Stress Awareness Storytime

A little of my life of adrenaline addiction, sailing adventures, and how chronic stress derailed my health and life. I'm so grateful to my many teachers along this journey to recover my health. The gap of what I didn't know that I didn't know about health was huge!

Written by Melody Byblow, RHN, CMWA (recovered stress addict, healed Fibromylgia symptoms, now natural health coach)

Note: The following is an abbreviated true story based on highlights of actual events over a couple of decades. But maybe you can relate to being on a high adventure, excitement driven lifestyle with a work hard, play hard attitude.

Stress is something we all have, it's part of life. Most people don't really understand how stress impacts our bodies, our health, and our mental health. I think everyone has a general idea that too much stress can be a problem and can make us want to hide under the covers, hoping that things will lighten up. That's just the tip of the iceberg.

Until I personally experienced an overload of stress for decades too long and my health declined. Life was fun, and I worked hard. It never occurred to me that high levels of prolonged chronic stress was even an issue.

Did you know, that high levels of stress are an underlying factor in about 70% of doctor visits?

Doesn't everyone just work hard and play hard? In my line of work a couple of decades ago this was the norm. In hindsight, maybe that's why so few people lasted past the age of 40 in the ad industry.

My doctor told me only once that I should try to reduce stress after an incident that resulted in a serious injury, due to fainting. Here's what happened next.

I didn't know what I didn't know about stress and how it impacts our health.

I took this doctor's advice and I set out to find something that would be fun and relaxing after work or on weekends. A co-worker heard about a community sailing club at the outer harbor (I was living in Toronto at the time) so we decided to check it out.

We ventured down on an early April Saturday morning for their open house to explore. Sailing sounds like a casual fun thing to do, right?! Might be great exercise and a way to spend some time outdoors, I thought.

A club member volunteer, Mike, took us out on the lake in a small sailboat called an Albacore. The lake seemed calm, winds were light, the morning sun shone brightly in the clear blue sky, and the air was fresh and cool. Picture perfect for this Saturday's adventure.

All my focus was on the boat and Mike, and what seemed like an overwhelming number of moving parts. We listened intently for his next instructions: what ropes to pull or let go, when to move to the other side of the boat, sit on the edge, duck under the boom, lean out, and so on. Captain Mike was obviously very experienced and it didn't phase him that he had two blissfully ignorant sailing novices with him.

This trial sail got me hooked! We both signed up to learn how to sail and joined the volunteer-run community club. More fun was ahead with sailing lessons, group dinners, a racing program, and getting to know these amazing people who contributed their time to run all aspects of this rustic space and fleet of boats.

Learning how to sail as an adult isn't the easiest thing in the world, so I discovered. These boats capsize easily (and fast) when you don't know what you're doing. Adding to the experience, during early spring in Canada lake water is near freezing, and barely warms up through the summer. (Invest in a good wetsuit!) Twice a week lessons involved theory, instructions, and being out on the lake with old salts volunteers to teach us what they could, try not to capsize and practice sailing. Every night ended with a coordinated community dinner for about 40 people, and hanging out late into the evening. (Sleep was never a priority for me.)

Over the next few months I learned how to sail but not without several mishaps and dips in the cold lake. Learning to upright a capsized boat in frigid water is all part of the fun, right?! I was encouraged to participate in race nights as well, which were more exhilarating. Every race had many near collisions, and it was mesmerizing being out with experienced sailors, learning how to navigate the course and strategically maneuver to win. As crew, you had to be on the watch for weather (wind changes), other boats, and able to move quickly on a moment's notice. These folks were seriously competitive!

I fell in love with this community in no time and then volunteered for a role on the Board of Directors, adding more responsibility to my already busy schedule. I also loved being out on the lake as it was an escape from my stressful job and the congested Toronto rat race.

Was this a stress reducer or did it add more stress to my life?

What I didn't know about stress is what eventually took a toll on my health. Something I thought was just fun had many parts that added more stress. Just as there are various levels of intensity to just about anything if you think about it.

For a simple comparison, think of a variety of people deciding to take up exercise. It's going to mean something different for each of them. Doing a walk is drastically different from someone who starts training for a marathon. Taking a short casual bike ride around a park isn't the same as someone doing an intense 30Km ride. Along the entire exercise intensity spectrum people are generally under the impression that exercise is good for them, but may not be aware that the higher intensity level comes with added significant stress to the body. Physical endurance is good, but some of the intensity or risk in sports activity is going to produce more stress hormones.

The level of intensity when I was participating in a sailing race or running a post-regatta event for 250 people was keeping me in stress-mode much the same as my stressful job, driving in rush hour Toronto traffic, and more. I didn't understand the physical impact of this until years later after my holistic health education, that my lifestyle was producing as much of those stress hormones in the evening and weekends as my busy stressful day at work. There was no off switch.

Unintentionally, I was exacerbating my physiological stress response.

I loved this community and all the new people I was meeting as I'd moved to Toronto only a few years earlier. Being out on the water sailing, learning new skills, and feeling like I was at a cottage at the lake was awesome. But, it was also feeding into my adrenaline addicted mind-set looking for the next rush of excitement. No wonder I loved the sailing race program.

What's more, I didn't know my increasing physical symptoms of pain, headaches, difficulty sleeping and more, had anything to do with an overload of chronic stress response.

I kept this pace up for a few years until physical pain issues were just too overwhelming and I couldn't sail anymore. My doctor blamed all this pain on my spine, a history of scoliosis. She said, "You'll just have to live with it. Here's some painkillers", and sent me on my way.

All the symptoms progressively got worse. I was taking more pain killers each day like they were candy (no idea I was destroying my gut health in the process too). My work responsibilities intensified, the business had a high stress culture already. Plus I was in a relationship with a guy who was in denial of his bipolar mental health issue... it all added to my stress load.

It felt like I was 80 years old at times and I could barely get through the day anymore, and I was only in my mid-thirties.

My relationship eventually imploded and we split up. Selling a co-owned home in the midst of renovations added considerable stress to an already brutal situation.

I found some temporary relief from chiropractic and massage treatments a couple of times a week, but everything continued to worsen. What seemed like relentless pain and fatigue, I was getting really scared I was dying. I was praying for answers and I received an intuitive message to look into nutrition. And so I did.

I started my education in holistic health and nutrition in 2008 at the Canadian School of Natural Nutrition (CSNN). Initially I was intrigued by the mind-body-spirit perspectives and that I could do it part time and still work. I had no idea where I'd find the energy to do this but I was determined to figure things out.

It's been the most riveting, eye-opening journey of learning how human bodies actually work in contrast to conventional medicine's "mask the symptoms" approach.

It was the first time I'd heard the term "root cause" approach for health and healing. Essentially it's figuring out what's contributing to the health issues and disease, removing it, then nourishing the body and mindset back to health. This is the simplest way I can explain the mountain of knowledge I've gained and how I regenerated my health in a few very short years. (Note: I eventually figured out I had fibromyalgia, doctor confirmed but still of no help.)

Cleaning up my diet helped immensely, and brought my pain levels down by about half. I started sleeping better. I also lost about 25 pounds easily and it's stayed off. Brain fog was lifting as I slowed down on the pain killers in the first few months. I still had more to learn though.

One of the next most important things was to understand what stress really is. How the body's nervous and endocrine systems are involved, the cascade of hormones and the stress response. Most importantly, to truly understand what the body considers stress and how it turns on defense mechanisms instantly. A scary thought can produce the same level of chemical stress response as actually being chased by a bear.

In more advanced studies I learned that some people have a dysregulated nervous system, like it's stuck "on" from chronic stress. Genetic predispositions, what we eat, our environments, and our sleep habits also play a role in how well the body responds to stress.

I became keenly aware of the concept of toxic workplace stress and cultures. It's why I became interested in workplace wellness training and consulting, and became a Stressmaster Associate, to learn from the best psychologist expert on Stress how to reduce and eliminate stress.

A lot of high stress in the workplace is a result of inappropriate workaholic patterns being expected and rewarded. On top of that there's often little done about workplace bullying and other bad behavior, which seems to be an evolution of schoolyard antics. In 2013 it was estimated that stress was costing businesses $300 Billion annually in the United States alone.

Today's world is far more stressful than things were then. Chronic stress hardly seems enough anymore to describe what many are experiencing today. It's no wonder rates of chronic degenerative diseases have been skyrocketing the past couple of decades.

It's also why there's been an explosion in stress relief activities and research. I know my stress relief toolkit became multiple things, such as mindfulness, breathwork, meditation, and essential oils, and yoga, to name a few.

Workplace wellness employee support initiatives have been slowly increasing, more so in the US than in Canada, where the employers bear more directly the costs of healthcare. There's still lot to do to address root causes of stress and work on reducing it.

Chronic stress is everyone's issue as it impacts our workplaces, our lives, families at home, and our health. It's long overdue that awareness about stress became mainstream news and everyone have the opportunity to learn better skills and have tools to help reduce stress.

I could write for days on this topic, but I'll wrap it up here for now. There's much more to share and I will write more soon to share other insights on stress and what we can do about it.

I'll be offering some webinars in April on understanding stress and strategies to reduce it. If you want to learn more be sure to follow me so you'll be notified when these are scheduled. Your life and health, your business or job, and your future depends on learning what stress really is and how to reduce stress in your life to optimize your health.

This might be the most valuable learning you'll find about protecting your health and reversing disease that's practical and easy to do.

Until then, get some fresh air. Let the sun shine on your face. And breathe.