The Key to Managing Stress & Healing Your Mind | Dr. Nicole LePera EP 362

0:00Hi, my name is Lewis Howes and welcome to the Daily Motivation Show.

0:10Calling all conscious achievers who are seeking more community and connection, I've got an invitation for you. Join me at this year's Summit of Greatness this September 7th through 9th in my hometown of Columbus, Ohio to unleash your true greatness. This is the one time a year that I gather the greatness community together in person for a powerful, transformative weekend. People come from all over the world and you can expect to hear from inspiring speakers like Inky Johnson, Jospree Singh, Vanessa Van Edwards, Jen Sincero, and many more. You'll also be able to dance your heart out to live music, get your body moving with group workouts, and connect with others at our evening socials.

0:53So if you're ready to learn, heal, and grow alongside other incredible individuals in the greatness community, then you can learn more at lewishouse.com slash summit 2023. Make sure to grab your ticket, invite your friends, and I'll see you there.

1:14Do you think a depressive state comes from an obsessive thought process? Like the more you think and ruminate on, I'm not enough. I never have this, I suck, I'm not worthy, I'm not deserving, the more I ruminate on it for longer and longer, is that what's going to put me in that state of being? It's one of the factors. It's not the only. The issue with depression and anxiety and a lot of the things that we're diagnosed with, myself included, is that they're messengers of something deeper. So typically with depression, there might and likely is something physiological also at play. There could be some gut issues that are causing inflammation.

1:52That is causing actual inflammation in the brain and causing those symptoms of depression. There might be some nervous system activation, getting stuck in our parasympathetic, in particular, nervous system that results in that hypo energetic arousal when I have no energy, I have no interest. So typically it's thoughts and the physiology that then maps on to thinking those thoughts for a very long time. I'm though my point of working holistically is to acknowledge the whole story because I'm sure even a lot of listeners right now might have tried an affirmation, tried to think a positive thought and not actually been able to create change because likely they are again living in a state of physiological dysregulation.

2:36Right. But it's kind of like you have to have a holistic approach to what is the root, what's causing me to feel this overwhelmed stress or depression. Right. And it's beautiful that you're using the word stress and very astute because stress is insidious in our culture. And it causes not only psychological, but a whole range of physical health symptoms and ultimately diagnoses. Stress is really problematic. And unfortunately, many of us as even adults are experiencing increasing amounts of stress. And in my opinion, having very limited coping tools or resources to deal with that stress. So our bodies are simplest, like really simply very much stuck in an overstressed, overwhelmed state.

3:17That's, again, making change and transformation incredibly difficult. What are the best coping strategies to help us get out of stress and into more peaceful, calm states? We have the access to the most powerful regulator of stress through our breath. If we can learn two things, first to be just present to or a witness around our body's just regular breathing patterns. As simple as this sounds, the way our body breathes, if we can cultivate a very full, deep breath, very calming breath, chances are our body in that moment is in that state of relaxation, is receptive to the world around, is feeling safe to express.

4:00the large majority of us aren't aren't breathing in that very calm rhythmic way most of us have evolved become chest-based very shallow breathers and the reason why I even just talk about our natural rhythm is because our mind is constantly scanning our body and its processes breathing in particular because for our mind that's a marker of how aroused we are how stressed our body is So what I noticed when I dropped into my body was that I always breathe very shallow from my chest. And at times I would stop breathing. And that correlated with stress. The more stressed I am, the more I'm actually holding my breath throughout the day.

4:39So just that simple act of witnessing to me showed evidence of, wow, Nicole, your body is stressed out. And the reason why listeners who might struggle with anxiety or panic, as I once did, why this is problematic is because, like I said, our mind is scanning down and it's going to begin to then think stressful thoughts. It's going to scan the environment for what's wrong. And as we all know, we're very good at identifying what's wrong in that moment. And then before we know it, the reason why I offer this is now we're caught in a loop because now I'm thinking stressful thoughts, further activating my body.

5:13So dropping in, noticing our body's natural rhythms can give us some clues as to how activated we are. And then, of course, the next action step we can take if you're living in an over activated nervous system as I am, is to begin to harness intentional breathing. Beginning to either direct my breath down into my belly if I am in that shallow, stressed out, activated state. Or if you're like I described earlier, having no energy, almost feel like you're not here energetically. We actually want to cultivate that chest-based tool of breath work to activate our system, to actually up our energy into our system.

5:50So we can use breath work in either direction to control our body's responses. And while this is great for the body and why I talk about it is it can build body balance back in as many of us need it. It's also so empowering. Now, right, through an intention, through doing something differently, I can actually create change. And I speak as someone who did suffer from debilitating anxiety and panic attacks. And I know how overwhelming and out of control that can feel. So I mentioned that last piece of empowerment for all of those suffering with anxiety out there because that can be the steps back to actually creating change and saying, hey, wait, I can control my body and my body doesn't have to control me when it hits that peak of panic.

6:49Thank you so much for listening to today's episode of The Daily Motivation, and I hope you have an amazing rest of your day. If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to click the link in the description. That will take you to the full episode of our main podcast on The School of Greatness. And if you are loving the daily motivation, please follow us over on Apple Podcasts and Spotify and leave us a review over on Apple Podcasts right now. And if you want more exclusive content and ad-free listening experience, make sure to subscribe to our Greatness Plus channel on Apple Podcasts right now. And if you want to get even more inspiration from our world-class guests and learn how to improve your life and take it to the next level, then make sure to sign up for the Greatness newsletter and get it delivered right to your inbox over at greatness.com slash newsletter.

7:40Again, have an amazing day, and I'll see you tomorrow with another episode of the Daily Motivation Show.

7:56Thank you.