Miss Lori Go Red BetterU Week 8: Down with stress, up with life

This Summer I am serving as the Ambassador for the American Heart Association’s Go Red For Women BetterU Program. It’s a 12 week program designed to help U be Better, especially where your heart is concerned. Week 8 is all about blood pressure and keeping it normal. Now I am a lucky person, I know, because I have always had very even, very normal blood pressure. 110 over 80. That’s what it has been for as long as I can remember. And that is within the recommended guidelines.

Optimal = below 120/80 mmHg

Prehypertension = 120-139/ 80-89 mmHg

Elevated = 140/ 90 mmHg or higher

I know that because I know my numbers. (Which is the first step towards being better.) Now even though I have never experienced a problem, I might be playing Russian roulette here. How will I know? Well I have to rate my risk. Your risk for high blood pressure is calculated by several factors- some that you can control and others that you can’t.

The uncontrollable factors are things such as…

Race

Heredity

Age

But the controllable factors are…

Drinking too much alcohol

Eating too much salt

Lack of physical activity

Obesity

Stress

As an adopted person I don’t know a lot about my genetic history but that is an uncontrollable factor anyway. IE nothing I can do really about it but be aware. But the controllable factors, that’s a different story. I don’t drink a lot of alcohol. (Though I am partial to Sangria and Australian red wine.) I don’t get out much, and I much prefer water, so for that point I’m good. Salt is a taste I like, but too much of it leaves me feeling dehydrated, which makes it hard for me to sing. So I have always been careful about my intake. (Point two scratched off.) My physical activity varies, but since starting this program I have been much more active. Of course it helps that I have over 60 concerts to do this summer. That keeps me grooving. (Point three done, or in progress). With the increase in my physical activity I am actively working on decreasing my BMI and getting out of the Obesity category. (Point 4 on track.) But then we have point number five, that evil 6 letter word…STRESS! Now here is where I really get into trouble. You see I carry boat loads of stress every day. I’m carrying it on my middle and my thighs and my back…side. Oh yes. I’m sure you have heard of cortisol. Lots of studies indicate that we may be fat because we have too much stress which produces too much cortisol. I’m no scientist, but I do agree with one thing, stress makes you gain and retain weight. How? Well given that I went to theatre school and not medical school I can’t tell you in precise terms, but here’s the logic that I have internalized. The more stress I experience, the less sleep I get. The more sleep deprived I become, the less heated up my metabolism gets. The more sluggish my metabolism becomes the less food I will be able to convert to energy. The less food I convert to energy the more weight I gain and retain. It’s a very vicious cycle, one I can’t seem to dig myself out of without the advent of additional hours in a day. Or can I?

For literal years I have hidden behind the notion that I simply can’t de-stress because there just aren’t enough hours in a day for me to get all the things done that I need to do to run my home and my business…by myself. And though it is true that I have a ridiculously long “to do” list, and  I do feel behind most days, that doesn’t mean that I have to drown in the stress. I don’t . No honestly, I don’t. First you must believe! That’s what I have been doing, working on believing. So here’s what I have been doing to achieve that. First of all I am watching less TV. (My poor DVR is bulging at the seams let me tell you.) If I come up to my bedroom after 9:30 or so I try not to turn on the TV. Why? Well because when I turn on the TV I also turn on my brain. No I’m serious. I can actually feel it. I can only fall asleep with the TV on if my kids are in my bed with me and watching one of their shows or movies. One I’m not interested in their shows-well, most of the time. And two it’s like having three live cuddly teddy bears in bed with me. Very comforting. Now I still turn on the computer because I have yet to figure out how to get all of my correspondence done in the daylight hours. But I shut it down completely now and push it away from the bed while I sleep. Now that’s an improvement!

So that’s the first thing that I am doing. Next I am working on letting things go. Now this is huge. For the first half of my life I held things with clenched fists and clenched teeth. Great for good memories, not so great for the bad ones. I have had such a hard time putting out of my mind the indignities I have suffered personally and professionally over the years. They have replayed in my mind over and over again like a bad TV movie of the week. No one else had to harm me because I was doing such a good job of it all by myself. I was a prisoner of my own mind. But watching my children pick up the same horrible habit has been the worst punishment of all. Which is why I am compelled to live a different way. And boy did that put me to the test these days, as I have had some pretty tangled situations this past year which have given me a serious run for my emotional money. I have had a whole host of traumas to cycle over and over in my head. Anger to brew, and resentment to simmer. And yet I haven’t. Well, at least not all of time. Well, not most of the time. (That is so not grammatically correct sorry. But you get my drift). I have been working as hard as I have ever worked on not being angry, hurt or resentful. Now I am human, so of course I am feeling stuff, but I really see my choices clearer these days. I can choose to get lost in hurt and anger, or I can choose to use that energy toward changing my situation, improving my odds and strengthening my future. Hmmm some choice huh? Really shouldn’t have to think about that long and hard should I? It helps that I have such an AWESOME career with beautiful smiling children influencing my mood almost daily in an extremely positive way.

By the way, I read in a magazine this week that it is a great help to write down your emotions. Now I journal sometimes. Especially at night when my emotions get in the way of my sleep. But this magazine said that writing down the word to describe your actual emotion can really help you move past it quicker. Like, “I am “MAD. I am SAD. I am FRUSTRATED. I am SCARED.” I realize that even in my journaling I have never identified my feelings quite so plainly. So that’s what I am going to try and do now. Identify my emotions plainly and see where that gets me. Hopefully it gets me less stressed. I’ll let you know how I do. Why don’t you try it too and we can compare notes.

Okay, so that was a long step, but an important one. What else am I doing to de-stress and maintain a normal blood pressure? Well, my food. I have a love of popcorn. (Well, truthfully I have a popcorn addiction, but there isn’t a 12 step program for it… yet.) The problem is I associate popcorn with relaxation. The process of eating it is very therapeutic. Well, it may seem to be so to my brain, but having a big bowl of popcorn at night is not very therapeutic for my waistline. Why? Because it’s a carb ladies and gentleman! If you eat a large helping of carbs you should be ready to burn it off with some activity. Eating it at night the only thing you are going to burn is the midnight oil, not those calories. As such the carbs will turn to fat and in the process they will also disrupt my sleep, which gives me even more weight. Ahhrgg! So now I limit my pre-bedtime eating to protein and calcium. Even better, sometimes I just talk myself out of eating altogether. It’s a battle, but I feel quite accomplished in the end if I manage to resist. Feeling good is a great de-stresser. If you have a good day, accomplish a task whittle down your “to do” list, all of that makes you feel better. And when you feel better you sleep better. Even if you only get the same amount of hours as before that is okay because the sleep you are getting is deeper and more satisfying.

The best thing about my having success with all of these other steps is that they help me with my fourth step which to some degree is the most important one of them all. If I am feeling good, well rested and full of healthy food I have more energy to workout and if I have more energy to be active then I will bring down my stress level even more and, say it with me, keeping my blood pressure within normal limits. Woo Hoo!

Now I encourage you to take a journey of your own. Log onto the BetterU program and sign up today. You’ve been watching me do it long enough. It’s your turn to find a BetterU!

SMILE On!

ML

This is a Level 2 post, Miss Lori is a Go Red BetterU Program Ambassador for the Summer of 2010

Miss Lori can be found Musing from her Minivan at MissLori.TV , Wearetherealdeal.com , YoungChicagonista , and ChicagoMomsBlog. She is also the new Chicago Family Entertainment Blogger for Examiner.com and a Discussion Leader for MomsLikeMeChicago. You can also see her Activating to Be Great at Miss Lori’s CAMPUS on Youtube, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.