Relax! First step to a healthier existence
For each pillar, I have set out five interventions, summarised in the table on page 21, for you to cut out and keep. The idea is to create balance across the pillars – it is not about perfection in each individual one.
There’s a reason I’m starting with the “relax” pillar: it’s the one that most often gets ignored on every other day of the year. Most of my patients wake up fully stressed, rush to get the kids ready, do the school run, then juggle demanding jobs with caring for family members at home. From the moment they open their eyes, it’s all go, go, go. Then, when their kids are finally in bed, they’re straight into their emails or social media. At no point in the day are they just chilling out, or even alone.
This lack of routine switch-off time could hardly be more critical for our health. Five years ago, I was convinced that the root cause of most of the complaints I saw in my practice was poor diet. Now I’m convinced that it’s stress. You may not be able to kick back every day like you can today but, doctor’s orders: if you want to lose weight, sleep better and improve your energy and ability to cope with life, then first make relaxation a daily priority.
Stress and your body
Cortisol, one of our principal stress-response hormones, works by activating our sympathetic nervous system. This is our fight-or-flight response. Contrary to popular belief, stress isn’t necessarily bad for us – an onrush primes our minds and bodies to tackle a sudden problem head-on – but we’re designed to experience it in short bursts.
What I’m seeing in my practice is that people are living in fight-or-flight mode. They’re spending their days with their cortisol levels continuously ramped right up, and their sympathetic nervous systems activated. They’re not being attacked by a lion, they’re being attacked by their life.
Our bodies respond by going into emergency mode and diverting resources to the processes most necessary for survival. To take just one example, digestion switches off, which in the long term can lead to weight gain and sleep disruption and puts our immune system into a heightened peak state we call “inflammation”.
Chronic inflammation underpins pretty much every single degenerative disease that we have, including heart attacks, strokes and even Alzheimer’s disease. A 2016 paper published by researchers at King’s College London showed a remarkable link between inflammation and depression. And I’ve successfully treated menopausal difficulties and helped bad cases of Crohn’s disease by helping patients normalise their cortisol levels.
Rest and relaxation activate the parasympathetic branch of our