+61 422 134 925
Email Us
Performance Through HealthPerformance Through Health
  • Home
  • About Me
    • The Mission
    • About Martin McPhilimey
  • Services
    • Coaching
    • Online Workshops
  • Education
    • Blog
    • Video
    • Podcast
  • Testimonials
  • Get Certified
  • Contact
Back
  • Home
  • About Me
    • The Mission
    • About Martin McPhilimey
  • Services
    • Coaching
    • Online Workshops
  • Education
    • Blog
    • Video
    • Podcast
  • Testimonials
  • Get Certified
  • Contact
  • Home
  • Resources
  • Blog
  • How to Reduce Stress By Managing Your Physiology

Blog

20 Dec

How to Reduce Stress By Managing Your Physiology

  • By Martin McPhilimey
  • In Blog, Breathing, Uncategorized, Video
Performance Through Health

So in this blog, I want to talk to you about how to reduce stress by managing your physiology.

Many of you may believe that stress is this mental construct where you are overwhelmed and unable to think. Whilst true, it’s not the full extent.

You see, stress is a physiological response to an internal or external environment change, and whilst you can’t always change your surroundings, you can change the internal state in which your physiology is.

Stephen Porges discusses how physiology impacts your psychology in his book the polyvagal theory , describes that we have three vagal states. One can be described as a place of safety, presence and curiosity. Two, fight or flight and three, freeze.

We can describe that place of safety using Dan Siegels Window of Tolerance.

Chronic stress, previous trauma or a lack of resilience leads to a small tolerance window, reducing their ability to tolerate emotionally challenging situations.

One way to improve resilience is through exposure work. You expose someone to a challenging situation and then bring them back to a place of safety, or in physiology – homeostasis. Again it’s not always easy to bring environmental stimuli to boost resilience. You can learn how to reduce stress by managing your physiology.

To do this, we must look at the freediving communities and some pioneering research Laureate Institute for Brain Research.

Freedivers take a single large breath and can hold that for 3 – 10 minutes whilst diving to depths of 100m underwater. For the average human being, this has got to be one of the most fear-provoking challenges we can face. Yet freedivers learn to remain completely relaxed; otherwise, they will use more oxygen and when panic sets in, you know the dive is nearly over.

Not good if you meter below the surface.

The nature of freediving is fear-provoking because you are underwater, but something fascinating is happening within your body.

Here we need to discuss innate panic alarms.

“The innate alarm system, a network of interconnected midbrain, another brainstem, and thalamic structures, serves to rapidly detect stimuli in the environment before the onset of conscious awareness.”

Terpou et al, 2019

An inbuilt system that lets us know through feelings of panic that the environment around us is not safe, and therefore triggers a high arousal stress response.

Justin Feinstein has made some pivotal theories in this area, believing that the Amgdaya may play a significant role in this response.

From an evolutionary perspective, we can suggest an animal is likely to live on if it can avoid being prey to another animal. Therefore being utterly silent in a freeze response might be the difference between being spotted and caught, the predator moving on.

According to Feinstein, the Amgdayala can override the respiratory control centres within the brain to shut off ventilation; in doing so, CO2 will begin to rise. The chemoreceptors are also dampened, and the system is kicked back on after a while. But now CO2 is elevated and, as a result, produces a stress response.

Whilst out in the wild, or in the neanderthal days, this would have given us an evolutionary advantage. Today, anxiety and panic are likely caused by issues that do not revolve around life or death situations but more so day-to-day interactions such as giving a talk, holding a meeting and so forth.

Therefore, can we use internal exposure therapy in the same manner as we would for psychological fear and using breath hold, or inhale large boluses of CO2 to reduce feelings of concern?

Freedivers will regularly expose themselves to high levels of CO2 to become more tolerant of the sensations and feelings that arise.

Feinstein has got patients with panic disorders to inhale large boluses of high-concentration CO2, which resolved their anxiety for months.

My clients have gone from being able to walk 20 steps whilst holding their breath to 80+ steps with exposure work, positive self-talk and learning to self-regulate.

In the video below, I discuss this phenomenon and How to Reduce Stress By Managing Your Physiology.

Should you wish to learn more about how you can reduce your stress by 50% in just eight weeks, check out my FREE video training at:

http://sbs.performancethroughhealth.com

  • Share:
Martin McPhilimey

You may also like

gary brecka build23

A Critical Review of Gary Brecka

  • August 30, 2024
  • by Martin McPhilimey
  • in Blog
Navigating the Nuances of Breathwork: A Critical Review of Gary Brecka’s Talk at Build23 In our latest series, I...
Evolution of sleep
Sleep Evolution: Role in Human Development
August 24, 2024
sauna health and performance
The Transformative Power of Heat Exposure
August 21, 2024
ice baths exercise recovery
How Cold Exposure Affects Post-Exercise Recovery
August 14, 2024

Category

  • Blog (66)
  • Breathing (25)
  • Personal Development (10)
  • Podcast (75)
  • Sleep (16)
  • Stress/ Recovery (26)
  • Uncategorized (10)
  • Video (57)

Recent Posts

gary brecka build23
A Critical Review of Gary Brecka
30Aug,2024
Evolution of sleep
Sleep Evolution: Role in Human Development
24Aug,2024
sauna health and performance
The Transformative Power of Heat Exposure
21Aug,2024

Get in touch

+61 422 134 925 [WhatsApp Only]

martin@performancethroughhealth.com

Perth, Western Australia

Useful Links

  • Mission
  • Resources
  • Testimonials
  • FAQs
  • Privacy Policy
  • Cookie Policy (AU)

Social Links

  • Facebook
  • Instagram

© 2017 - 2025 Performance Through Health by Martin McPhilimey

Manage Cookie Consent
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behavior or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Functional Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes. The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
Manage options Manage services Manage {vendor_count} vendors Read more about these purposes
View preferences
{title} {title} {title}