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Stress is a Body Breaker
Interview with Ann Boroch
Interviewed by Scott Peters
Scott Peters: Ann, you talked about stress in your book, and you mentioned it a little bit already today. We think about diet a lot, but really stress can cause Candida too. Can you talk about that relationship a little bit?
Ann Boroch: Stress is the number one body breaker. We seem to ignore that. We don’t really understand what it means. When we’re getting into stress, we’re talking adrenal hormones, which is adrenaline and cortisol which then inflames the body, also raises sugar, so it raises insulin levels, and that’s the direct relationship. We all have stress; it’s how we manage it. So with men, men like to keep it in and they say everything is good, but I find for men in particular that exercise is one of the best downloads. I think that’s the thing they’re most easy to do. For women, it can be everything from also exercising, but I find women to be a little more emotional and in touch with that stress, but finding ways to channel it, whether it be journaling, meditation, or going to see a therapist. But the fact is stress has so much of an impact that I think even if you’re eating a clean diet, taking supplementation for quality aging, if you’re not managing the stress, you’re either not going to see full improvement in what you’re working on, or the body will still collapse more. It is probably the most important thing to pay attention to. Like I said, the management factor is if you have a job you don’t like but you know you have to support your family, what can you do as an adjunct? What’s a hobby that you could do? What’s another creative endeavor? Are you having fun with your kids on the weekend? Anything you can do to download so the mind is not going a mile a minute and you feel as though it’s this constant threat of anxiety that’s pulsating with the thoughts and in your body, because really that’s wreaking havoc in these adrenal hormones, you know, cortisol is the most inflammatory thing in the body if it’s not balanced.
SP: Easier said than done, too.
AB: Absolutely.
SP: It seems probably in the last fifteen years, twenty, thirty years we’re all working more, both parents are working, more stress at home, it just seems to be more than there was fifteen, twenty, thirty years ago.
AB: Absolutely, and it saddens me because, in my practice, I can say in the last several years what’s on peoples symptom list when they’re filling out the questionnaire is not just like a little fatigue or maybe they have sinus issues or a rash, but almost everybody is also check-marking anxiety and depression. It’s getting to a level that seems to be stronger and stronger, and we’re not finding more tangible ways to deal with that, and I think a very simple, powerful way is meditation. I know that scares a lot of people, but I tell them if they can just do five minutes before they hop out of bed, sit up, say the word ‘now’ silently over your crazy thoughts, almost like stock numbers on a ticker tape, and say the word ‘now’ as a silent mantra, and if you can just get thirty seconds of a gap where you aren’t thinking a thought, you will have a better day, and hopefully that five minutes will turn into fifteen or twenty minutes. I think that’s probably the best tool I can offer anybody beyond exercise, because you don’t have to make that much more time, you don’t have to go to the gym, have a membership; it’s something you can do for free.
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