even as adults, right? Things like that, that we see people do. And so we spend so much, either we have real emergencies, we have fake emergencies, which are like interruptions or total escapism. And the more time we spend in those three quadrants, the more stress we're going to experience and the, and the more we're gonna drive into that quadrant four and trying to escape from it. Trying to escape from it. Uh, and, and then unfortunately in a lot of people's cases, right, that ends up being a very destructive behavior, right? This is where pornography comes in. This is where alcohol comes in, you know, this is where, you know, So if we don't figure out a way to spend more time in on the things that are in the fourth quadrant, which is not urgent, but very important, the more time we spend in not urgent, but extremely important things, the more we avoid the interruptions, we set good boundaries, the more we avoid the emergencies in quadrant one, right?
(15:33):
And the, and the more we're, we're loving life and doing the things that we're called to do and building the relationships that would, that have been gifted to us, and the less we want to escape. And so I think that, uh, and we could talk about this, we could do whole podcasts on this, but the more time we can spend in quadrant two of Cubby's quadrant, which is the not urgent, but super important things, um, then the more that we are, um, building our resilience, continually building our resilience. Um, so my first strategy is just pay attention to the, the, the important things and give more focus, uh, to those things, uh, the way that I do you, What's your, what's your number one strategy? Oh, go ahead.
Dr. Lonnie Bagwell, DC (16:12):
Oh, I was just gonna say, the way that I do that is having my, you know, my calling, my purpose, my vision crystal clear, and then aligning my goals with my purpose, and then my activities are going to be aligned with my goals. And those are in the important category. And so I'm gonna spend my energy, you know, my focus and my time on those, on those activities. And I'm going to have strategies to minimize the interruptions, like you called them, or the, the escape activities that could be scrolling through Facebook <affirmative>. Um, that could be Netflix shows that, you know, that could be mindless YouTube or something. So it's getting, you know, right, minimizing those and then increasing your time and focus for your,
Brigitte Spurgeon (17:04):
And you said it right there too. I, and maybe I should have been more clear on this, because you said minimizing, it doesn't mean you don't watch tv. It doesn't mean you don't, you don't do things that your spouse wants to do, whatever, you know, like it's, but it's, it's, it's trying to, the more time we spend away from our purpose and the important things in life, the more stress we're going to impose on ourselves, right? Cause the distance between where we're at and where we're called to be is tension, right? So we're gonna create more tension. Um, that's so good.
Dr. Lonnie Bagwell, DC (17:31):
So, so my number one thing is going to be to, in, instead of addressing the feeling of stress or what you think you are like emotionally need to handle the stress, which a lot of times is in, in those escapism, or it's, it's looking for like comfort things, like comfort food or, or carbohydrates. Uh, my number one thing is to focus on physiology and what you need physiologically to combat the stress or to deal with the stress or to move towards your goals. And so, you know, certainly as a nutritionist, I'm gonna focus on, on nutrition. And so, but how do we focus on, on nutrition? What is the best nutrition? And so you're gonna think of it, um, in, in two ways. One, nutrition that supports reducing inflammation in your body. So anti-inflammatory nutrition. So it's actually the op it's counterintuitive, although it's like the opposite of what you think you need when you stress, you think you need the car.
(18:36):
Like your body wants to make you crave the carbohydrates. And there's physiological reason for that because the body thinks mm-hmm. <affirmative>, you need sugar in your bloodstream, or you are also gonna cra so you'll crave the high fat, high sugar things just from what Dr. Bagwell said, because the body wants to dump the, the glucose and the fatty acids and the bloodstream for, um, for energy needs. But you, so what you want to do though, is you want to focus on the, um, the anti-inflammatory things. So that's gonna be obviously your, your vegetables, your proteins, your high antioxidant foods. So that's gonna be like your blueberries and your, your greens and your cruciferous vegetables and your high omega healthier omega foods like your, your salmon and your, your butter and your, your meats and things like that. And so, but, and another way to look at that, this with supportive nutrition, so one anti-inflammatory, and then you are also gonna look at it for, um, new nutrition that supports, um, healthy insulin regulation or, or blood glucose regulation so that they're really tie together that is going to be your, um, lower glycemic foods. That's going to, once again, your proteins, your healthy fats and your, your vegetables and fruits.
Brigitte Spurgeon (19:49):
That's good. And then, um, and I'd be remiss if I didn't mention to, uh, to our listeners to, to give, give, um, you know, your nervous system is your stress response system. Um, and so if you do not give care to that, um, then, then you're, you're actually not supporting the very system that you were given to be able to regulate. So we, when we talk about stress, we might talk about sympathetics and living a sympathetic dominant life, right? Or if we're talking about wrist digest and recover, we're talking about parasympathetic. This is all nerve nervous system talk. And so, um, and, uh, and so if we're not giving care to that, then we're not actually, we we're really hamstringing ourselves against having a good stress response and having good resilience. Um, and so one simple thing is to pay attention to posture. I mean, you think about how you sit, you know, how you lay in the bed at night, you know, are you laying on your back with your curve supported?
(20:41):
Or if you are laying on your side, are you laying in proper alignment from a side or are you know, or do you look like a a w you know, laying on your side? Um, you know, uh, when you get up and you, how do you sit at the breakfast table? How do you sit in the, the, the, the, uh, the, uh, car on the way to work? How do you sit at the, you know, at the office? Or are you using a standing desk like you should be, um, you know, the drive home to sit at the dinner table, to sit in front of tv? Our posture is constantly, you know, being challenged throughout the day. And what, and what most people don't realize is, is that if you lose the curve in your neck or your head goes too far forward, it actually starts to put tension on the nervous system, on the spinal cord itself.
(21:20):
Which again, a lot of people don't realize that when you stretch that d sheath, that protection outside of the nervous system or surrounds the nervous system, that actually shifts you into a more sympathetic dominant or more stress state. And so some, and you're saying, Look, wait a minute, Dr. Bagwell, how I sit, how I, how I lay that can make me more or less susceptible to, you know, the effects of stress or more or less resilient. And I'm saying, yes, that's exactly what can happen. Um, and of course, at wherever you're watching this, this podcast, you should have, obviously it could be remiss if I didn't refer you to, you know, your local chiropractor if you're not already getting adjusted. And make sure that they're the ones that are equipped and, and capable of being able to make sure that they're removing interference from the nervous system and helping support proper posture and less interference with the nervous system so that you can be more resilient, um, and, and, you know, and build up your resilience over time to the stress. Because that's one thing that maybe we didn't say enough, but, you know, stress is coming. So focus on resilience is the key here, not so much focusing on the stress itself, right? So when we change our time, when we change our new nutrition, when we're changing our posture, getting adjusted, we're we're focusing on being as resilient as we can be because we know life's gonna happen. So with that said, what's your, what's your second strategy, um, for everyone to help combat the effects of stress and or become more resilient?
Dr. Lonnie Bagwell, DC (22:42):
Yeah, I'm gonna say movement and mm-hmm. <affirmative>, um, or, or extra exercise. And I feel like movement's so important for so many, so many re reasons, but for one, um, through movement and exercise, you're going to release endorphins that your body needs. So like your neurotransmitters, like your serotonin and your dopamine, and tho you know, those are even going to, if those aren't healthy levels, that's gonna help you rest better, uh, sleep better. Um, but also it's getting the circulation going. So in our culture where we're sitting at desks all day, we don't, we're not supporting healthy circulation. And so that's, you know, getting the oxygen to the brain and, and to the muscles and around the body, um, tr you know, nutrient transport around the body. And also when we exercise, it's, you're, you're taking time for yourself. You're reinforcing that it's important to pause for yourself in the, the day, and it just allows your brain actually to switch focus.
(23:49):
Like, if you're focused on work the whole day, or if you're focused on problem solving the whole day, just like shifting your focus really helps. And I, I've even seen like walking described or movement described as like meditation and motion. And so you just think of the, you know, the, the power of that. And if you think of, if you're intentional about your exercise for reducing your stress, I mean, I, gosh, I remember when, when I was running a lot and just put, like putting on a podcast and, and just like sh you know, shifting my brain away from dealing with the problems and the urgencies of the day just helped me shift to focus. So, uh, yes, just, and the, the thing is, and that's, that's the reason why I use the word movement is because some, if I use the word working out, like your, your brain might think like, Oh, I have to do an hour in the gym, or I, you know, have to, you know, join a, a bootcamp or something. But it literally can just be, you know, honestly like walking barefoot outside for 10 minutes or, or doing stretching or, or yoga or, you know, it can be, you know, 15, 30 minutes of, of movement is going to be powerful for your day.
Brigitte Spurgeon (25:09):
Yeah. And there's very few things in all of the literature that have been proven time and time again to combat the effects of, like, I think exercise has been shown repeatedly to outperform depressive medications and fighting depression. Um, and there's very few things that have been shown to combat the effects of stress more than just getting your body moving. So you're spot on, um, with that one. And then everybody always asks about supplements and, uh, you know, we're, we're, we're definitely, we're not the people that wanna throw supplement at everything. Um, we don't wanna do the natural version of pill for every ill, Um, but there are, and the type of supplements we use are important. Um, and, uh, and so there are two that we will use to help people, but the reason why we use those two is because they're unique and because they are 100% congruent with everything we've talked about on the last couple of podcasts, and that we teach patients clinically in the office.
(25:58):
And the first is Asua Ganda, which many probably have heard of by now, um, because it's an incredible adaptogen. I mean, it does some really cool things. Um, but it, it literally is, when you look up, what does Aswa Uganda do? It literally says it increases resilience. I mean, that's, that's literally part of the definition of what it does increases immunity. It's an antioxidant. So Ashwaganda helps bring your highs down or your lows up. So it literally, like we're talking about on two episodes, talking about the good and the bad Ashwaganda literally stands in the middle of these two episodes and helps draw that back into the center line. And so, um, so we love Aswa Ganda as a foundational supplement for so many things in the body. And then the other thing that people probably have heard, have heard less about is, um, called Kava.
(26:41):
And the reason why I love Kava is because of, cuz I love the nervous system, and it is actually a parasympathetic stimulant. So it actually draws your para, your rest, digest, recover. It actually draws your physiology towards that. And so, um, and it, and it also increases serotonin. It increases dopamine, like again, some of the stuff that we've talked about either on this episode or past episodes. And so, um, and so I love that because you're either in sympathetic or parasympathetic. So again, I love it because so many people wanna focus on stress management. I don't wanna manage stress, I wanna actually stimulate my parasympathetics. I wanna manage my rest, I wanna manage my digestion, digestive health. I wanna manage my recovery. So I build resilience, um, not trying to manage the stress state that's causing the destruction. And so, uh, so be, there's actually a supplement that's congruent with that philosophy, and it's called Kava. So I love Ashwaganda, um, and kava. Any other, um, any other last thoughts, um, before we check out on this episode, Um, on stress? Anything else you wanna leave anybody with?
Dr. Lonnie Bagwell, DC (27:47):
I don't think so. I mean, just there's hope, you know? Yeah. Like we, we have hope. Um, we, there are solutions and, uh, you can, you can get to the other side of it even better than you were before.
Brigitte Spurgeon (27:59):
Hey, amen. And don't forget how powerful stress is powerful either way. Um, whether we use it for good or whether we're, you know, again, losing hope and succumbing to the negative effects of it. And so, um, let's choose, let's choose. Good. And so thank you very much for tuning into this podcast. Make sure that you, um, click like, and subscribe, uh, and, and get ready, uh, for more, uh, episodes coming down the pipe. So we thank you for joining us. We love you, and we'll see you next time. Thanks for joining us today on True Health Solutions Podcast. Make sure that you click to subscribe. Also go to our website, www.truehealthcharlotte.com, where you can download any resources related to today's show or any future shows. And lastly, if you search for True Health Center Group on Facebook, you'll be able to join our free health community. We look forward to seeing you there.
