I explore the underestimated impact of stress on health, emphasizing the importance of balance in the autonomic nervous system for overall well-being. I share the story of a Chinese monk who lived to 353 years, promoting longevity secrets involving emotional balance, herbs, and diet.

Chronic stress can lead to various health issues, from irritability to cardiovascular problems, with cortisol playing a key role. I advise making stress work for you through techniques like laughter, breathing, sleep quality, reminiscing, hobbies, meditation, and soothing music. Consider starting a podcast or exploring other interests to reduce stress and rewire your brain for a healthier life.

Join me in this episode because we all need this info!

The best RED LIGHT THERAPY devices: https://catalyticcolor.com I make no money off these. But Leanne makes the best you can buy...

Erik: Welcome friends. Today, we're going to talk about something that we all deal with. It doesn't matter who you are. Seriously. You could be rich. Or poor. Everybody deals with this in one way or another. Today, we're going to talk about something that.

Will affect you in more ways than one. It is known as the silent killer. Yeah, that's what they named it. The silent killer.

Is it though. Is it really the silent killer or is it something you experience all the time? You know, what's there.

But right now, the way the world is. And the way that.

Everybody starts to get sick in the fall. This is a perfect time. To talk about. Stress.

Yes. Stress is. Absolutely known as the hidden killer. Because you don't even know what's happening. Sometimes, you know, sometimes you don't, but most of the time. It's just underlying, it's just underneath. It's that. Low noise. You never hear it's that feeling that you never feel. It's that sense of something's wrong, but I don't know what it is in my body. In my brain in my spirit.

So let's get into this. Starts with your autonomic nervous system.

And here's how it works.

And I can't stress it enough. Everything affects you. I talk a lot about. EMF. Vibrations light energy. Well, this is why. Because we're. an. Antenna for energy. Good bad and neutral. Y. Because we are electrical beings. That's who we are. We are electrical. So for electrical, and we're basically an antenna for all the EMF vibrations, light and energy. You could see how these could affect you. Well, how do they affect us? Well, mostly through our autonomic nervous system, you have the sympathetic and the parasympathetic, which we talked about before. Real fast.

Sympathetic. Fight or flight. It's what. Wakes you up. It's constantly active. It's very energetic. It is your get out of bed. It is your run a mile when you need to, it is your.

Get out of danger.

Your active state.

The opposite. Is here a parasympathetic.

Believe it or not.

One's telling you one thing one's telling you another. The cool thing is they work in balance all the time, just for you to keep you in the homeostasis.

That homeostasis is the key to everything. It's what your body wants. How do you get to homeostasis? Well, we're going to talk about that.

But adrenaline can be good in small amounts. We need that. You got to get out of bed. You have to do things in your life. The opposite. Is. Parasympathetic. Now the parasympathetic produces. What's called

gluco corticoids.

You've heard of. Different types of corticoids in your life, but we'll stick to just this one, which is. Cortisol. I know you've probably heard of cortisol and if you haven't, no problem. Here's what it is. You need it. In small amounts. Okay, it's good. But. You don't want large amounts of it or continuous amounts of it.

It's controlled by your pituitary. And it sent a war. By the hypothalamus. Oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah. Remember. When I said it is the controller. Of all the glands. Hypothalamus is super important. It's more important than people realize.

Erik: By not regulating salt and potassium because you have too much cortisol or aldosterone. You get imbalances. And this is why it's a problem.

We'll get into that. In episode in the future of the salt and potassium, because it is super important.

Everything I'm talking about is assuming you don't have any pituitary gland issues. Like Addison's or some of these things. Okay. All right, let's get into this. So many of you may not believe me. Some of you might believe me, but. Here's the. I'm going to tell you a story. I told you several episodes ago that I'm going to get into stories. And testimonies that'll blow your mind. Well, here's one of them. There was once a Chinese man.

353 years old.

How is that possible? Well, The. Chinese government gave him a birthday party after 150. Every 50 years. During many of those times they asked him, what do you contribute your longevity?

Why are you living so long? He said. Three things.

First thing is I never let anything negative affect me. Second thing. I use ginseng and Fo-Ti, that's spelled FOTI

and.

I consume a diet that's appropriate for myself.

He said that he doesn't let any negative emotion into his brain, into his thoughts. He went through many marriages.

Many deaths of his family members, his children, his wives.

But he never let it affect him.

Now that's a strong man.

You might think. Well, is he strong or is he just deflecting? Well, Uh, Chinese Taoist monk. Doesn't see things the way you and I do. So the point is if someone can take away negative emotions, Look, what it can do for you. This is the point of the story. Which. By the way. I will tell more about this man in the future. If you care to know. Let me know in the comment section,

Cause he's fascinating.

Now men are more likely to have symptoms of stress than women. Men are.

Does that mean that men only use really one side. Hmm. That's interesting. Is there a really research showing that. We might have to check that out in the future. Point is.

Men have statistically. More issues with stress related problems than women.

Maybe there's a. Thing there with estrogen. Maybe it's just the way women are built. Maybe it's they do use both sides of their brain who knows. Maybe it's because they're nurturing. Hopefully.

An intravenous pain relief.

Meaning something like. Tylenol directly into your.

Vain. It's nearly instantaneous. It's amazing. Well, guess what, how do you. Get affected by hormones. So fast. So quickly. That they're almost instantaneous that's because. These hormones are going directly into the blood system, through the kidneys.

Now.

The whole point of this episode is that concept. This is why it's really cool. Once you realize there's two parts of you running all the time, you'll understand why stress is killing you. Y it's destroying your health or causing all kinds of. Health issues. This is it right here? The secret is. You have two parts of you? Sympathetic and parasympathetic. Which one are you running?

People around the world. That are highly stressed out in first world countries have tons of issues. So many health complaints yet. Areas in the world. The have so many ways to relax. And they have very little health issues. We'll get into that.

You see, you're in a constant state of. Well, let's just put it this way. You're revving your engine.

If that makes sense to you.

You're in a constant heightened state internally. In your sympathetic nervous system. Like revving your engine. Just enough. That it would hurt it in the long run. So. Let's put it this way.

You're either in a high state or you're just above baseline.

You know, how in your car, some of the cars that you might have owned in your life, you see an RPM gauge that RPM gauge says zero, to. Whatever, probably eight for most people, seven, eight.

You start a firm like. Bang. That's adrenaline. Cortisol is the one. That holds you back from going too fast. But. If cortisol is high all the time, it has consequences. So if you're sitting at a light.

this is why it's been called the hidden killer. Because you don't necessarily feel the difference between under one. Up to two.

It is unseen.

Because it is you. What I mean by you is you're so used to your environment and everything around you and what you feel. And especially in your circumstances that are stressful. That you don't know that you're over revving. At baseline. And so over time it starts to kill you. That's why it's hidden.

We are meant to be in a homeostasis. That homeostasis is the key to life. In the future, we will talk more about the homeostasis because it's super important. When we say health. As a whole. Every time we hear a podcast. Read an article, your doctor, your friend, everybody, and everything you've ever heard of of health. What they're talking about is a homeostasis. That means it's neither negative or positive. It's right in the center. That center actually should make you live according to recent research. Should equate to 120 years. Because you can't.

By the way, how cool is it?

That you feel the sympathetic side. But not the parasympathetic side.

But then.

When you come down. With the parasympathetic, because you came out of that meeting. And you're like, ah, I didn't.

Get crushed.

He actually told me.

That's how you should approach things in your life as an adult. Stand up to them. That's your sympathetic. When you stand up to them and you take control. The stress comes down. And the parasympathetic kicks in and you have that sense of ah,

You can do it. You can overcome your stress. It doesn't matter what the stress is. I don't care what it is. You haven't in you to overcome it.

There's ways to do it. I'm going to teach you those here. Some of them. Anyway, there's a billion ways to do it. But generally.

You can win. On everything.

Then that stress is not an issue.

That was my diatribe on you. Got it. You're going to win. Let's go. Because they used to be a coach a long time ago for volleyball when I was young and. It's never going to leave me.

Let's go into all the symptoms and the issues of stress. These might be you. You might feel some of these. Usually when you're really stressed, you have many of these, not just one. We all deal with one of these. I'm gonna hammer these really fast, not going to spend any time on them at all. And then at the end, I'm going to pull some of them out. That are important and then hit some others, not in this list that are important. Ready?

All right. Here we go. Irritability. .

Existing mental health problems are getting worse. Difficulty breathing, panic attacks. Ho-ho. If you've ever had one, I've had them. They're horrible. Blurred eyesight and sore eyes. Sleep problems, fatigue. Muscle aches and headaches, chest pains and high blood pressure. Indigestion, heartburn, constipation diarrhea. Irritable bowel, ulcers. Of course, we all know that one. Feeling sick, dizzy, fainting. Sudden weight, gain weight loss. Developing [00:21:00] rashes or itchy skin. Sweating. Changes to your period or your

menstrual cycle. Your existing physical health problems are getting worse. You find it hard to make decisions? It's almost impossible to concentrate. You can't remember anything or make any memories?

Constantly worried or having feelings of dread. You snap at people, you bite your nails. You're uh, maybe

picking at or itching your skin. You grind your teeth or clench your jaw? I do that one. That's mine. I had fully admit. Experience. Uh, sexual problems. Such as losing interest in sex or being unable to enjoy sex. You eat too much or too little, believe it or not. You smoke because that's your way out use? Well, Recreational drugs or way too much alcohol. Restless. Like you can't sit still.

or you actually feel tearful. So you're not crying all the time, but you're just on the brink that. That right there. I will say you need help.

That's you battling the cry. That's fantastic because it's showing fortitude against whatever the situation is.

You spend way too much money or you shop too much. You're not exercising as much as you usually would, or you exercise way too much, or you withdraw from people around you. That's just some of the situations that you could go through. Just some of the things that we experienced with stress, that's not even all of that is only a portion. Stress literally. Affects every single area of your life. There isn't one area that stress won't make it worse.

That is the key.

The most powerful people on the planet. They use stress to their advantage. They turn that thought around that feeling around. And make it work for them.

The main reason for all your stress is this corticoid called. Cortisol. Now. I said earlier that I would go into some of the more specific things that are more important. Regarding your stress. And. I would expand a little bit upon those.

So let's talk about cortisol. A little bit more, how it relates to all of those that I just said. Okay. All right. So cortisol.

Affects all the cells of your body. Every single one of them will respond to cortisol. All of them.

And one of the weirdest things that it does is it changes the volume. Of your blood.

Well, how well.

Cortisol. Affects. The way your cells use salt and potassium. Therefore. It's changing the volume of your blood. Once that volume has changed. Well, that's going to affect your cardiovascular system through blood pressure. The ability to clot.

Flo. Of the blood, which we've talked about before.

The water in your blood. Because salt and potassium regulate water.

So now it expands. Your vascular system and it makes it more difficult to move your blood. It also converts fat. And protein into fuel.

All right. I didn't want to have to use big words and I just did. So, sorry. The whole point of this podcast is to make it easy to understand and. I just used a big word gluco neogenesis. Just means glucose. Is created. From protein and fat.

When your sugar is low.

It also protects you from consuming yourself.

That means. Then it stops. You from.

Cannibalizing yourself. Which is pretty cool. If you think about it. So here's a stress hormone. That also stops you from. Cannibalizing yourself. But. This is a huge, but. We're going to get into.

The negatives.

Desire more carbs and sugar. Think about it.

So, what do I think our main components of lowering.

Disease in your body. Well, this is one of them. Lower your stress. Get that stuff. Out of your life. And also suppresses your immune system. , why does that happen? , You see it affects your parasympathetic nervous system.

It shuts it down.

When he shuts that parasympathetic nervous system down.

You're more susceptible.

To feeling stressed out or bogged down. It's a depressant.

Instead of stimulating the nervous system. It actually. Slows it down. Not good. Not good at all.

I don't ever want to say that word. on this podcast. So I think, you know what the S word is. If you're feeling inadequate and you need to remedy the situation, you know, that word. Why does that happen? Because the nervous system is the brain.

And cortisol shuts down. The nervous system, which shuts down the brain. And if you can't think straight, you do really bad things. You think poorly? You have all of these. Brain issues.

And then. If that's not bad enough, it causes bone loss.

Poor tendons.

All the tissues that. Work in conjunction with joints. Like discs. Everything starts. Shutting down the basics of your body. Your skeletal structure is like, The walls in your house. When those go, the whole house goes. And then you end up with arthritis and all of those issues that just destroy you. Daily. And then you end up with all the brain issues. Because you feel so terrible.

And with men. It lowers the sperm motility and the sperm count. That's a fact. They can see it actually happen. And then. For men. I'm sorry, but. erectile dysfunction is.

A major side effect of stress.

Moving on.

Causes weight gain.

One of the things that common stress. Does is it damages? And shrinks and destroys your brain cells. So, if you want to retain your memories, Your intelligence. Your thought processes. You need to lower stress. Any way you can.

Of brain destruction.

One of the weird things cortisol creates is, um,

Is chronic inflammation. How does that happen? Oh, that happens by making cytokines. And if you've listened to the news or independent news for the last three and a half years, you'll know what cytokines are.

That's not good. Cytokines are basically like.

Little robots sent out to destroy everything in your body.

So that if you have one side of the brain. That affects your. Parasympathetic and the other that affects your sympathetic, they don't get. Crossed. Because of molecules. Or your. Create a thought process. Doesn't get.

The health of your brain.

One of the major. Ways to keep your brain healthy is to keep that barrier solid. It's a wall.

But I have to say it. Stress is linked. To so many things. But there's six things. That are so powerful in society. And that we deal with every single day. We know of people that have dealt with them. That are affected. By stress.

Those are. Death.

From. Heart disease. Cancer. Lung ailments. Accidents. Of all kinds. Liver cirrhosis.

And the S word.

That was a moment of silence.

Let's set some other details. Shall we?

This one blows my mind. Absolutely blows my mind.

Did you know, there is such a thing called. Acoustic stress. Now I will say. I've dealt with this. Because if you heard me last episode or the one before that. I am blessed with the ability to hear. Frequencies and sounds that most people can't hear and it absolutely is. Torture. Well, It's called IX. I finally figured out what it's called. It's called acoustic stress.

And. It causes 3 million deaths per year. All right. Let's backtrack a second. So. There's this person. That is just hanging out. In some way or another. And a loud noise occurs. Which then. Short circuits. Their heart's electrical system. And the die.

What. In the world.

Moving on.

Here's. Something. Super fascinating. Is that. When your cells are exposed to stress hormones, they actually can disconnect from each other. So the disassociate. So think about. Whatever tissue it is. And your body is held together. But then you're stressed out and they start separating. Do they communicate much? How do they communicate? Well? That's the EMF field. That's vibration. That's energy. That's frequency. Now they can't communicate with each other. What does that cause? Cell death.

organ death. Gland death. Or discomfort or disease. That's not a good thing. So stress. Has this inherent thing. Where it's allowing cells to shrink.

That's fascinating. That right there should scare you enough to be like, all right. No stress anymore in my life. Cause I don't want myself to shrink and disconnect from each other. That would be like your phone shrinks. Two. Something you can't use and then no one. Can ever talk to anybody with a cell phone ever again.

I hope we're all adults. Because I'm going to get into something that's a little more sensitive. We're going to have a future episode on this, but let's just. Throw this one out there so that, you know, because. This affects more people. Than anyone realizes.

But stress creates all kinds of hormonal changes in the body. I mean tons. But specifically the ones that you know of.

This is where you need to be an adult. So penetrative sex. As opposed to other types of sex, like masturbation. You see. Penetrative sex actually decreases stress hormones.

But.

People who have. No sex. Penetratively. Had the highest blood pressure. . That's actually based on studies with stress and sex. So.

Association. Do you remember? When I talked about that.

Once your body and another person's body associates. The EMF fields. Become extremely powerful. They become one. And therefore. They affect you. They help you. They lower stress through so many different. Biological pathways. Electrical pathways. But that doesn't happen. When it's just you by yourself. Maybe that's why so many religions. Say by yourself is not right. They may not even know. That this is why it's better to be with another person.

Regardless. The science proves it.

Lunch break. Or people read. Or any number of ways to slow down.

It's amazing that so many cultures.

Have all these ways to relax, to come down. Do they know what they're doing? I mean, is it. Like just cultural or. Was it always about finding that homeostasis of. Parasympathetic let's lower. My stress. So that I feel good. I feel better. Well, maybe.

All right enough with the information I know this is why you're all been waiting for is. How do I lower my stress, Eric, I will give a crap about. All the other details and all the stuff about.

Stress and why it happens to me. I just want to know how to get rid of it.

I know you've all been waiting for this part. This is where I tell you how to get rid of your stress.

I know. The information can be a little bit overwhelming. But. I hope it's interesting. I hope you learn. It's no, why it's there. Because once, you know why it's there now, when you know how to get rid of it. You're much more powerful. You're more effective. That's what I want for you.

So, how do you lower stress? I'm going to give you. A bunch of ways. But there are countless ways. This is a very short list.

I think it's thorough.

Erik: It's impossible to know what works for you.

But I'm going to attempt to give you some ways that might work. You might need to work these out a little bit. To make them effective for you.

So let's get started. I think.

And I know. The number one way. To lower stress. Absolutely without a doubt. There is nothing better. Then laughter. Oh, yeah. Laughing actually lowers your stress. More than anything. Why. Because there's hormones released in your brain.

And.

The hormones that are released. In your brain and your brain then tells your body to release hormones through all the glands. That increased your immune system.

It's amazing.

I can't wait to do the hormone episode. It's going to be so much fun for you guys. We're going to talk about so many super cool things with hormones. One of the other ways. Is breathing. Now. I know you've heard of this because everybody has breathing. Is an instantaneous way to lower your stress. I mean, it happens right away now sometimes depending on the [00:45:00] stress, it might take a few minutes up to half hour, an hour. I've dealt with those things myself. But breathing does two things. It works on your pulmonary system and it works on your autonomic nervous system, specifically the parasympathetic. Okay. That's why it's so effective. It's not just one mechanism. Your body it's too. And that becomes really powerful. You've doubled. Your effectiveness.

There are so many ways. That you can do breathing techniques. I mean, if you just look up breathing techniques online, you're going to have. Tons and tons of different types.

The one that. Is most probably prevalent right now.

And I use myself. And that is. The one to two ratio method.

There are. Countless techniques for meditation. [00:47:00] And prayer well, That's up to you.

I think the most overlooked place for stress. Reduction. Is your sleep. We've talked about sleep in the past as one of the foundational episodes. I even talked about sleep recently. Told you that I was going with.

Blue.

Linen sheets. Well, flax. Linen sheets. We'll reduce your stress. It's. Literally scientifically proven.

Not to mention. It goes back into antiquity.

I'm sorry. If somebody wants to say. Ah, that's stupid. Well, Not so much because if you believe in evolution, it goes back 30,000 years. If you believe in creation, it goes back.

3000 years.

The other thing you can do for sleep is create. complete darkness.

That will put you in a state of nothingness.

If you're like me and others, you need sound. The only thing that's going on in your room. Is literally sound it's one thing. Everything else is gone. There's no light. Heat is very low. So you're in a cool room.

The sheets that touch you.

Our biocompatible.

This is scientifically proven. An absolutely works. And by the way, throw the most comfortable sheets you can sleep in. So there's that.

Use candles as much as possible. They should be natural candles. Don't buy that garbage petroleum crap. You have to buy. Soy. Bees wax coconut oil. Blends of those. Don't get into the other stuff.

The flickering of the candle. And.

The color. We'll lower stress, especially if you dim lights. Essential oils are absolutely fantastic for stress. All the different oils look up essential oils with stress and use them in your life. And your skin and in the air. Anywhere you can use them.

Music.

It will affect you if you just calm down. You don't even have to listen to it. The vibrations and the frequencies will affect you. They will work on your brain. In the areas that will calm you down and help you deal with life's. Situations.

One of the best ways that you can. Lower stress is by reminiscing. Just thoughts. Of your past that were wonderful. And. I'm going to throw this one out to you. How about. Reminiscing of the future. What you hope for?

And then you might have hobbies because hobbies are phenomenal.

For stress reduction. Like sewing. I, I am astounded with people who can sew and is so really, really well. That is craftsmanship. Fantastic. If that doesn't calm you down. I don't know what will.

I also like to cook. Cooking is. An absolutely awesome way to lower stress. [00:53:00] Unless you're cooking for a whole bunch of people for things giving. And it turns into a mess. I'm talking about cooking things that are fun. And.

Low stress like.

BBQ or. Slow cooking. If you like to make treats for people like cookies and things like that. Fantastic. I don't agree with the sugar as you know, but. I get it. And if cooking is a way to lower stress and I've known people who do this, my godmother did this. But cooking is. Extremely cathartic.

The other one that is amazing to lower stress is to volunteer.

Y. Why does volunteering. Make you feel better because when you think of others, you don't dwell on your situation.

Some people enjoy sports. I would say sports are absolutely awesome for stress relief. But I would put this caveat out there. I don't think that. Sports that are extremely violent. Would lower your stress. I mean. I mean, think about it. Do I need to explain myself.

And then. You know, here's one for ya. Some people have all kinds of hobbies and interests and things like that. Why not start a podcast? Really I'm not even kidding. Whatever topic you like. You know, maybe it's something.

You know, when you bottle up something inside of you that you know about.

And you want to share with other people. And you think, ah, people don't want to hear that. Well, generally speaking, the people around you don't really want to hear that, but the entire world collectively. There's lots of people that want to hear about that today.

I listened to a.

A podcast. About a subject. That is so.

I don't know how to describe it. It's so.

More enlightened about that subject, which I find super interesting. So there are people out there, even if there's only 1000 people in the world that want to listen to your podcast. Why not that's a thousand people just do it. It'll help you lower your stress. Cause you get to talk about things that interest you.

I think everybody should have a podcast, honestly.

All right. I digress.

But I think you feel my point on that. You see it? Isn't about just that thinking about your situation. It's about your mind being stimulated with something. Cathartic nourishing creative. Um, Giving. Using the areas of your brain that stimulate the stress, reducing chemicals.

All the good chemicals that we want actually. I mean. Why not.

Your brain can be rewired. Don't settle for the negative state. You can be. Stress-free.

Your brain can be rewired. Don't settle for the negative state. You can be stress-free I'm telling you. You can do it.