Ep. 96: Ashley James — How to Effectively Lower Stress and Manage Anxiety
This is a topic that’s gotten a lot more attention in recent years. For some reason it was quite controversial for a long time to suggest that what we put in our mouths could affect our minds and spirits, and could contribute to conditions like anxiety and depression. But now that the research studies are being done, we’re starting to realize how important diet can be—not just for our physical health, but for our overall well-being.
We also talked a lot about the body’s stress response and the release of cortisol through the HPA axis, and of adrenaline through our sympathetic nervous system (our body’s fight-or-flight stress system). And in the second half of our discussion, Ashley offers a simple technique that can lower anxiety and turn down the stress response. Other topics we explored included:
- The many chronic conditions Ashley recovered from
- Taking responsibility for our own health
- The tendency to move toward what we’re focused on, even if it’s what we don’t want
- Dr. Peter D’adamo’s bestselling book Eat Right for Your Blood Type (affiliate link)
- The premise of eating in line with our genetic history
- What adrenal fatigue is
- The three phases of the stress response: Alarm, Resistance, Exhaustion
- The benefits Ashley found from eating all organic food
- How we often beat ourselves up for our health struggles
- The body’s ability to heal itself, given the right conditions
- What triggers anxiety
- The role of diet in anxiety
- The focus of anxiety on what we don’t want to happen in the future
- The importance of magnesium for healthy physiological processes
- A cognitive technique for lowering anxiety
- Focusing on what we want vs. what we don’t want
- How we’re not fully ourselves in stress mode
- How the body diverts resources for survival in times of stress
- The possible danger in trying to get rid of anxiety
- What to do if anxiety reduction techniques don’t work
Ashley James is a master practitioner and trainer of neurolinguistics programming (NLP), and also practices time line therapy, hypnosis, and coaching.
As a reiki master, she has taught healers how to incorporate energy work into their practice.
Ashley hosts the Learn True Health podcast, which connects listeners with experts, naturopaths, and holistic health practitioners.
Find Ashley online at the Live True Health website and join her group on Facebook.
I enjoyed this episode and intend to practice the anxiety technique included. I was curious though, Ashley said that anxiety only comes from future events and we cannot feel fear about the past or something that has happened. I do not understand how this fits with our understanding of PTSD though? I wonder if someone could explain? I wouldn’t dare make this statement to a client as inevitably someone will ask me about PTSD!
It’s a great question, Louise, and sorry for my slow reply (I’ve been away). I probably wouldn’t be quite as black-or-white about anxiety as her statement suggested, since a person might feel anxiety, for example, as they think back on a social interaction and wonder if the other person thought they sounded like an idiot. There may be no feared future outcome, just the distress of imagining the other person’s (past) judgment.
With trauma it can be a similar process, although some might argue that recalling a trauma activates the stress response, not anxiety in the proper sense since there’s no distress about an uncertain outcome. That said, there can certainly be anxiety about trauma-related outcomes in the future, such as worrying that an assailant is going to return, or that I’ll never feel peace again, or that thinking about the trauma is going to make me “go crazy.”
In the end I think it’s an interesting point to think about and discuss, but I aim to avoid saying things in session that are going to lead to probably unproductive debates about terminology. I would want to focus instead on the person’s experience, which it sounds like is your approach, too. Thanks for listening and for your question.