Chill The F* Out Dude

Happy Monday,

Hope you all had a great weekend. It was my Dad’s birthday on Friday so I made him a keto chocolate cake (which was actually pretty tasty), and we headed out for a family lunch on the Saturday. Beach swims, walks, chicken farm visits (more on this soon), and chilling made up our weekend. 

Now on to the chicken farm. We met with a lady called Nikki from Aroha Organics. She runs a genuinely free range, organic egg farm. They have a small flock of beautiful healthy looking chicks, and feed them organic food free from GMO’s and antibiotics. 

You’re at the local zoo, checking out some of the lions. Its feeding time, so your behind a closed gate watching the lions tear into huge chunks of raw meat, marvelling at how easily their huge claws and teeth rip right through the flesh

While watching your tummy begins to rumble and you notice your peckish. You turn to walk to the food truck and suddenly you hear a scream. 

Your eyes dart back to the lion’s enclosure and you see… nothing 

The enclosure is completely empty and that’s a Problem!!

Your heart rate increases and your adrenaline begins to surge. Out of nowhere you see one of the lions emerge from an open gate. 

Your brain is telling you to get the hell out as fast as you can.

 But can you outrun a lion? 

The huge lions marches towards you and snarls 

Do you still feel hungry? 

 

The fight-or-flight response 

 

Your mind sensed imminent danger and sent signals to your body to speed your heart rate, push blood into your extremities (so you can run, fast!) increase adrenaline and shut off feelings of hunger in order to focus on more important feelings such as staying alive 

This is a direct response of your sympathetic nervous system. It’s the sympathetic system job to mobilise your body’s resources under stress. It’s the ‘’Don’t get chomped by a lion’’ nervous system – it’s designed to help you in stressful situations 

This fight and flight system doesn’t just come into play when a lion stares you in the face. It also reacts to everyday ‘stresses’ like arguing with your wife or when the boss dumps a pile of papers on your desk and tells you that it needs to be done before 5pm 

Most of us walk around everyday with our fight or flight response on overload 

Too much sympathetic overload counteracts and suppresses the parasympathetic nervous system, which is a problem 

The parasympathetic nervous system is responsible for the regulation of internal organs and glands. It’s responsible for activities like digestion and breathing.  

If the sympathetic nervous system is fight and flight then the parasympathetic is rest and digest or as i like to call it… feed and breed 

Your two nervous systems should work together and complement each other. But as I mentioned earlier our sympathetic branch is in overload. Which overtime will result in…

• Suppression of the immune system – meaning more sickness and potential infection
• Disrupted endocrine system  – meaning tired, wired, anxious and depressed 
• Inhibited digestion – poor digestion, gas, bloating and lack of assimilation

Having a sympathetic overload will make it very difficult to relax, be calm and chill out. 

So here’s what we are going to do… 

Set aside 20 minutes everyday to work on chill.. That sounds like an oxymoron if I ever heard one

Anyway, pick one activity and see how you feel 

• Read some light fiction 
• Take a hot bath 
• Watch the sunset

• Have a 20 minute nap
• Sit in a chair and focus on nothing but your breathing (no scrolling the gram)
• Make a hot cup of tea and take your time to slowly drink it enjoying the taste
• Gargling
• Take the dog for a gentle walk
• Pet the cat – the vibration of the purring is amazing for the parasympathetic system

 

• Humming or making OM sounds
• Get a massage
• Do some grounding
• Laugh out loud
• Anything that’s slow and rhythmic (I said slow guys 😉

So, there you go. It’s Time to Chill The F* Out and Feel 100x Better 

Paul “OM” and Krystie “sleep” Miller