Managing Flare Ups This Christmas!

Christmas is the most common time for symptomatic flare ups.

It’s not because of the ice, snow or shop till you drop your attitude.

It’s because of everybodies best friend called “stress”. He’s actually not our friend, he’s a literal pain in the neck for some people.

But what we commonly call stress, that rushed, fuzzy headed, fast heart rate, shallow breathing feeling we get is called a hormone called Cortisol.

When cortisol is released into the bloodstream it uses the vagal nerve to stimulate the feelings we describe as stress. 

What also happens is inflammation levels start to rise and then our real problems begin.

Rising cortisol levels plus inflammatory lifestyle choices like more sugar, alcohol and less sleep all associated around the christmas will form a bad cocktail.

Ultimately resulting in our weakest link in the chain often a lower back or neck in most people's cases starting to produce pain. 

“But i’ve not done anything, i have lifted anything wrong, i must have slept funny, that’ll be it” is what tends to follow. Along with a couple more weeks of pain of course.

So to prevent you from becoming the latest christmas flare up do these 6 things!
1) Reduce alcohol consumption
2) Reduce sugar consumption 

3) Increase the amount of sleep you are getting
4) Make time for yourself everyday to either walk, read, knit etc
5) Meditate daily for just 5 minutes! That's it.
6) Reduce gluten