BITESIZE | The Truth About Stress: How to Reduce Overwhelm & Feel Calmer Every Day | Dr Rangan Chatterjee #682
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What is stress and why does it matter for health and happiness?
Today's Bite Size episode is sponsored by Thrive, the longevity supplement from Heights that I have been taking daily for the last six months to help me with vitality, cellular energy, and longevity. Now, there's a lot of noise in the supplement space, and it can be confusing to know exactly what to take. Before I start taking something, I do my own due diligence. And for this one, I had a wonderful, enlightening conversation with the research team at Heights. You see, in our bodies, we have something called NAD, which helps to support our cells mitochondria in producing the energy our bodies needs. But with age, our NAD levels start to deplete. Thrive helps resupply your cells by combining NR, a clinically validated NAD booster, alongside coenzyme Q10, copper and resveratrol.
to provide a powerful combination designed to keep your cells thriving. If you want to give Thrive a go, Heights are offering my listeners 20% off their first month at www.heights.com forward slash live more when you use the code live more 20. Welcome to Feel Better, Live More Bite Size, your weekly dose of inspiration, insights, and practical ideas to help you live well and thrive. Today's Bite Size is from episode 607 of the podcast, which was a solo episode that I recorded all about stress. While some stress, of course, is a natural part of life, if it starts to accumulate, it can have negative consequences for our health and happiness. I share why what I call micro-stress doses, or MSDs, can build up and impact our lives, and I also share some simple strategies that can help you de-stress and reset your day.
Now here's the big problem in the modern world. Today, for many of us, dare I say most of us, our stressed response is not being activated by wild predators, it's being activated by the state of our daily lives. Email inboxes, to-do lists, elderly parents we're trying to care for at the same time as looking after our own young children, and the list goes on. 80 to 90% of what a doctor sees in any given day these days is in some way related to stress. And when I explain to you what the stress response is, I think you will very clearly see how chronic stress impacts every single organ system of the body. Okay, so what is stress? Well, the best way to think about this is that stress is literally there to keep you safe.
The stress response gets activated when it thinks you're in danger. So let's go back in time, maybe 50 or 100,000 years ago, and let's imagine we're just getting on with our day. We're hunter-gatherers, we're in a small tribe, and then let's say you notice out of the corner of your eye a predator, approaching the camp. In an instant, your stress response gets activated and all kinds of things start to happen in your body to help keep you safe. Let me give you a few examples. Your blood glucose starts to go up so that more sugar can get delivered to your brain. Your blood pressure starts to go up, which helps more oxygen get delivered to your brain, which again is gonna help you in an emergency situation.
Your amygdala, the emotional part of your brain goes onto high alert.
How does the ancient ‘fight‑or‑flight’ response work in our bodies?
So you're suddenly hypervigilant. This is really, really helpful if you're trying to detect other threats that might be coming at that same time. Your blood, becomes more prone to clotting. So if you were to get attacked by a predator, instead of bleeding to death, the fact that your blood is going to clot quickly is something that could potentially save your life. Okay, so I've just mentioned four things there. Now, here's the big problem. For many of us, it's the state of our daily lives that is causing our stress response system to get activated. And so those things that help you in the short term start to become harmful in the long term. So let's just go through those four things that I mentioned and see how that plays out.
Well, blood glucose going up for a short period of time to help you run away from a tiger, super useful. If that's happening day in, day out to the state of your life, well, that causes fatigue.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What is stress and why does it matter for health and happiness?
0:00–4:04
2
How does the ancient ‘fight‑or‑flight’ response work in our bodies?
4:04–6:51
3
What are micro‑stress doses (MSDs) and how do they accumulate each morning?
6:51–9:32
4
Why do early‑day micro‑stress doses push us toward our stress threshold?
9:32–12:22
5
What simple morning‑routine changes can stop the build‑up of stress doses?
12:22–15:00
6
How can a quick breathing technique reset the nervous system?
15:00–18:14
7
What is the 3‑4‑5 breath and how does it help lower stress quickly?
18:14–21:05
8
How can short pauses and breath work throughout the day keep stress in check?
21:05–26:18
Speakers
1 identifiedMore from Feel Better, Live More with Dr Rangan Chatterjee
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