New Horizons: A Metaverse Podcast Experience at the Killer Bee Studios

Understanding Stress, Anxiety & How It Affects Our Health with MetaCoach

Killer Bee Studios | New Horizons Season 4 Episode 9

Text Brian & Shawna (Fan Mail)

In this episode, we continue our conversation with MetaCoach on the impact of stress and anxiety on our health. Stress is something we all face, but do you know how it’s affecting your body? If you've ever wondered how stress and anxiety can impact your physical and emotional well-being, this episode is for you.

MetaCoach shares practical insights into the physiological effects of stress and what happens when we allow it to build up unchecked. You'll hear personal stories and real-life experiences from Mr. & Mrs.KillerB on how stress has shown up in their lives, how it sneaks into our daily routines, and what it does to us over time.

Key Takeaways:

  • How stress and anxiety differ, and why it’s important to recognize both.
  • The ways in which stress impacts your body, including your gut, muscles, and overall health.
  • What chronic stress is, and how it silently leads to long-term health issues like heart disease, high blood pressure, and weakened immune systems.
  • Practical tips on recognizing stress in your life and what you can do about it.

We dive into these important questions:

  • How does stress affect the body physically?
  • What are the long-term risks if stress goes unmanaged?
  • What signs should you look for when stress is impacting your health?
  • Why do we often ignore the physical symptoms of stress?
  • How can you manage stress before it affects your well-being?
  • What are some strategies for handling chronic stress in everyday life?

If you're ready to better understand stress, anxiety, and how they could be silently affecting your health, this episode is a must-listen. Plus, we’d love to hear from you – after listening, share your thoughts by clicking the link in the show notes. Let's continue the conversation together!

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Speaker 1:

I mentioned the last time that I had realized that stress can affect my body.

Speaker 2:

I'm going to give kind of a technical example of good and bad stress. When you hop on an airplane and take off, that airplane has to be pressurized when it gets into the air to keep it from exploding. I don't know if I should thank you for this medical coach.

Speaker 1:

But now when I get on an airplane, that anxiety thing I'm going to be like are you guys sure the pressure is good? Welcome to the New Horizons podcast. I'm Brian Curie.

Speaker 3:

And I'm Shauna Curie, also known as Mr and Mrs Killer B, in virtual reality.

Speaker 1:

So this podcast is recorded live from the metaverse at the Killer B Studios.

Speaker 3:

Where real life stories and God experiences are shared in a way, only the metaverse can offer.

Speaker 1:

With that, let's go ahead and dive into today's episode. Tonight we are continuing a conversation, uh, from I think this was last month, right last month I don't know if it was a month ago or two months.

Speaker 1:

I think it might have been two months ago, but what we talked about when meta coach was here last time was stress and anxiety can shape our journey in life, how it can have an effect on our life. Mrs Killer Bee shared how some you shared some about how you tend to overcommit. You're a people pleaser and you can overcommit, and that kind of leads into.

Speaker 3:

I'm a recovering people, pleaser.

Speaker 1:

Recovering. That is so good. I'm so glad you said that. Throw some confetti for our recovering people, pleaser. I'm so glad you said that. Throw some confetti for our recovering people, please. But yeah, she was talking about and sharing how that kind of leads into stress into her life. That she's learned, and then we also talked about the difference between stress and anxiety. But we didn't again, we didn't discuss the effects that these two have on our body. So with that, let's bring out our guest MetaCoach. Everybody, let's throw some confetti for Met coach as he comes out from backstage. Meta coach, welcome to the killer beast. Oh, I gotta scoot over. Hold on, all right, all right, what's up? Yeah, we got this new table. It's like a lot to get used to much closer together yeah, a little closer together.

Speaker 1:

I just'm going to do this the whole time.

Speaker 2:

You hit on a swivel.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 1:

You know what? That's a great idea. I should sit in one of those chairs that just spin. A rolling chair yeah, there you go, that's a good idea.

Speaker 2:

You know, I have a stool that I use sometimes that swivels. And so. I can do that too. Just swivel my stool and move it back and forth.

Speaker 5:

It's the way to go.

Speaker 2:

It works, it works.

Speaker 1:

Does it. That's a great idea. I should definitely do that. I'm going to remind me, miss. It'll be to keep an eye out for that. Okay, I will. So I could see myself getting tangled. How many of you are plugged in while you're in here? First with confetti? Yeah, yeah, I could see, like swiveling again, that whole cable wrapped all the way around like a candy cane. Um, but uh, medic coach, we're so glad that you're here and that you're joining us again to continue this conversation. Um, before we get started, some of the people here don't, might not know who you are, so you want to take about 30 seconds and let people know a little bit about who you are. Who is the?

Speaker 2:

right, I'm a coach. I'm a behavioral life coach and I have been coaching in the metaverse for about two years now. I started over in alt space coaching and doing seminars and workshops and it was a natural progression. When alt space closed, I came into Horizon World and continued on. So I do a talk show, weekly talk show called Coached, and it's on Wednesdays at 4 pm Eastern time and Thursday nights at 9 pm Eastern time, and I'm also doing workshops and seminars over in Spatial now once a month and I did two workshops on cyberbullying. I did a workshop kind of like this on stress and the workshop on cyberbullying actually led into stress because people were talking about what they're feeling as a result of it. So that's what I do. I'm basically a behavioral life coach and motivational speaker.

Speaker 1:

Awesome, awesome. Thank you, medico. Okay, so let me kind of just lead into where we were at before when this came up. I mentioned the last time that I had realized that stress can affect my body, and here's let me share a little bit of a story and maybe some of you can relate to this. I noticed that when I was around people and some of these people are, you know, are friends and stuff, and sometimes they can be family members but when people started getting negative, I started noticing that my body was tensing up, like there's like tension building and I was like whoa, this is. I think I'm paying more attention to these things as I get older, but I'm like, wow, I can feel that tension. Even my like my stomach got tight and I could feel my muscles getting tight. So do you have any insight in this, like this? I think this might be a good place to kind of start on this.

Speaker 2:

The physiological part. When our body and our minds are stressed, our bodies begin to exert certain chemicals, and if those chemicals are not in balance, they begin to affect us physically at the same time that they're affecting us mentally and emotionally. And that's why sometimes, when people get really stressed out, they become more subject to certain illnesses like colds, headaches, especially gut, and intestinal problems especially gut and intestinal problems, because the chemicals are putting more acids and enzymes into the body, because the body is reacting to that stress, and so that's why we begin to feel certain things and stress can make an illness worse than what it is otherwise Interesting.

Speaker 3:

I was thinking about that how, no matter what sort of health problem you have, if you've got unresolved stress or chronic stress, you know it increases your inflammation, makes all of that worse. So really it's in everyone's best interest to like really take an honest look at your stress levels and how you're handling them, because any kind of problem you have in your life is going to be made worse. Sometimes it's hard to notice stress in your life, right? You have in your life is going to be made worse. Sometimes it's hard to notice stress in your life, right? Metacoach, we kind of talked about that last time that it's hard to admit like I'm stressed and possibly not dealing with it very well either.

Speaker 2:

Well, you know, and we exist in a stressful environment and not all stress is bad stress. There are certain stress that are necessary to keep us moving, to keep us motivated and everything. And I think I shared last time about the butterfly that the I cut the cocoon open and I shared that story last time.

Speaker 2:

I think you did, but I think you should share it because there's a lot of new people here too and so there was a guy who saw a cocoon on his windowsill and he watched it for a while and knew it would open up and become a butterfly. So he just happened at one moment to be able to see the butterfly trying to emerge from the cocoon. So what he did? He took a little razor blade and slid it open to help the butterfly out. Well, the butterfly fell out on the windowsill and he was waiting for the wings to just open up. Well, the wings never opened up and he watched the butterfly kind of hobble around for a little bit and he watched and by the end of the day the butterfly had died. And so he talked to a botanist friend of his and told him what had happened.

Speaker 2:

And his friends said well, when the butterfly is breaking out of the cocoon, the stress and the pressure of pushing against the cocoon open it up actually activates enzymes and hormones within the butterfly's muscle system and causes those muscles to immediately strengthen and flex so the butterfly's wings can open up.

Speaker 2:

So without that stress the butterfly was never able to achieve its potential and open up. And so there are good stresses that apply to our lives, allow us to be motivated, there are good stresses that keep us safe. There are good stresses that keep us aware of what's going on around us, stresses that keep us aware of what's going on around us. But the problem becomes when those stresses get out of balance, when the stresses begin to dominate us or the situation, and sometimes those stresses are imagined stresses, unrealistic stresses, and that's when they really get out of control, because we're kind of wired in such a way that we always think of, we always think it's going to be the worst, and so our minds go that way and stress can drive us to that point where we go to thinking this is, this is bad, this is going to be really bad and it actually, in our mind, just worse than what it actually is in reality that's very interesting.

Speaker 1:

Like you're a lover of butterflies, did you know that?

Speaker 3:

No, I did not know that, but now I know I will not not try to help a butterfly out of its cocoon for sure, but it's, you know, it's interesting, medicoach, that really correlates to something I just recently learned, which is, you know, we're kind of in a place right now where you hear a lot like inflammation. That's your problem. Inflammation is bad. It's going to, you know, make everything worse. But it's very interesting how this correlates with exactly what you just said about some stress being good.

Speaker 3:

If we didn't have inflammation at all, we wouldn't be able to heal. So, like, inflammation is a good thing in an immediate, you know, isolated time when you've cut yourself or you know something along those lines, the inflammation is what brings what needs to be there to heal you. But when we are overwhelming our body and we're inflamed all the time, that's where problems start to happen. And you can see the same with stress. Like stress is good in small little bits, in an isolated way, but then, when it starts to be your norm, then that's where problems start to happen realize that we're stressed, Things are happening that we don't even recognize or realize and all of a sudden something breaks and we wonder what happened.

Speaker 2:

Why did that happen? Because we've been stressed about something or stressed about a situation and it wasn't being managed. But by the time we actually saw what was going on, you know it's out of control. There are bigger problems.

Speaker 7:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

And I think that's where you're going to get into like the chronic stress a little bit, which I want to get to that because it's something that, before we get into that, has anybody here not heard of chronic stress before? If you have not, I have not heard of stress before, so I'm throwing confetti for myself. Okay, all right, riaz is not Okay, cool. Not heard of stress before, so I am throwing confetti for myself. Okay, all right, rias is not okay, cool. Thanks for being open to share that. Like, yeah, I want to talk about that because it was something that was getting my attention as I was doing some more research.

Speaker 1:

But before we go there, I want to ask you something like when it comes to, like you know, learning, learning right now that stress can affect our, our health and our bodies. And at one moment, when I noticed like my body was tensing up because of the negativity, that stuff that was going on, I'm like, oh, I just got to get out of this, I don't want to hear this. And I'm like this isn't good. I can feel my body. You know, I felt my muscle was clenching. So why do you think we often ignore or downplay those physical symptoms?

Speaker 2:

Well, there are a couple of reasons why we probably do that Sometimes and this kind of gets into chronic stress. Sometimes we exist so much with stress that we don't recognize the stress. We get used to it. But it's damage. We get used to it on a mental level that we're not really associated with on a physical level, and so that's why we sometimes we ignore it, because we're used to it. Sometimes we ignore it because we don't want to face an issue. So if I don't see it, it's not happening.

Speaker 2:

I was talking to one of my little nephews. He was about four years old and he come up to me had his eyes closed. He said you can't see me. He had his hands over his eyes. You can't see me. Ha, ha, ha, ha over his eyes. You can't see me. Ha, ha, ha, ha ha. So I didn't think I couldn't see him, you know. But we're like that sometimes with stress. You know we ignore it, you know we look away from it. We look away from a situation and so therefore we don't see it coming and it can catch us off guard.

Speaker 1:

Ms Kluge, would you say that, when it comes to stress, are you more likely to not realize it, because it's something that you're just constantly like you've dealt with over and over? Or do you feel like it's something that you're trying to avoid? Or do you feel like it's something that you're trying to avoid.

Speaker 3:

That's interesting because I would say just in the last year I've learned to feel the cues in my body that are telling me I'm stressed.

Speaker 3:

So it's really, it's really funny, you know, kind of. One of the reasons we even started talking about this is I was in kind of a stressful situation with a client that I work for, and I would notice that when I was driving there I would have a stomach ache. And I thought it was, you know something. I ate something, I drank something along those lines, and then it just dawned on me like I am dreading going to this house, and so it just made me start to say what are these physical signs that I've been ignoring? Because I thought, you know, I thought there was something else, I thought there was nothing to be done, and so that's kind of part of the reason why I even started talking about this with Brian.

Speaker 3:

But I think if I am going to ignore something, brian, it's because I think if I am going to ignore something, brian, it's because so I don't know how many people feel like this, but sometimes I feel like if I open this door where I'm going to walk into this emotion, it's going to open up so much that it's going to overwhelm me and I don't have time to deal with that right now. Grief is kind of like that, you know. You can feel something coming on and you're like I do not have time for that right now. So you have to stuff it away for a while. But the trick is setting aside time to deal with those things, because if you keep stuffing, everybody knows that's going to explode out at some point. But yeah, so if I'm going to ignore something, that's the reason why, because I feel like I can't deal with it right now. So it's a problem with overscheduling again.

Speaker 2:

Really, at the end of the day, for me, For some reason I would just look around at people in the cars and I would look at the expressions on people's face. Some people look like they were just really just checked out. There are people who look like they were in agony. Very seldom did I see somebody that was like smiling.

Speaker 2:

But one day I was driving along and this lady I guess she had some music going and she was just you know and when I looked I smiled, you know, and I noticed that other people that could see her were like going, yeah, so whatever they were dealing with at that moment the scholars and the stressed out people they saw this person that was just enjoying themselves and for that moment those people were able to kind of put aside whatever was going on. I know a lot of people are headed to work and they go I hate my boss, you know and they're just dreading and that drive is like the longest drive in the world. But that moment of seeing this woman just really just jamming to her music, because it put a smile on my face and I wasn't even thinking now about what I had to do when I got to work. I was just enjoying her moment.

Speaker 2:

But what it made me realize is that we do have the ability to step away from stress. Sure, yeah, that's good, think about that. That means that I can actually take a moment and say wait a minute, why am I stressed? Am I overstressed? Am I putting too much pressure on myself? And really begin to ask myself some pertinent questions about what's going on. And sometimes, by the time you ask yourself those pertinent questions, the stress seems real little, or you're stressed about something that's not even realistic anymore.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, yeah, that's so true. It just reminds me of a quick thing. I was sitting out on my balcony one day. I saw my neighbor walking you know we're on the second story and so she was down on the sidewalk and she didn't know I was sitting out on my balcony one day I saw my neighbor walking we're on the second story and so she was down on the sidewalk and she didn't know I was up there and she had on her earbuds or whatever, and as she was walking she was kind of singing and she just went like this and it just made me smile so big I thought look at that, she doesn't care who's watching, she's just enjoying her music. And I told Brian and he laughed about it Like it was just so cute.

Speaker 2:

So it's amazing how something little like that you just like expressing your joy can affect people around you and you don't even know there's anyone else there Exactly. And sometimes it's just those moments for me to take a step back and say, wow, for that moment I wasn't feeling this. So now, what to do to get to that place more than I'm at this place? Now I'm going to give kind of a technical example of good and bad stress. When you hop on an airplane and take off, that airplane has to be pressurized when it gets into the air to keep it from exploding. Oh, that's why they do that. Yeah, because the higher the airplane goes, the lower the air pressure on the outside. So they have to pressurize the end of the aircraft to keep the structure stressed, pushing outward. So then as the aircraft descends, the pressure inside the aircraft and that's why you get the ear popping and all that kind of stuff because the pressure inside is decreasing.

Speaker 2:

So once you land now you're back to normal pressure, whatever altitude you're at. But once that airplane gets back in the air, the inside has to pressurize to keep that stress pushing out. So the same way, we have certain stress within our bodies that are pushing out to keep us focused, that are pushing out to keep us moving forward, to keep us aware, those pressures, and so those pressures, I consider them like safety valves. Safety pressure. Like safety valves, safety pressure, you know, being aware of my surrounding, critical thinking, taking care of my internal health to make sure that I'm able to function at my best. Those are those internal pressures that kind of push the walls out to keep the world from caving in on me. But it's when we don't take care of those selves on a physical level, all those things begin to happen, like if we get too much stress on the outside, we can end up getting sick. And that's when the internal pressures are being overcome by the external pressures.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, wow, that's very insightful, so I do want to. I don't know if I should thank you for this medical coach, but now when I get on an airplane, that anxiety thing I'm going to be like are you guys sure the pressure is good? Take this thing off, anything exploding.

Speaker 5:

Now I'm going to have that in my mind every time I get an airplane my ears popping again now.

Speaker 1:

I think, that's very insightful. I never knew that, but I love that. That's such a great analogy. Is that the right word? Analogy Is that the right word? We do have some questions. I want to bring up some of these Q and A's before we continue. Let's go and bring up like we have lost virtually first, and then we'll bring up little Willie and then left. So lost virtually. Come on down to the Q and a, mike, and feel free to share your, your thought or question that you have about this topic today. So thanks for joining us. Lost virtually.

Speaker 3:

Lost. Thanks for being here.

Speaker 7:

How are you doing Lost Good? How are you doing Good Good? You know the connection between the physical body and the mental body. One thing I found that happens to me and I don't know whether it happens to anybody else, but I think there is some scientific backing is that after I've dealt with an incredibly stressful situation, sometimes I'll get sick, and I think what happens is the body's smart enough to know not to get you sick during that super, you know, and then it waits until I'm to get you sick during that super, you know, and then it waits until time to get you sick.

Speaker 7:

I want to know your thoughts on that.

Speaker 2:

That's very insightful and there's a lot of scientific research around that. And so to kind of put it kind of in a nutshell, what you experience like if you're really, really stressed out, going through something, your body is compensating, but that compensation is almost an overcompensation. All those chemicals that are being produced in your body to keep you going, to keep you up and keep your stem, external pressure takes over. That's direct some havoc on you by then and that's why, once that external pressure goes, then those things are free to do they need to do. The damage is already being there, yeah, but but you know the external pressure is keeping you. You know the internal and external pressure kind of pushing against each other so you're not feeling the effects immediately of it and uh, and that that happens more often than we think.

Speaker 2:

And I remember when I was finishing up my, my, my master's degree, I graduated and I went through an intensive, intensive program where I did my master's degree in one year. Whoa, it was intense, you know talking about three nights, three, three days a week. I was in school to do this. Wow, and it was intense. And when I graduated I came home and I fell asleep and I was asleep for almost 12 hours and then when I got up, I felt weak and just just dis, dis disoriented.

Speaker 2:

I didn't feel like eating for a couple days. You know, I forced myself to eat but it was like I couldn't. I couldn't feel like eating for a couple of days. You know, I forced myself to eat but it was like I couldn't. I couldn't enjoy the victory of graduating because I felt so run down and weak from it. Because during that time my body was constantly moving and I was working full time at the same time Also moving forward. I was under this stress. But once all that stress was gone, my body said OK, we're going to kick your butt now.

Speaker 3:

Now it's time to pay the price.

Speaker 1:

That's interesting, so you're right on that.

Speaker 2:

It's kind of like I don't know how many of you have ever, you know, watched skinned overdivers and watched what happens. If they come up too fast. They get sick, yeah, and the reason being because the pressure the deeper you go, it's so great up on the body that you know your body is constantly trying to regulate to that pressure. But if you come up too fast then the anal pressure overrides the external pressure and that's why people get sick, get the bends, get cramps, get all kinds of things.

Speaker 1:

Really good insight there, lost Virtually. Thanks for bringing that man. That was really good. Let's go ahead and bring up Little Willie. Little Willie, come on. Lost Virtually.

Speaker 7:

You got one thing you want to add, go ahead. Yeah, I just have one thing to add. Is that because of that, now, anytime I get sick and it doesn't happen every time, anytime I get sick it actually causes me to reflect?

Speaker 4:

what stressful situation did.

Speaker 7:

I just come through and it works as like. Okay, every time you get sick you ask yourself that question. It's a nice little mental exercise.

Speaker 1:

That's a signal to you like, hey, something might be stressing you out. I love that.

Speaker 3:

Reflecting on how you've you know maybe gone wrong. That's good, hey Lil.

Speaker 1:

Willie, thanks for joining us tonight.

Speaker 3:

How are you?

Speaker 4:

My first time on the show.

Speaker 3:

Thanks for being here.

Speaker 4:

Yeah, I really like this. Yeah, I was just I'm glad that he said that, because in Virginia we got a saying that pressure will bust a pipe, and that means I mean we say that, we've been saying that for years.

Speaker 4:

We say that because we have always been aware of how the stress can mess with your body. Actually, some years ago I started to like change my since the pandemic. It made me change my whole perspective on how I allow things to my body, because I need my resources, you know, to keep going and I understand how um, a lot of times like it's based on a person's um, how they view, you know, their perspective on life in the world around them themselves all of that which will probably your belief systems, your belief patterns, what you believe, that can upset you at times. You know what.

Speaker 4:

I'm saying how you what you believe on the inside can have you like really stressed, even if it's incorrect, it could be incorrect.

Speaker 5:

Oh sure.

Speaker 4:

You know it, don't you know, but we still have. So a lot of people still have that thought pattern, you know. And then certain things will trigger that thought pattern and there you go. But the best thing I found out is you know, find the source of your discontent and then do something about it to bring that down. Because I noticed I had got into an argument with a guy and he followed me to the doctor's office and when I got to the doctor she told me that my blood pressure was really high. She said give me five minutes and we're going to take it again. When I came down, my blood pressure came down, and that's right. There is when I finally realized that I needed to go a different way of how I look at things myself and the world around me, and that has been helping me a lot and that's one of the one of the telltale signs sometimes blood pressure going up because it's a stress.

Speaker 2:

It's a stress factor, you know. Our hearts are beating faster, there's a lot of things going on when we're, when we're stressed out. So you, you think about you know, you, you, you're walking down the street and a car almost runs into you. Yeah, and you and you, that moment you go, you, you're walking down the street and a car almost runs into you, yeah, and that moment you go, you know, you're like, wow, that was close, you know. And so if you were to take your blood pressure at that moment, you would like, hey, I think I need to head to the ER right, quick here, you know.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. But you know, you take a moment, you get a grip and you go. Ok, you know, I see what was going on, so your blood pressure starts to come down. But there are other things that happen in our body too, like that with the, with the anxiety and stress. Because now, if we don't let go of that and realize that was a moment and we hold on to that, we go and walk down the street now and every car that passes me I'm looking at that car. Is that car gonna hit me? Is that car gonna hit me? Oh no, that car is getting close pretty soon.

Speaker 2:

We end up with what you talk about, chronic stress, because now I begin to see stress everywhere. I begin to create environments because that last moment, that last thing was so intense that it's imprinted in my mind. It's imprinted so now I see danger every time. I see something that looks like that. I know adults who are afraid of dogs because, as a toddler, a dog bit them or either chase them, and now they don't like the dogs. You know because of that, you know, so you think about the joy that they're missing out on. I'm not like a dog.

Speaker 3:

So true.

Speaker 2:

But to them that dog represents that stress, that trauma that they've never been able to go over. So now they see a dog and they have that stress.

Speaker 3:

I wanted to say to little Willie good for you for recognizing that and deciding to change your mindset. I think that's so important.

Speaker 3:

You know, if we could all like look at the things that have caused us trauma in the past, or things you know, habits that we realize are affecting our health, like we have the ability to change those things if we want to, and I I just appreciate you telling that story because it reminds me, like there's things that I'm seeing, that I, I have the power to change those things in my life, and I'm I should appreciate that reminder.

Speaker 1:

Let's go and bring up Lep Lep, come on down, come on down, lep.

Speaker 6:

All right, I don't have a question. I just basically just wanted to say you know, having this platform and what you guys are doing in MetaCoach, we really appreciate having you here in the metaverse and just sharing what your knowledge and what you know about stress and how to deal with it and stuff. So I just want to commend you for that and you just keep doing what you're doing. God bless you Awesome.

Speaker 3:

Thank you, that is so sweet.

Speaker 1:

Thank you so sweet, we have one more. We have one more on the QA list. Let's go ahead and bring up Iris. Iris, come on down, iris.

Speaker 7:

Thank you again more uh let's wait one more on the qa list let's go ahead and bring up iris.

Speaker 1:

Iris, come on down. That means so much. It really does welcome iris well I'm, because you get a butterfly on her shirt the butterfly.

Speaker 5:

I'm only half joking when I say that I've I've had more stress in the last few years than probably anyone. But that's that's. That's another story. I've been, I've been um dealing with long covid for about four years now and I've had all the podcasts about and and youtube about every little shred of research you know and everything lately that everybody's talking about the vegas nerve. What do you know about this? Oh, it's a miracle if you reset your vegas nerve and everything will fall into place, and I haven't heard of that.

Speaker 2:

You haven't heard about the vagus nerve.

Speaker 3:

I have been hearing some about that, iris. Yeah, I would love to research that, though, and talk with you more about it, because I just saw a couple of exercises you can do to reset your vagus nerve and, yeah, it really has to do with the way that you're perceiving stress, right, mm-hmm.

Speaker 5:

Yeah, no, it's the master regulator of your entire body and if it gets dysregulated which is the very definition of long COVID is a dysregulated body. Yeah, if you can reset your vagus nerve then, like I said, they seem to think all these other things will fall into place magically and yeah.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, I mean. I honestly yeah, I doubt if it's that simple, seem to think all these other things will fall into place magically and yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean I honestly see. Yeah, I doubt if it's that simple. You know what I mean, like, because there's so many factors that affect our bodies, you know, between our gut and you know, uh, chemicals, hormones, like there's so much going on in your body. But who knows, maybe I'm wrong, but yeah, I would love to research that. Let's. Let's come back and talk about that soon. Yeah, definitely.

Speaker 1:

Called the Vegas nerve.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, if I remember correctly, I think it's spelled V-A-G-U-S. Is that right, iris? Does that sound right to you?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, ok, so I have seen some things about it, but OK so not like Las Vegas OK exactly I was going to say I don't know. It sounds like you might be gambling here a little bit.

Speaker 3:

I knew that's what you guys are thinking.

Speaker 2:

See Okay, thank you, that helps.

Speaker 1:

Maybe if we come back and talk about it, we can redo the studio as like Vegas. Oh, that would be fun. Have a little bit of fun with it. Well, okay, so let me go ahead and go back here to the topic for a second. I noticed, like when I, when I go back to the story of my body, like how I was noticing that, uh, as I was noticing it, I also noticed that when my body starts feeling like that, then I would do to that, like stress and anxiety, I guess, or even that you know that situation that I'm in, that it I could tend to it, I could tend to it tended to affect my how I related to others, how I even treated others. That was close to me. And here's my question what's the best way I got two off of this, two off of this thought here? The first one was what's the best way to communicate to people that were stressed without being seen as weak or not equipped to handle a situation.

Speaker 2:

Okay, you know and I'm glad you asked that question because something is so key because sometimes people don't know how to communicate that and so they try and keep stress in because they think it's the best thing to do. I don't even want to talk about it. Yeah, I'm stressed out. I don't want to talk about it because you may not be able to listen to me anyway or you may not care, and so it kind of puts more stress on the stress and it gets down to the point where you have to sometimes just stop and say hold up just a moment, let me tell you what's going on right now. Let me tell you what I'm feeling right now. Not to be offensive to you, I need to let you know that. You know that right now I got some things going on, you know, and I need for you to listen to me. So you have to communicate it. There's not a simple press play and do it. It has to be confronted, it has to be communicated, and and I had that situation, you know, leading leading teams where I would have a person on my team that was extremely stressed out and you give them assignment go get it done. And it took me a little bit to start listening to what they were saying.

Speaker 2:

I found that I had an employee that was so stressed out one time that I didn't know it, and the way I found out he was stressed. He came to work the next day and he had a bruise on his face and I thought did you get into a fight last night or something? And he goes no, I fell and I said, oh, you got to be careful. And then he stopped. He said I need to talk to you, boss. He said something's going on. He said I fell last night and over 45 minutes on the ground and he said I got up. He said I thought I had just fall. He said I got home and I realized that I had missed the show that I that I was going home to watch. And he said I started counting back the time, thinking about when I left the gym and when it happened. And he said I got something going on. So I immediately sent him to the, to the hospital, and this guy's blood pressure was almost 200. He was so. And then I you know so.

Speaker 2:

Then I you know when he, when he came back to work, he had a medical excuse, not, you know, to come back, but he wanted to let me know what was going on. He was stressed about the workload. He thought he was about to fail and he had failed before, and he thought, ok, this is going to cost me my job on this one. And I asked him why didn't you come and tell me that you had this much stress going on? And he goes. Well, I'm supposed to handle my job, I'm supposed to be able to do this. I shouldn't be feeling this way.

Speaker 2:

So it was one of these things where he couldn't accept the fact that, hey, we all get to a place where things overwhelm us. And it really, really made me take a look at myself and say what kind of pressure am I putting on my team, made me take a look at myself and say what kind of pressure am I putting on my team? Good, and so I had a talk with my team. I said if you ever, ever, ever, feel that I'm being unrealistic or putting too much on you, you got to push back and let me know. Okay, you know, because I can push back on people above me to protect you all, but I can't protect you if I don't know what's going on.

Speaker 1:

Anybody that's listening to the podcast replay, or even people here. If you're a leader, I think that's such a beautiful thing to look at too, like it's both sides, like even as a leader, when someone does step up, you've got to be able to ask yourself some personal questions and evaluate the health of your team as well. So I love that you pointed that out, because we can learn from that. So I really Can I say something real quick about that.

Speaker 3:

I just recognized something interesting. You know, it's never once occurred to me that if I admitted that I was stressed, that it would make me seem weak. It's for me and I don't know if this is a man-woman thing or just personality difference it's hard for me to say to someone you know, I need a couple minutes like I'm feeling overwhelmed and stressed. I feel like I'm going to come off as rude. So I don't think like they're going to think I'm weak. I think they're going to think I'm rude Like I'm, I don't care about what they're doing, I don't care about what they need, I only care about what I feel like. So isn't that interesting. I never realized I never put that together for you, brian that like you have a hard time saying you're stressed or overwhelmed because you would look weak. I never thought about that being a possibility. That's really interesting to me.

Speaker 2:

You know, and that's powerful insight. So, like what you're saying, you know you don't want to come across as rude. He doesn't want to come across as weak. So what do we do? We hold our stress in and we don't, we don't communicate it. But for the best interest of everybody involved, those conversations need to take place. They may not feel comfortable, but they need to take place. And what happens? Almost 100 percent of the time I say almost that when it's said, hey, I need a moment, I'm stressed, the other person that's hearing that will probably say wow, okay, take a moment.

Speaker 5:

Yeah, definitely.

Speaker 2:

Because it's going to cause them hopefully, if they're a decent human being, it's going to cause them to back up and say, yeah, whoa okay. But you know there are those people that tell you hey, suck it up. Hey, yeah, well okay.

Speaker 1:

But you know there are those people that tell you, hey, suck it up, get back in there, we don't have time to suck it up.

Speaker 3:

That's what I tell my dog all the time. Yeah, he does.

Speaker 1:

A little Yorkie.

Speaker 2:

But I want to, you know, talk a little bit more about chronic stress for a minute, because that's something that I think we deal with more often than what we realize.

Speaker 2:

And here's something that I've found through my coaching practice and just living that many of us deal with low level, low vibration depression.

Speaker 2:

You know, we live in a world and a culture where there's so much negativity. If you listen to the news and listen to the political landscape and listen to the wars and listen to everything, it feels like the world is about ready to implode. Yeah, and it might be, who knows, but the fact is you're taking all this in and it's just coming into you like a virus, just feeding all this negativity, and so it's hard to raise up and find that positive moment. And so because of this, this low level depression, because of all the things that are going on, we also pick up this low level stress and it tends to ride on this current of depression. So you got these two layers that are riding right there and what happens is those layers begin to kind of feed off each other and kind of expand, but it's doing it so slowly that we're living it, we're getting used to it and we're not realizing that. We just have this chronic stress until something breaks and we go where did that come from?

Speaker 1:

oh yeah you know, I I love that you're pointing out because that was what was interesting for me when I was learning about chronic stress today and I only learned just a little bit. I was like, wow, there's different types of stress. What's this chronic stress and learning that it can? What you're pointing out this is what I want to share is because what you're pointing out right now I'm like, wow, you're so right.

Speaker 1:

If we really think about all the stuff that's coming in, that we're listening to and downloading into us every day, that is continuing to add and I never heard it said that with a low level of stress, and sometimes those things we've got friends that when they turn the news, that's all they're thinking about, they're very stressed out and anxious about it. But they learn that this chronic stress can actually lead to long-term problems, like, like I was reading, like heart disease, blood pressure, uh, weak immune systems, like I'm like whoa, like, and you know we look at I mean, obviously we know food can do that too, but I feel like a lot of stuff is looked at like that and we're kind of ignoring this these avenues, or these feet, breasts, that's coming in that we don't realize it.

Speaker 2:

Yeah and so, and so our body is chemically processing stress and anxiety. This stuff is pouring into our gut, pouring into our liver, you know, pouring into our muscles, because that's why people, when they get stressed, they get muscle aches, because the tension and the stress. So all that's going on, the clenched jaw, you know the cracked teeth, because people's jaws are so clenched, because all that pressure, that stress is going on inside their body and it's built up over time and it's trying to release itself, and the release is not always pretty, wow.

Speaker 3:

So true.

Speaker 1:

That's really. It's like the straw that broke the camel's back gives me about like every day, like what we're doing wow, well, I know we're getting close to the time here in medical. I want to thank you so much again for coming back and talking about this, because I'm gonna be processing a lot of this afterwards there's so much here and doing some more research and and I encourage everybody here to do the same thing or if you're listening to the podcast, you know, really start thinking about these things.

Speaker 1:

It's just recently told this to shauna, to mrs killer b just a couple days ago. Uh, I'm working with this client and this isn't like stress, but I could realize there was something like there's more to it. To each one of us. I know we all have our own things and I'm kind of like an open book so and with that comes the bad jokes too. So I'm sorry, but one of the things that I noticed just recently was I'm working with a client and he's a friend of mine too, and I wrote an article about some stuff that happened and I shared it with him. I was like see this first work with them and just kind of get your thoughts. And he wrote back.

Speaker 1:

The next morning I woke up and I opened up my phone and it said I love this exclamation point. He's like I really hope people get what is being said here. Exclamation point, exclamation point, exclamation point. Now, when I read that, my thought was he's just saying that and I started feeling like. I started feeling this pressure and I'm like and I told Mrs Killerby, I was like something isn't right there. I was like, you know, we talk about our past and like you were talking about how it's interesting that I think I don't want to be seen as weak and, as you know, some of my past, with things that's happened like, those things kind of like have a spot inside that plays a role and where some of the stress might be, you know, raised to.

Speaker 1:

So I'm trying to be more and more aware of these things when they come up, but not keeping it to myself and say, hey, I can trust my wife, I want to share her. Like, hey, I got this text and I don't. There's something. I shouldn't feel this way. When I read this, I should be like, hey, I mean, I was like that many exclamation points, I shouldn't be thinking he's just saying that. I was like that's something's wrong there and I was like, and I need to figure this out and get past that. So I want to encourage everybody here whatever you might have little moments like that, be aware of like finding somebody to talk to. If it's a coach or someone that you're close to in your family, your spouse, a good friend find someone that you can lean into and share these things and go through this process, because I think that's going to help us. What are your thoughts on that? Is this good advice or am I like Brian?

Speaker 2:

this is no exclamation points. We need to have that trusted person that we can go and just be open and raw, say, hey, this is me. Person that we can go and just be open and raw, say, hey, this is me. Because that is that is vital to have somebody like that that you can open up to and that way you you can deal with those things, get them out, feel, feel the pain, feel the fear, feel whatever it is in a safe place and that person, if it's a trusted person, can help to pick up the pieces and get back into the battle. But sometimes we just need that safe place. But people who don't have that safe place, they keep that stuff bottled up and, like I say, it comes out sometimes in a very, very ugly, messy way.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

So true, and here's one thing that I've discovered through my life the happiest people I know have two qualities, and that's gratitude and generosity.

Speaker 5:

Love that.

Speaker 2:

You know, I find that people who are truly grateful see the world in a different way. Grateful see the world in a different way. They don't see this stress all the time because they're being grateful for the positive side of things. They're not ignoring the negative side, yeah, but they're looking for the positive, and that positive and the things to be grateful for are actually kind of minimizing and taking the edge off of the negative. And the fact of being generous means that I'm actually looking beyond my struggle, looking beyond myself and pushing something out to someone else. So those two qualities are vital when it comes to dealing with that chronic stress and chronic you know trauma that people are dealing with.

Speaker 2:

When you can get to that place where gratitude and generosity are the way you live, other things tend to fall into place. Priorities shift, you begin to have a different perspective on the things that are going on. Oh man, that's good, very good, if somebody confides in you and you become that trusted advisor. Never, never, violate that, because that is going to make that person even more stressed out because now they're less trustful. But it also takes so much out of a relationship. Confidentiality and being able to be that trusted advisor is the gift that you can give to other people. Yeah, Beautiful.

Speaker 7:

So, true.

Speaker 1:

And what a gift to give, can give to other people yeah. Beautiful, so true, and what a gift to give. What a beautiful gift to give. Well, you guys, I want to thank you again, metacoach, for coming out.

Speaker 5:

Usually.

Speaker 1:

I ask for a closing thought, but I think tonight I know MetaCoach, I know you're a believer in with the stress and stuff that everybody's dealing with and I think a lot of us are probably. I think a lot of people are probably dealing with that lower stress that we don't even realize what's going on with what we've talked about. Would you would you mind to close out in prayer that God would help us be aware of that Right and then afterwards, everybody will jump here and we'll grab a selfie together.

Speaker 1:

So we'd love to do that.

Speaker 2:

Most gracious Lord, as we come to you tonight in the precious and mighty name of Jesus.

Speaker 2:

Father, I just want to thank you for this venue, for this opportunity, for this fantastic couple that hosts this show tonight, and I just want to thank you for every person that's here tonight, because we're not here by accident and, father, as we're dealing with stress and dealing with anxiety and dealing with all the complications that are happening in the world, in this world, but you tell us to be careful for nothing, but all things, through prayer and supplication, that we bring our cares to you, we bring our burdens to you and that we put our trust in you because, lord, that is the only answer that is going to be a true answer.

Speaker 2:

I just pray for each and every person that's here, no matter what stress they're dealing with, what anxiety, that, lord, that you speak to their heart, shine your spirit and light into their heart and show them the way out, show them the path forward. And, lord, that not only do they go forward but they turn around and begin to be able to help other people. That we have this spark of healing, this spark that just blossoms and blooms and blazes. That healing takes place as a result of what you're doing. So we give you thanks, father. We just ask that you continue to bless this metaphor situation to grow, that we're able to bring your word, bring your opportunities here for people to grow, and we thank you in Jesus' name. We pray Amen.

Speaker 3:

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