Cultivating Resilience
Do you feel like everything you eat affects you negatively or causes symptoms? Do you feel stressed out and easily irritated? Do you feel like if you stay out late once or veer off of your healthy plan, you pay for it for a week?
If so, you might feel like your body lacks resilience, or the strong baseline it needs to make it through the day. Whenever we think of cultivating resilience we usually think of someone being resilient or strong in spirit. Resilience, however, can also be seen as a physiological trait. A basic definition of resilience is the ability to accommodate change. This post explores resilience and how we can begin to cultivate resilience physiologically.
Cultivating Resilience
Do you feel like everything you eat affects you negatively or causes symptoms? Do you feel stressed out and easily irritated? Do you feel like if you stay out late once or veer off of your healthy plan, you pay for it for a week?
If so, you might feel like your body lacks resilience, or the strong baseline it needs to make it through the day. Whenever we think of the term resilience we usually think of someone being resilient or strong in spirit. When we say someone is resilient we usually mean that they remain strong in the face of adversity and are able to withstand life’s challenges.
Resilience, however, can also be seen as a physiological trait.
A basic definition of resilience is the ability to accommodate change. This can be change in our lives, families, communities or change in our bodies and organ systems. Resilience can further be defined as the physiological response to change as mediated by the nervous system, endocrine system, and immune system.
At a recent event I went to Dr. Jeffery Bland, the founder of The Institute of Functional Medicine, gave the example of a hummingbird to illustrate this concept of physiological resilience. When you look at the hummingbird it appears stationary, but when it’s slowed down you can see all of the hard work that’s going into keeping that bird in one place!
That’s an example of what’s going in in our body to keep us at homeostasis or a healthy baseline. As Dr. Bland illustrated with the hummingbird analogy, there are a number of different stressors that can influence our ability to stay at a healthy baseline. These can be stressors such as nutrient deficiencies from a suboptimal diet, our environment, daily stressors like a busy schedule or work deadlines, lack of sleep, relationships and support systems etc.
Whenever we have symptoms, feel out or balance or have a diagnosis of disease in our current medical system we look for ways to get rid of the disease. To eradicate the symptoms. If we have chronic sinus infections, we want to kill the bacteria. If we have autoimmune disease, we want to shut off an overactive immune system. While this approach is sometimes necessary, if we don’t also address the reason why we got the sinus infection or the autoimmune disease in the first place and work to build resilience in the body and inner terrain, we won’t actually get to the root of the problem.
If we take biologic medications to control the immune system or antibiotics to treat the sinus infections but we don’t work on proper nutrition, hydration, sleep, stress management and taking care of the body, it’s difficult to build that thick baseline for the body to be able to handle change and daily stressors of life and avoid recurrence of disease or symptoms.
So, how do we begin to cultivate this resilience?
Whenever I work with clients we put a lot of focus and attention on the critical importance of strengthening your baseline so you can eat a more diverse array of foods that don’t send you into a flare-up, work a full today without feeling like you’re totally exhausted at the end, and move your body and exercise without feeling like you have to recover for days afterward. If we try to move forward without first establishing a strong baseline, it’s a whole lot harder to achieve sustainable outcomes.
I’ve seen many clients attempt to skip over these pieces or think they’ve already done them only to find themselves stuck in a cycle of being “on or off the wagon” still feeling so up and down with their health after many years. Once we go through, step-by-step, the ways to create a strong, resilient baseline for that specific person, clients instantly see the puzzle pieces that were missing for years.
Cultivating resilience means that we work through the foundations of giving the body the proper nutrition and hydration it needs, work on how the body is absorbing and utilizing those nutrients through supporting gut health, and tone the nervous system by reducing and managing stress. We also work on mindset, who you are as the person eating the food and moving through your day, and give you all of the tools you need to feel strong, resilient, and less reactive to this wild ride that is life!
What a relief.
Watch the video below to learn more about cultivating resilience and leave a comment to let me know your thoughts on looking at resilience through this lens!
PREFER TO LISTEN? TUNE INTO THE LIVE WELL PODCAST BELOW (AND DON'T FORGET TO SUBSCRIBE SO YOU'LL NEVER MISS OUT!)
Click here to listen in iTunes
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If we haven't met before, I'm Christina Tidwell and I'm so excited that you're here! I am a RN & Functional Nutrition Practitioner that helps those with autoimmune disease, hormone imbalance and gut issues heal without overwhelm so you can feel better in your body in a way that honors your unique needs and feels sustainable for the rest of your life.
If you suffer from:
Fatigue and energy crashes
Brain fog
Poor digestion
Painful periods and PMS
Symptoms of autoimmunity
Stress and overwhelm
...and aren't getting the support you need, I’m here to help guide you! My job is to clear the overwhelm, help you put the pieces of the puzzle together and co-create a sustainable path forward to help you reach your goals and feel better in your amazing body. When we work together you can’t fail.
In my health & nutrition coaching programs I support you in the quest to get back into balance by listening to your story, understanding your needs, getting to the roots of imbalance in the body and co-creating a sustainable path to healing together. These sessions weave together functional nutrition and science, lived experience, mindset shifts, and intuitive guidance for a unique and full-spectrum approach to nutrition counseling and holistic health.
I always offer free 20-minute discovery sessions to get clear on your major health concerns and identify what’s standing in your way. Click the button below to set up your free consultation and we can create a plan of action specifically for you.
Heal vs. Ideal
This post shares how we have to go through the "heal" to get to the "ideal." If we feel like "heal" is where we are going to be forever and we don't like it, we bust through it and don't spend enough time there in order to allow our tissues, immune systems, and selves time to truly heal in the way that’s needed. I hope this concept of "heal vs. ideal" will help put the health choices we make into perspective.
Heal vs. Ideal
When we're dealing with health issues we might find ourselves doing things like elimination diets, avoiding alcohol, going to bed early, etc.
We start to make these changes and then might begin to think, "Oh man this sucks! If I have to live like this forever it's not worth it!" This may then lead us to abandon all of the practices we were doing simply because we don't want to live a life of "restriction" forever.
And then we find ourselves back at square one with all of our symptoms still there, trying to find a more sustainable way to be healthy.
Have you ever felt this before? It can be so frustrating! And a cycle I see many of my clients get stuck in.
I worked with a client who had Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA) who was finding that intense exercise was causing her to flare-up and have more pain. She knew she had to reduce exercise, but it felt really challenging because being active and outdoors was a big part of her identity.
Instead of taking a break from strenuous exercise, she kept pushing through her pain because she wanted to keep living her life which is something we can all relate to. What she was noticing was her pain was getting worse and worse.
In our work together we spoke about this concept of "heal vs. ideal" to help put the health choices we make into perspective.
For my client, the "ideal" place of where she wanted to be and how she wanted to live was being able to hike and do more strenuous outdoor activities. This "ideal" place is really about where we want to be which might include eating many diverse foods, being able to have a cocktail when you feel like it, exercising how you want to, etc.
What I want to highlight is that we have to go through the "heal" to get to the "ideal." If we feel like "heal" is where we are going to be forever and we don't like it, we bust through it and don't spend enough time there in order to allow our tissues, immune systems, and selves time to truly heal in the way they need.
When I work with clients in 1:1 coaching we move through the "heal" place effectively and with guidance so you can move more quickly towards the ideal - where you ultimately want to be.
To learn more about this concept watch the video below or tune into the latest episode of The Live Well Podcast!
If you are looking for support to break the cycle of feeling “on or off the wagon” and finally find more ease and sustainability in your life, I can help! I always offer free 20-minute discovery calls to see if we’re a good fit for coaching and how I can help you identify and break through the blocks standing in your way towards vibrant health. Click here to schedule your complimentary call today!
Click here to listen in iTunes
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If we haven't met before, I'm Christina Tidwell and I'm so excited that you're here! I am a RN & Functional Nutrition Practitioner that helps those with autoimmune disease, hormone imbalance and gut issues heal without overwhelm so you can feel better in your body in a way that honors your unique needs and feels sustainable for the rest of your life.
If you suffer from:
Fatigue and energy crashes
Brain fog
Poor digestion
Painful periods and PMS
Symptoms of autoimmunity
Stress and overwhelm
...and aren't getting the support you need, I’m here to help guide you! My job is to clear the overwhelm, help you put the pieces of the puzzle together and co-create a sustainable path forward to help you reach your goals and feel better in your amazing body. When we work together you can’t fail.
In my health & nutrition coaching programs I support you in the quest to get back into balance by listening to your story, understanding your needs, getting to the roots of imbalance in the body and co-creating a sustainable path to healing together. These sessions weave together functional nutrition and science, lived experience, mindset shifts, and intuitive guidance for a unique and full-spectrum approach to nutrition counseling and holistic health.
I always offer free 20-minute discovery sessions to get clear on your major health concerns and identify what’s standing in your way. Click the button below to set up your free consultation and we can create a plan of action specifically for you.
Are you Constipated?
This might come as a surprise to you, but a normal bowel movement is supposed to happen one to three times per day. If you are not having a normal bowel movement every day or it's every other day or sometimes even three to four days, that's the sign that you are constipated. Also, if you are having a hard time eliminating straining to eliminate having hard stools or incomplete elimination, or you have fatigue or brain fog or even aches and pains elsewhere in the body, it can be a sign that you're not eliminating fully and that you are indeed constipated.
Are you Constipated?
I’m excited to dive into this (very sexy) topic of…constipation! When it comes to digestive issues, constipation is actually a really, really common one I see frequently with my clients. (I have to laugh also at the photo my amazing assistant chose for this post!)
Firstly let’s define what a normal bowel movement even looks like to know where you fall on the spectrum!
This might come as a surprise to you, but a normal bowel movement is supposed to happen 1-3 times per day. If you are not having a normal bowel movement every day or it's every other day or sometimes even three to four days, that's the sign that you are constipated. Also, if you are having a hard time eliminating, straining to eliminate having hard stools or incomplete elimination it’s a sign that you're not eliminating fully and that you are indeed constipated.
Eliminating fully is really important in order to get out toxins from our body. We eat food, it's broken down and absorbed, we get all the nutrients we need from it and we want to get rid of everything else that we don't need. If you are not eliminating 1-3 times per day or fully eliminating, waste is getting backed up in your system. This not only causes digestive issues like gas and bloating with waste backing up and allowing things to remain stagnant in the gut, but it also doesn’t allow us to get toxins out of our body.
Bowel movements are one of the main ways that we get toxins, and also certain hormones like estrogen, out of our body. Once the liver processes estrogen for elimination, it is up to your gut to move it out! If you are experiencing constipation, there is a good chance your estrogen isn't making its way out, but instead, going back into circulation in the body. High level of estrogen in the body, or an imbalance of estrogen and progesterone, can lead to things like PMS symptoms, fibroids, heavy periods, and many other symptoms that come with this estrogen dominance.
So check in and see just where you are at! Sometimes we don't know until we use a tool to track our digestion and see, oh, actually, yeah, I haven't gone in two days or I didn't go today or I went once but it really doesn't feel like I'm actually getting everything out. You can download my free Food and Symptom Journal to get started!
Common causes of constipation
Common causes of constipation are:
Food allergies or sensitivities
Lack of good bacteria in the gut
Intestinal permeability or damage to the mucosal lining of the gut
Dehydration
Thyroid or other hormone imbalances
You can see that it really depends, like so many things, on what the underlying cause for the individual is. This means that you're going to address constipation differently depending on what’s going on for you. That being said, there's the three easy things that I always look at first when it comes to troubleshooting constipation.
3 easy ways to troubleshoot constipation
Hydration. Our digestive system needs water to function properly. When dehydrated, our digestion slows down and our stools become harder to pass. A good rule of thumb is to divide your weight in half and drink that many ounces of water per day. This will of course vary depending on your individual needs, climate and how much you sweat!
Get enough good fats in your diet to help lubricate the digestive system. (Think olive oil, avocados, fatty fish, coconut oil, coconut meat, olives, etc.)
Increase fiber. Fiber is really important for supporting our digestive process and add bulk to the stool. Fiber is the main food for the 70-100 trillion microorganisms that live in your digestive tract. And when you eat plenty of fiber, it’s harder for pathogenic bacteria to grow in your digestive tract. A simple way to get in more fiber is to load up on good veggies like these roasted root veggies or sautéed kale throughout the day! To see what works for you I recommend slowly increasing your fiber intake. Don't feel like you have to like dump a ton of fiber and just start eating a ton of raw veggies. In these colder months I liked to include warm, cooked veggies for fiber which are a bit easier on the digestive system. Sometimes I like to have the “one, two, three” rule where you have one veggie at breakfast, two at lunch, three at dinner. See if you can experiment with that!
Click here to listen in iTunes
Click here to listen in Stitcher
If we haven't met before, I'm Christina Tidwell and I'm so excited that you're here! I am a RN & Functional Nutrition Practitioner that helps those with autoimmune disease, hormone imbalance and gut issues heal without overwhelm so you can feel better in your body in a way that honors your unique needs and feels sustainable for the rest of your life.
If you suffer from:
Fatigue and energy crashes
Brain fog
Poor digestion
Painful periods and PMS
Symptoms of autoimmunity
Stress and overwhelm
...and aren't getting the support you need, I’m here to help guide you! My job is to clear the overwhelm, help you put the pieces of the puzzle together and co-create a sustainable path forward to help you reach your goals and feel better in your amazing body. When we work together you can’t fail.
In my health & nutrition coaching programs I support you in the quest to get back into balance by listening to your story, understanding your needs, getting to the roots of imbalance in the body and co-creating a sustainable path to healing together. These sessions weave together functional nutrition and science, lived experience, mindset shifts, and intuitive guidance for a unique and full-spectrum approach to nutrition counseling and holistic health.
I always offer free 20-minute discovery sessions to get clear on your major health concerns and identify what’s standing in your way. Click the button below to set up your free consultation and we can create a plan of action specifically for you.
Live Well Podcast | Ep #69 The Secret Language of Healthcare with Robin Shapiro
Robin Shapiro is nationally recognized as a pioneer in the Health Advocacy Movement. After two decades in the health communications and biotechnology fields, she founded several companies designed to elevate the voice and experience of patients. She applied her unique communications experience to innovate in the area independent health advocacy. Based on these businesses, she has dedicated the rest of her career to helping patients find their voice to improve their care. Join us as we speak about how to navigate the healthcare system and get the care you deserve!
I have Robin Shapiro co-founder of the Washington State Health Advocacy Association (WASHAA) on The Live Well Podcast to speak about how to get the care you deserve when managing chronic illness.
Robin Shapiro is nationally recognized as a pioneer in the Health Advocacy Movement and an absolute wealth of knowledge and experience. After two decades in the health communications and biotechnology fields, Robin founded several companies designed to elevate the voice and experience of patients. She also has a new book out, The Secret Language of Health Care: How to Ask for the Care You Deserve. Join us as we speak about how to successfully navigate the healthcare system and get the most out of your care!
LISTEN BELOW (AND DON'T FORGET TO SUBSCRIBE SO YOU'LL NEVER MISS OUT!)
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SHOW NOTE:
0:00 Intro
6:08 Robin talks about The Washington State Health Advocacy Association (WSHAA) that supports those with chronic illness.
8:07 “There are certain things that smart people do to make the most of their limited time with their doctor”
9:24 Free Download: Appointment Checklist to prepare for your doctor’s appointment
12:10 Robin speaks about what to do if you don’t feel like you’re getting the support you need from your doctor:
Take someone with you (family member, friend or health advocate)
Choose another doctor who supports you better
“Ask your doctor to listen deeply to you rather than writing notes into their computer.”
20:30 Robin explains how taking charge of her own care transformed her condition
“I was in so much pain, I couldn’t walk and I said to my rheumatologist, ‘What about diet?’ It reduced my pain by 80% in a very short space of time,”
21:24 Consider a care team:
“Not one person is going to give you everything you need to be a healthy person.”
“A specialist is a partialist, they are experts looking at one piece of the picture.”
24:50 Journaling your thoughts is therapeutic and is medically supported by recent studies: Opening Up by Writing it Down by James W. Pennebaker
29:34 Robin discusses her book The Secret Language of Health Care: How to Ask for the Care You Deserve by Robin Shapiro
37:26 Christina explains her main goal of the work she does now: “I worked in the hospital for long enough and I want to make sure people do not have to be there unless they absolutely have to.”
40:40 How to contact Robin - www.robin-shapiro.com
If you loved this episode, I'd be honored for you to give me a rating on iTunes. This helps me to get content out to others who are interested in getting control of their health through diet, lifestyle shifts and personal empowerment.
If we haven't met before, I'm Christina Tidwell and I'm so excited that you're here! I am a RN & Functional Nutrition Practitioner that helps those with autoimmune disease, hormone imbalance and gut issues heal without overwhelm so you can feel better in your body in a way that honors your unique needs and feels sustainable for the rest of your life.
If you suffer from:
Fatigue and energy crashes
Brain fog
Poor digestion
Painful periods and PMS
Symptoms of autoimmunity
Stress and overwhelm
...and aren't getting the support you need, I’m here to help guide you! My job is to clear the overwhelm, help you put the pieces of the puzzle together and co-create a sustainable path forward to help you reach your goals and feel better in your amazing body. When we work together you can’t fail.
In my health & nutrition coaching programs I support you in the quest to get back into balance by listening to your story, understanding your needs, getting to the roots of imbalance in the body and co-creating a sustainable path to healing together. These sessions weave together functional nutrition and science, lived experience, mindset shifts, and intuitive guidance for a unique and full-spectrum approach to nutrition counseling and holistic health.
I always offer free 20-minute discovery sessions to get clear on your major health concerns and identify what’s standing in your way. Click the button below to set up your free consultation and we can create a plan of action specifically for you.