“If I were depressive, today would’ve been a good day to jump…”
These are my words, and the last words you would ever hear from me, Eli-belly the smiley, a self-strengthened Biohacker, a trauma therapist, and possibly one of the most positive people in the world. So positive, I’ve been told to “cheer down.”
But I’m human, and I have bad days too.
Today I felt the dark weight of what I might describe as being all alone in a vast ocean of darkness, steering the Titanic by myself, navigating through uncharted waters, and turning in all directions in my desperation. That’s the survival instinct wrought in panic.
Know what’s interesting? This state of being was the SAME even before the lockdown: I have been trying to steer this ship alone since October 2019 and I was always in equilibrium, even ecstatic and ultra-optimistic. What’s different now? It’s hormonal. Read on.
As a Biohacker, I have come to a place where extreme self-awareness is a muscle and it flexes when I need extra self-care. Today was a day I needed to come out of my skin more and really scrutinize the inner workings of my mind and body to see how I got myself in this hole.
First, there’s that fear that many have felt since Day 1 of ECQ but I only felt now during GCQ: the fear of financial uncertainty. Having just opened a huge wellness center and then closing it again, I feel like I’m slowly watching my newborn child die a slow death by choking, before my very eyes. Fear is a response triggered by the amygdala and bypasses the higher cortical functions of linear reasoning and objectivity. This then triggers the stress response, which your body activates to keep you alive and give you the energy to run away from a predator. What’s coursing through my veins? Adrenalin, accompanied by its other fellow stress hormone, cortisol.
Second, there’s the feeling of ineptitude and regret: What did I get myself into?
I wish I were back in Tagaytay where all I did was scuba dive all week or played my MMORPG game 15 hours a day, worried only about upleveling my toon fast enough to get my new armor and OP weapons.
Fear is also activated through the HPA Axis or the Hippocampus-Pituitary-Adrenal axis, known as the triple burner. The hippocampus stores old memories here which can unknowingly be triggered by the activation of this survival pathway.
Third, I noticed my adrenals starting to falter not only due to the emotional stress I was going through, but also physical stress. Yesterday I did that hyper athletic Pilates workout again, so the signs of adrenal burnout were obvious to me: my breasts were becoming smaller, my limbs thinner, but some weight in my belly remains.
Today is NOT a day to work out, and it’d probably be best to skip tomorrow’s workout too, and the next day’s!
Recovery is the focus, that’s that.
Fourth, I had my usual carnivore breakfast of steak cooked in butter and salt. The carnivore diet is high in methionine, which increases homocysteine, and people with the MTHFR gene variant like I do, process this chemical with difficulty. Though I added glycine in my diet (Bulletproof Collagen Powder) to counter the methionine, the stress response from the fear trigger couldn’t be abated. This diet doesn’t allow me to stock up on glycogen stores in my liver, which the body uses for fast energy. So what I really needed today was the brain-enriching enzymes and stress reducing power of raw honey, which I didn’t have on hand.
Fifth, I noticed my underactive thyroid gland overworking itself. I already have a sense of how this feels to me and the signs heighten when I’m stressed. Usually when my adrenals are acting up, my hypothyroidism symptoms will show up. And that could be in the form of slight panic attacks, palpitations, worry, anxiety, a feeling of giving up. Sound familiar? People with these symptoms would do best to get their thyroid and adrenals checked and take extra care and awareness of these two energy centers. Love them for life and you’ll live happily. Many dis-eases stem from the imbalance from these two glands.
Sixth, I have my period. Though I’m perimenopausal, it comes now and then and we all know what can happen to a girl’s mood when her lunar cycle has arrived.
Seventh, it’s the planet’s electrical peak and many intense emotions can come to a boil during this period. We can feel it with the events happening on Earth right now.
I’ve been training my Parasympathetic Nervous System to self-regulate since 2016, so my body was doing everything it could to downshift my stress response. I would say it did a great job as I could really feel my body fighting to stay in equilibrium. Hey, I didn’t jump right? Or hole up in a corner. What I really needed to do is help it while it’s working its ass off to bring me back to my original state.
So here’s what I did:
I went home and made a beeline for my Near Infrared Sauna, which immediately put me in Parasympathetic mode – “Rest and Digest, Breed and Feed.” And out of the Sympathetic “Fight, Flight, or Freeze.” The heat shock proteins will help the master anti-inflammatory pathways activate and the powerful infrared heat will detox any heavy metals lingering in my body that’s feeding bad bacteria. The sun would’ve helped me achieve the same result, but it was already 7pm. The Parasympathetic Nervous System encourages the flow of DHEA, which downregulates cortisol.
Next, I took an ice cold bath to reduce inflammation and let the body use thermogenesis to create more cellular energy or ATP (Adenosine Triphosphate). This allows my cellular healing signals to pulse steadily. Nitric Oxide gas, the powerful dilator, will also be generated and circulated throughout my cells.
Then, I went to the kitchen and gave myself a dose of raw honey with collagen powder for gut health and energizing active enzymes as well as that overall calming effect.
I took some Niacin Flush tablets 1000 mg, to release histamines from my blood vessels. I love the feeling of the flush so much!
Next, I grabbed my favorite biohack, the HeartMath Emwave 2 and trained on the highest setting (Level 4), to reinforce my body’s ability to self-regulate and let the feel-good hormone DHEA come rushing through to deplete any remaining cortisol.
Then I gave my cat a massage, which makes her purr, and those purrs……magical healing frequency backflow – nothing like loving a live being and them loving you right back. This was my Oxytocin bath and boy, is it a great healer. Our beloved pets are gifts from higher dimensions.
I will also sleep earlier than usual tonight. Sleep will heal me and mollify any pain my brain perceives to still be present and I know I’ll wake up feeling energized, refreshed, and like my happy self again.
As a Biohacker, I’m hyper aware and curious about what’s making me tick and what’s getting in my way. I’m also my first line of defense. What I know and what I learn about myself is enough information for me to act upon. I make it a priority to find homeostasis and equilibrium when I can. I never think of going to the doctor because I know what I’ll get: a pill for my ill. What do I need that for when I know I can find a way through my own biology by following the science of psychoneuroimmunoendocrinology, and the healing pathways that my own body has taught me?
Having this inner wisdom is empowering. How many lives can we save with this line of thinking and this plan of action? We have to be OK with the discomfort, because therein lies your beacon, the path towards a weakness that needs to be strengthened, a valuable lesson about oneself that can be learned.
What emerges? A person with a better sense of Self and a brighter, more positive outlook because they’ve weathered a storm or two in an ocean seemingly dark and vast, and somehow emerged the stronger for it.
#BelieveURUNLTD
