Book Excerpt
Foreword
Managing the Stress Response Is the Answer
One morning a few years ago, I was having breakfast with my daughter when she asked me, “Daddy, What do you do for a living?” Without thinking, I gave her my standard answer, “I help people to get healthy, lose weight, manage their stress, and create healthy lifestyles.” As I looked up, I could see the puzzled look on her face; she didn’t understand a word I had just said. I then replied, “Honey, our body works like a machine, and I fix broken machines.”
Our bodies are like very complex machines with many interactive parts that must work together in harmony. If one element of our machine is not working well, then the entire machine seizes to function optimally. I have found, after twenty years of working with people and research, that the most important factor that affects our health, how we age, what illnesses we get, and even our body fat level is determined by how our bodies manage and respond to stress. Even though it is common knowledge that many things also influence these factors, such as genetic background, where you live, and what your family’s health history is among others, how our lifestyle succeeds in controlling the effects of stress is the most powerful influence in our biology.
Let’s take a look and, in the process, redefine what stress is. Stress is a physiological response for survival. Its job is to keep us alive through the fight-or-flight reaction. It is a primal and instinctive response built into our DNA through millions of years of evolution. It manifests itself in different ways, and here is where most people misunderstand stress. When you are angry or overwhelmed, you are consciously aware that you are under stress, but what most people do not know is that your body is under the same level of stress during less obvious circumstances.
For example, even though exercising is a positive activity for our health, if performed incorrectly or in extremes, is interpreted by your body as a stressor. When you are in a spinning class and you reach a level of high intensity performance, your body cannot tell if you are safely working out or being chased by a pack of wolves. The biological and physiological reaction in your body is the same in both circumstances. Your daily diet and the way your body processes different foods can also become a stress factor for your body because the chemical reaction produced by certain foods you eat alter the three key hormones that determine the way your body responds to stress. The key hormones that directly affect your body’s stress response are adrenaline, cortisol, and insulin.
Adrenaline is produced by the adrenal gland. It stimulates the heart rate and dilates blood vessels. Adrenaline is naturally produced in high-stress or physically exhilarating situations. Cortisol is also secreted by the adrenal glands and involved in proper glucose metabolism, regulation of blood pressure, insulin release for blood sugar maintenance, immune functions, and the anti-inflammatory responses. Insulin is a hormone produced by the pancreas that regulates the level of glucose, which is a simple sugar that provides energy, in the blood. One could say cortisol and adrenaline break the body down while insulin helps to repair it.
The challenge we face in today’s world is that we all live in a state of chronic stress, and we simply cannot shut off our body’s stress response. This inability to regulate our key hormone levels through a balanced cycle of relaxation and activity affects the way our body does everything. Globalization, modern technology, easier and faster ways to travel, and all the high-speed, fast-food, instant-gratification comforts of modern living keep us constantly on the run and on the move. Modern life in its most “normal” form is stressful to our biological makeup.
This is why more stress-related illnesses are growing into epidemic proportions. More thirty-year-olds are having massive heart attacks, younger and younger children are suffering from morbid obesity, more women are entering menopause in their early forties, and younger people are suffering older-people diseases. These are all signs that the stress response is out of control and out to get us.
The stress-response diet program that I will share with you in this book is a new and innovative approach to many old problems. It is a program built on a hormone-balancing diet, supplement recommendations, and exercise routines that will help you create the lifestyle you need to counteract the damage done by your stress response. In this book, I will share with you the stories of many of the clients I have worked with for the last twenty years and how they were able to achieve optimal levels of health by understanding their body’s stress-response signals and how to manage them.
I am grateful to have the opportunity to share with you what I have worked on for many decades, and I hope from the bottom of my heart that this book helps you to live a healthier, happier and more productive life.
Bill Cortright
Miami,Florida
2009