I would bet that everyone has gone through unusual emotional and mental challenges these past couple of years. This can certainly impact all aspects of your health. Today’s guest explains how to overcome stress so that you can start to feel your best.

About Ashley Lilburn

When Ashley’s daughter was young, she was chronically ill. By age five she was becoming antibiotic-resistant. Ashley was scared, tired, and felt like she had tried everything the doctors asked of her. She began a deep dive into what she could do to help her daughter.

After researching, she made some pretty serious dietary changes for her family. Her daughter has not needed medical intervention for illness since. That was three years ago. Ashley was totally mesmerized. Can things we have control over really have THAT big of an impact on our health?! Yes, yes they can!

Ashley wanted to share with others, so she enrolled in graduate school at UNTHSC and received a Master’s in Lifestyle Health Sciences. (She has a Bachelor's in Psychology from TCU.)

Now, she gets to help individuals create and execute strategies to meet their health and wellness goals! She LOVES what she does; her clients, and witnessing people’s journey to better health. It’s one of the great joys of her life.

The Many Health Implications of Stress

Throughout this chat, Ashley explains just what stress is and how it impacts your health. Everyone experiences stress differently, but there will almost always be physiological impacts. This shows up as a wide range of illnesses.

Furthermore, people have also been experiencing stress differently since it has been so chronic over the past two years. When stress is unrelenting, its effects on the body can be profound.

When someone’s levels of stress spillover, there will be physical impacts. Ashley describes how she’s seen this show up in numerous ways, such as food allergies, skin sensitivities, mast cell activation, and even heart issues.

Reclaiming Your Health by Addressing Overwhelm

Ashely feels that the key to rebuilding resilience relies on understanding the connectedness of all your systems. Long-lasting healing won’t occur if you are treating the body but ignoring the brain and emotions.

In addition to medicine and supplements when needed, Ashley wants us to make needed lifestyle changes. Often, by creating new patterns in our minds so our bodies can learn to downregulate. Then, you’ll be better able to manage stressors and their effects when they occur.

A key part of this is realizing that you have choices about how you prioritize your time. We often get trapped into thinking that we’re too busy for basic self-care. Ashley wants us to, without judgment, reprioritize our wellbeing for long-lasting health.

Have you noticed new forms of stress impacting your health these past couple of years? Leave a comment on the episode page!

In This Episode

What inspired Ashely to help others on their health journeys [4:00]
What stress actually is when it impacts your health [8:30]
How the pandemic has impacted everyone’s stress levels [11:15]
The physical ramifications of chronic stress [21:15]
Making choices in order to regain control of your time ad reduce overwhelm [30:10]
Why mindfulness is at the foundation of stress-management [41:45]

Quotes

“If you add the base-layer of constant stress and constant fear to a whole population, the baseline of stress just on a physiological level from cortisol changes. That shows up presenting in all kinds of physical illnesses.” [10:20]

“What we want to be seeing is stress-resilience. We’re all going to experience stress. It’s that when we experience stress and we can’t come back to a homeostasis point, that’s how you know there’s an imbalance.” [22:20]

“We start with mindfulness because, without awareness, there’s no change.” [41:58]

Review Fed and Fearless on Apple Podcasts! Send a screenshot of your review to hello@lauraschoenfeldrd.com or send me a DM on Instagram and I’ll send you my Overcoming Undereating eBook. If you post your favorite episode in your Insta stories and tag me @LauraShoenfeldRD, I’ll also send you my 14-Day Calorie Challenge Recipe Guide!

Links

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