TRANSCRIPT:
Kristen Bowen: Healthy people walk away from cortisol spikes. You, my friend, are in a space to create health. You’re here with me, and I am with you, and we have got this together, you and I. We are not alone on this journey of wanting to experience our very best day. You know that day when you wake up and you’re ready to change the world? I love those kind of days, so let’s talk. What is cortisol? Cortisol is made by your adrenals, and it manages how your body metabolizes sugar and fat. Bad cortisol is all of this cortisol you get when you spike all the time. We do need some cortisol, because it helps our heart, and it helps blood pressure. If you’ve got blood pressure or heart issues, it started with cortisol spikes, so managing that cortisol is absolutely crucial. I’m here to tell you something I’ve learned. We as women have an addiction to cortisol, and we just need to start calling it what it is.

It’s interesting to me so many women are wanting to help their children with addictions, and to walk away from those addictions, but they haven’t even recognized their own internal addiction that they don’t have to go to a friend to buy, or a drugstore, or a computer. They create it internally, and that’s cortisol. There’s a short term and a long term to cortisol, and I want you to be able to look at it through the short term and long term investment, so you can make a decision as to what fits in your life. Here’s how we get sucked into the cortisol addiction. The short term benefits of cortisol are pretty amazing. We get a little boost of energy. We get some clearheaded thinking, and our body feels better for a little bit. The long term consequences are that very cortisol, the quick fix made us feel good, long term, it’s a slow etching of our energy, our organs, our hormones, our sleep, our ability to think, our ability to react, our ability to experience joy.

Remember the short term, it paid us off, and so many of us are choosing the short term over the long term. I created health by choosing long term investments, and you need to start choosing long term investments. Those are the people that I see getting healthy, not the ones who make a quick fix. One of my quick fixes was grabbing a Diet Coke because it gave me energy, but the long term consequence is it was walking me away from my health. The same thing with the cortisol spike. When was the last time you were frustrated, and you might’ve held a sweet smile on your face, and smiled all the way through it. As women, handling our anger is something that I haven’t met a lot of women in my life who are super comfortable in handling anger, so we put a sweet little smile, and we go into good girl syndrome, and we’re frustrated as all heck on the inside, and our cortisol spikes, and walks us away from the very thing that we say that we want, good health, because there is no diet protocol. There is no supplement. There is no program that will offset a cortisol addiction.

There are things you can do to help it, but let’s walk into 100% accountability, and that is managing your cortisol. You do that through your thoughts. You do that through meditation. You do that through all sorts of things, so let’s talk about some things in your body that you can tell if you might have a cortisol addiction. You’re not sleeping well. You get discouraged easily. You’re always anxious. You would rather hang out in the bathroom late at night and clean the bathroom than go hop into bed with your husband because your sex drive is tanked. Let’s just call it what it is. You have backaches, muscle aches. You crave unhealthy foods, even though you know better. You’re always getting sick. You’re gaining weight, no matter what you try, especially around your middle. You’re tired, but you’re wired. Those are all symptoms that you’re producing too much cortisol, and you are completely in control of how much cortisol you produce. Let’s talk about some things that we can do to help us walk away from our cortisol addiction, because when we do, we walk toward health. It’s a simple choice.

In the morning, between 6:00 and 8:00 a.m., that should be your best, most productive time of the entire day. That’s when your cortisol is naturally the highest, and that’s when you should be the most creative. If you’re not, if you’re dragging that backside out of bed, and if you’re hitting your snooze nine more minutes, nine more minutes, then let’s talk about some things that you can do to offset that. Start your morning with saltwater. This last couple months, my stress has been through the roof, and when you look at me, it’s obvious, and these are the things that I did to pull my body’s ability to manage that stress back into balance. I started having saltwater by my bed so first thing in the morning I could drink that saltwater, because it’s a reminder to my body this is when natural cortisol should be its highest. Then you might’ve heard me talk about this before, soaking in magnesium. The higher your cortisol addiction, the faster you burn through your magnesium, which is the very thing that you need to manage the cortisol.

If you have a cortisol addiction, if that list sounded like your life and you thought, “Oh, Kristen. That’s me,” we need more magnesium, and not just spring it on, and not taking it as a tablet in synthetic form. We need the real stuff pulled from the ocean and soaked in. The 30-day challenge comes to mind. You might’ve heard me talk about it before. We need that magnesium because the magnesium helps balance our DHEA level, and that’s what determines cortisol. When you soak in that magnesium, your DHEA levels are able to naturally, more easily balance that cortisol. It’s this beautiful little connection that happens. Traditions. As women, we need traditions in our life. Traditions keep us calm. Traditions, we know what to expect, and they help us to nurture those people around us, so I want you to think of traditions that you love. We have a Fourth of July tradition that is some of my favorite memories with our children. Christmas can have so much pressure on it. Oh, my gosh. Fourth of July, there’s very little pressure.

As my kids started getting older and getting married, there was expectations with the other side of the family for everybody to be together, so we took the pressure off our kids, and said, “Hey, let’s hang out together the Fourth of July. It’s really fun, and there’s lots of great things to do.” Our family looks forward to that tradition. We love that tradition. I also love the tradition and routine of a long, hot, beautiful bath. I put some music on. I put some candles on. I turn the lights off. I draw the water. I put my bath bomb in. Oh, and by the way, it’s boosted with magnesium, and boron, and a beautiful cocoa butter. I pull out a good book, and I just spend some downtime in the bathtub. Those traditions help us manage our cortisol spikes throughout the day. There’s another really beautiful thing, because I want to know, when’s your best time of the day? When do you feel the most cohesive, the most productive, and the most in charge of your life? The further away that is from 6:00 to 8:00 a.m., the more you’ve walked away from that natural circadian rhythm, but here’s a really simple tip to walk back toward it.

You can’t break natural law, and expect to experience natural health. It just doesn’t happen, and so let’s walk back toward some of that grandma wisdom, and that is, sunshine rebalances that wired, tired body you’re dragging around. Sunshine. Get out from that computer. Get out from that desk. Get out from working indoors, and walk outside for a little bit every single day. If you really want to pump it up, you’ll do some sunshine first thing in the morning, because that’s the most powerful way to reset your master hormone called leptin. Simple sunshine first thing in the morning. It’s crucial. Our bodies have the ability to self-repair if we’re not under stress. Did you know that your body’s got two gears, fight or flight, rest and renew, and if your cortisol is spiking all day long, your body has very little time, because it can only do one or the other. We’ve bought into this thing of multitasking, but your body hasn’t. It’s in fight or flight or in rest and renew.

Making sure that you’re in rest and renew ensures that you’re tapping into your body’s god-given ability to self-repair itself, and we need that. We need you waking up feeling empowered, feeling strong, feeling capable. That’s what living the good life naturally is all about, because here’s what happens when a woman taps into that. She changes the lives of people around her, and we need more women changing those lives. Have you looked around at all the needs that there are in the world? There’s natural disasters happening everywhere. There are people that need us. They need us waking up, feeling empowered, claiming our gifts, claiming our strengths, and moving forward with clarity. Thanks for joining me on this podcast. My name is Kristen Bowen. I’m the founder of Living the Good Life Naturally, and I’ve been sick and I’ve been healthy, and I much prefer being healthy. You can join me over at livingthegoodlifenaturally.com. We’ve got our blog post. I love to hang out on Facebook Live, and just do some little impromptu classes.

I try to hit that every Wednesday at noon, Mountain Standard Time. I love me a good Snapchat, love a good Snapchat. It’s just spontaneous when the thought comes to me, and I can pull out my phone, and just quick snap some thoughts. We’re also on Instagram, where we share capsule dressing, and beautiful pictures, and things that inspire us, and other locally owned female businesses that are changing the world. If you’ve ever felt alone, join us. On the front page of the website, there’s a little spot when you go to livingthegoodlifenaturally.com, and it says, “Join the movement,” because this is a movement to get you feeling great, so you can live those big dreams that your heart carries. This last week I got to watch Penny. She was a part of our More Money Now class, and she has actually set up a situation for people who have Parkinson’s Disease. There wasn’t anything to serve people with Parkinson’s Disease with this boxing program, and Penny decided to kick fear in the face, and live her life on a bigger level.

She’s serving the people around her in Saint George, specifically those with Parkinson’s Disease, to help them slow down the effects of Parkinson’s. She’s changing the world, because she’s started to wake up feeling good, and empowered, so I want to know, what are you going to do to change the world?

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