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Stress is an unavoidable part of life that can take a major toll on your body. And when you experience frequent or chronic stress, it leads to consistently elevated levels of the stress hormone cortisol in your system. This hormone makes your body believe that it's in survival mode — so it shifts from its normal functioning to prioritizing the organs and functions that need more attention in a survival situation. And the prolonged elevation of this stress hormone can dramatically change the way you look. From developing a cortisol belly to experiencing weekly break outs, the way high cortisol affects your appearance will show up...

Whether you have trauma from a single event or a series of repetitive events, your trauma will become stored within your physical and emotional body. So recognizing the signs your body is releasing trauma is an important part in your healing journey.  How does trauma get stored? In order to recognize the signs your body is releasing trauma, it's helpful to understand how trauma gets stored in the body in the first place. When you experience trauma, your body's stress response gets activated, releasing stress hormones like cortisol and adrenaline into the bloodstream. This creates physical sensations of stress throughout the body like muscle tension,...

Your nervous system can become stuck in a functional freeze state after living with chronic stress or stored trauma for months, years, and even decades. This happens due to an imbalance of your sympathetic (fight or flight) and parasympathetic (rest and digest) branches of your nervous system. Typically, these two branches regulate your body's response to stressors and help maintain a balance between arousal and relaxation. In a freeze state however, these two branches aren't functioning harmoniously, and your parasympathetic branch becomes overly activated. But unlike being stuck in a freeze state, being stuck in a functional freeze state allows you to remain functional in...

Have you ever wondered why, despite being exhausted, you struggle to get a full night of sleep? Or why you wake up every morning still exhausted!? It's a frustrating paradox that plagues so many of us. Scientifically speaking, when stress becomes a constant in your life, it can activate your sympathetic nervous system — the part of the nervous system responsible for the 'fight or flight' response — even when you sleep. And the activation of this typically leads to a series of physiological changes that disrupts your night (even if you're not consciously aware of it). Understanding the intricate connection between stress and...

The two conditions of ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder) and C-PTSD (Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder) are often mistaken for one another, leading to the misunderstanding and the possible misdiagnosis of them both. This isn’t to say that what you’ve been previously diagnosed with is wrong — it’s simply to say that there are intricacies between ADHD and C-PTSD that not only overlap, but also suggest a direct relationship between the two (where one condition puts you at risk for the other; and vice versa). So let’s talk about! 👇🏼 Life With ADHD ADHD is a neurological condition characterized by difficulties...