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Episode 72: How to Reduce Chronic Stress with April Likins






Brief summary of show:


In this episode, April Likins and I discuss how to reduce chronic stress.

Our society is one that is always connected, and friends, family and colleagues expect us to be available at all hours of the day. How do we navigate this? Is there a way to put a boundary around our inner peace?

April is a nationally board-certified stress + burnout health coach for busy and overwhelmed high achievers trained at both Duke Integrative Medicine and the Institute for Integrative Nutrition. Driven by her own health struggles of battling Lyme Disease, Endometriosis & her personal burnout journey, she's extremely passionate about empowering driven & professional women to optimize their health, reduce their stress levels, find balance and start nourishing their bodies from the inside out.


Listen in as we talk about:

  • [2:30] Why we have so much chronic stress

  • [3:30] How to deal with external expectations and stressors

  • [4:35] The difference between stress and chronic stress

  • [8:20] Steps you can take to lessen chronic stress

  • [14:10] Tips to get in tune with your body

  • [14:05] How to set boundaries


Notes from Natalie:


Connect with April


Connect with Me



View Transcript for this Episode

[00:00:00] Natalie: Hi everyone. I've talked about burnout on this podcast in the past.

[00:00:03] In fact, it's one of my most downloaded episodes. Often chronic stress coincides with burnout. We simply take on too much and the way we react to life and how we manage those situations, it adds up to a physical and mental breakdown. My guest today is April lichens. She's a stress relief. Burnout coach for overwhelmed professional women.

[00:00:27] She trained at duke integrative medicine and the Institute for integrative nutrition. She's driven by her own health struggles of battling Lyme disease, endometriosis, and her personal burnout journey. She is extremely passionate about empowering, driven, and professional women to optimize their health, reduce their stress levels, find balance, and start nourishing their.

[00:00:50] From the inside out chronic stress is a dangerous game to play everyone I've been there and I wanna help you work through and avoid what I've been through. And so many of you are dealing with, please take just a moment if you would, to leave a review of the podcast and subscribe. So you don't miss an episode and be sure to share this with your friends who could use some inspiration and help let's get started today with my guest April, like.

[00:01:18] April. Thanks for joining me. I wanna talk about an issue that I think a lot of people, a lot of women experience, and they may not even know that what they're dealing with is chronic.

[00:01:29] April: Right. Yep. It is certainly um, widespread right now, too. And it's interesting that even before COVID hit the world health organization really called it the health epidemic of the 21st century.

[00:01:39] So it's, it's getting worse and worse and it's something that's really common do to,

[00:01:43] Natalie: yeah. Do, do you think it's the pressures of the world? We put more pressures on ourself. We have high expectations or

[00:01:49] why so much chronic.

[00:01:51] April: You know, I think it's a lot of it, but I think a lot of it's tied to, I think, into our tech use and you know, the, the, the work home life balance too as well is, there's just, there's so many different ways for people to get in touch with us.

[00:02:03] Now that 10 years ago, 15 years ago, often joke. I wish we could go back to the nineties when people couldn't get ahold of you. If you were out of the office or you weren't home, you had this tremendous freedom, but even when you're not working, you're still kind of working. People can email you on your phone.

[00:02:17] They can get you through social in a lot of different ways. And there have been some studies that have kind of shown that it's, it's too much multitasking and, and multi switching back and forth and not having that downtime. The way that that we had decades ago is, is really creating a lot of this chronic stress.

[00:02:33] Natalie: So we try, at least I try to create that downtime mm-hmm but then the world. Expects that I am responding within hours. So you almost feel like right, you are at a disadvantage, especially in the work world and even parenting world. I mean, your kids obviously we're there for our kids if we need them quickly.

[00:02:52] But

[00:02:52] if the world has this expectation, you're gonna respond within an hour and you don't, how do we deal with that? Can we deal with.

[00:03:00] April: I think it just, it's all about kind of setting those healthy boundaries, you know, and figuring out what's a good boundary for you and that too. And so, and a lot of the clients that I work with wrestle with that sort of thing too.

[00:03:11] And so it can be having little pockets of time of boundaries in your days. So you've kind of got little pit stops. In there where you're, maybe it's going outside for, you know, for some fresh air and vitamin D for five minutes, you know, or taking a quick walk around the block or whatever it is, you know, instead of having to have these big gaps of downtime too I've had quite a few clients that have just this year decided to unplug in the evenings.

[00:03:34] And so instead of, you know, having a whole day away from their tech devices, maybe they'll, they'll just, you know, put it in airplane mode or they'll put it away, you know, an hour before bed. And so there's smaller ways that you can kind of tune, tune things out that gives you some space to be able to just recharge.

[00:03:52] Natalie: Yeah. So important.

[00:03:54] Okay. Mm-hmm so let's talk about what chronic stress looks like. I know it's what you specialize in and you help people with, what does it look like? How can someone know? Is there a difference between stress and chronic.

[00:04:07] April: Yeah. And so stress in itself is, can be a good thing. it's part of our survival mechanism, right?

[00:04:13] So it's, you know, it's designed to keep us safe, so there can be good stressors. We've we've been working out, you know, maybe our electrolyte imbalance is a little bit low. We're prompted to, to go cool down, get some water. That's that's an example of a good stress response too. But where chronic stress really gets dangerous is when it's that day in and day out chronic stress where you've got cortisol, you know, drips happening daily, which can lead to a whole other slew of things.

[00:04:39] And you're starting to experiencing more of the, the warning signs in your body. Like the. That chronic exhaustion, fatigue, sleep issues. It could be trouble falling asleep, trouble, staying asleep, you know, increased anxiety, moodiness, any number of things, cravings change a lot of times too. And so sometimes pupil's appetite will rev up and so they'll, they'll be more hungry.

[00:05:00] Other times they'll eat less. And you know, that wired, but tired feeling too. And so that inability to kind of sit still can be a good indication. And there's so many other things too, as well to kind of just look out for, and that could be stomach issues chronic headaches and then poor immunity.

[00:05:16] Stress is very much linked to our immune system, which right now we want to have of course, a healthy, thriving immune system.

[00:05:22] Natalie: Yeah. I, I relate so much to that. Wired and tired. I think a lot of people do, or I'm just exhausted. And exhausted more. So when I did the, the morning show, when I was a morning show TV anchor, I was up at two 30 in the morning.

[00:05:35] I was so tired. Yeah. But I was, my brain was still on, even though my body was exhausted. it took kind of that, whoa, what am I doing to my, my body response, which is when I left and started this new venture, say I have to find a more regulated and normal. Lifestyle. Yeah. Is that what you find with a lot of the clients and people you work with that they might not even realize that's what they're doing because everyone around them is doing the same thing.

[00:06:04] April: Yeah, it's pretty common. it's hard. And a lot of the people that I work with are the high achiever types too. And so they wrestle with the workaholism and the people pleasing and, boundaries, you know, setting those boundaries between work and life. And it's so crucial now, now more than ever, I know, to just.

[00:06:18] Take a politic we're talking about too. And, and it's hard for a lot of people to just slow down. There's this kind of still this perpetuating, I think belief system that, you know, sleep for example, is a waste of time when the body's actually doing incredible things in the middle of the night, it's categorizing memories.

[00:06:35] You know, it's wiping proteins that are linked to cognitive decline and there's all kinds of things that are, that are happening in the, at that time. Studies have shown that it's very much linked to our stress and being able to be more resilient, but this, that common misperception of like you snooze, you lose, or I'm wasting time, I've gotta stay up really late to get all the work done.

[00:06:54] And so switching that mindset can be really empowering and seeing sleep is more of a, the superhero that it is with

[00:07:01] Natalie: stress. Oh yeah. I value that. So much more than I did in my twenties and thirties. Mm-hmm when I was trying to climb this corporate ladder. And I thought that was the achievement. And now by the achievement that I really strive for is balance, which I know is hardly achievable, but just happiness and feeling good.

[00:07:23] Versus a title or a job or money doesn't matter as much as all of that. So let's get to some more solutions. Sure. We've identified what chronic stress is. Some of the symptoms the societal problem, but let's,

[00:07:36] let's talk some steps people can take to better themselves and not find themselves in that place in the first.

[00:07:43] Definitely.

[00:07:44] April: So first I see that's really helpful for a lot of clients. It's helpful for myself too, is kind of having a solid morning routine, cuz there's a big difference between, you know, those mornings. I'm sure you can relate where you just hit the ground running. Yeah. And, and the rest of the day feels crazy and like a rat race and you're, you're just feeling like you're trying to tread water or stay afloat.

[00:08:02] Yeah. First is a morning where maybe it's 10 minutes, 20 minutes, where you just have a little bit of space to yourself to maybe get some movement in. It could be due to do some deep breathing. It could be to listen to a fabulous podcast like we're listening to right now. I mean, any number of things, but just to have that space to be inspired or rest or pause.

[00:08:23] Before you, you go right into the hustle and the grind. It can be really, really helpful too. Exercise making movement a priority. That's such a wonderful way to, to regulate the nervous system and even better. If you can get outside, there's a lot of. Movement. You're hearing about lately the last couple years on rewilding and getting outside in nature.

[00:08:42] And you're seeing a lot of doctors actually writing prescriptions for patients to just get outside, you know, for 5, 10, 15, 20 minutes to get that that nourishment from the fresh air. You know, and, and being able to, to be mindful and kind of unplugged during that time, that can be so helpful too. I have quite a few clients that like to do mindful walking.

[00:09:02] So

[00:09:02] they'll, they'll turn their phone off or they'll, they'll leave it at home if they're just going around the block or something like that then, and, and just instead, just enjoy being present of what you're seeing and hearing in the walk, what you're experiencing, and that can be such a wonderful. Break to again, the hustle and the daily grind too.

[00:09:21] What else? Caffeine is another one. I see a lot with people too. Cause that's one of those things where you can get in such a cycle with it. Mm-hmm and it's like anything else, you know, too much of a good thing can be a bad thing. And so. Too much caffeine for certain people can of course increase stress levels because in your stress response, cuz it's a stimulant, but it can also throw off your sleep.

[00:09:41] And that's one that I see a lot with people that a lot of people don't realize, you know, studies have shown that caffeine could stay in your body you know, up to, I don't know, 12 hours. So if you have, you know, have a cup at noon, Allegedly, you know, a quarter of that is still in your system at midnight.

[00:09:59] And so for a lot of people, they have to kind of figure out their caffeine sweet spot of where they can, how much they can have, you know, and get away with it. But experts kind of recommend sticking to one no, no lat