Have you noticed when you are in the peak of a stressful (but productive) time that all the body functions that would distract you from your instantaneous success are shut off? 

In that moment, you’re superhuman – you don’t need food, water, sleep or movement. You are invincible! Your BFF Adrenaline has kicked in and you have strength and stamina and your performance was outstanding.

When You Are in the Zone, You Aren’t Distracted by a Rumbling Stomach or Even the Need to Pee.

When our body is programmed into flight mode, it shuts down the other systems and reroutes the energy. Your body was designed to prioritize running from a bear, over taking a #2 in the woods while running from a bear. Stopping likely didn’t mean survival. 

Are You Surviving or Thriving?

What stops when we are in survival mode is anything to do with healing, rest, and repair. The breaks have been put on sleep, hormone release, digestion and elimination. There is simply no time for those nice nourishing pieces of life, and no need when we are running from a bear. 

However, as humans currently we live in houses, drive cars, and encounter bears very rarely. 

Yet, the same signalling system gets turned on when we need to protect ourselves, when we are in pain, or when we are just so darn tired that the only way we can get through the day is to tap into our adrenaline overstock and hope for the best.

We are living in a world that has increasing demands of us – from our work, families and communities. These obligations and expectations drive us further and further into survival mode each day.

When I’m Stressed, Why Am I So Constipated!

It’s as simple as stress stops our bowels from getting a signal from the brain to empty. As soon as we relax, then our body is free to eliminate. The longer and more frequently we are halted in our elimination the more likely we are to experience bloating, reflux, constipation and in some cases diarrhea. 

A great example – after a really long and busy day, do you ever notice that you have to get up at night to go pee? Cortisol, when it is up-regulated, controls the salt and water balance as well as blood pressure. As soon as the body is no longer in danger, it lets this all go, bye-bye water.

I Just Need to Sleep (and Poop)…

If we had a dollar for every time we heard that comment, we wouldn’t be writing blogs.

Getting your body to slow down and rest can be more and more difficult as we push it into survival mode over and over again.  Each time, it’s easier to get the adrenaline going, and harder to stop it from flowing.

Here are four starting tips to stop the adrenaline cycle:

End Your Work Day at Dinner Time.

That means shut down your computer. Don’t check your phone for email, social media or anything. Call it quits! It’s incredibly easy just to pop off a few emails in commercial breaks, but if you are still working, you are still sending out fight-flight signals from your brain to your body.  Be so bold as to plug your phone in for the night in another room and forget about it.

Eat Dinner without Distraction. 

Easier said than done. This means no dinner time TV, podcast, phone scrolling or scarfing down food in the car. Make an effort to sit down at the table (no eating from the counter), taking a few deep breaths (and some bitters) before you start to consume your food. Use utensils, eat slowly and stop when you are nearly full. 

Take a Walk After Dinner. 

After dinner is not the time to hit the 9pm Zumba class, but it is the perfect time to go for a light walk around the neighbourhood. Walking helps our muscles send blood flow around the body, helps our digestion move and can be calming to the system. Training for a marathon – does not send our body the relaxation signal – that is very distinctly run from a bear.

Dim the Lights. 

Light in our eyes is a sign for our adrenal glands to start firing. Which explains why factories are so bright, and why we feel so tired when we come out of a movie matinee. Light affects our body’s production of serotonin, melatonin and cortisol. To get your body willing to rest, you need to get it to start making melatonin, so dimming the lights can be an easy way to get things moving in a direction to sleep. 

Want to know more about the role stress is playing in your life?

Download our Stress & Burnout scale and take the first step back into feeling like yourself again.

Research Resources

• Ishida, Atsushi, et al. “Light activates the adrenal gland: timing of gene expression and glucocorticoid release.” Cell metabolism 2.5 (2005): 297-307. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S155041310500269X

• Reynolds AN, Venn BJ. The Timing of Activity after Eating Affects the Glycaemic Response of Healthy Adults: A Randomised Controlled Trial. Nutrients. 2018 Nov 13;10(11):1743. doi: 10.3390/nu10111743. PMID: 30428521; PMCID: PMC6267507. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6267507/

• Sonnentag, Sabine. “The recovery paradox: Portraying the complex interplay between job stressors, lack of recovery, and poor well-being.” Research in Organizational Behavior 38 (2018): 169-185.