For all sorts of reasons life can be stressful and challenging, not least if you have a loved one seriously unwell in hospital, you're starting a new job, your child is being bullied, or is unwell, your teenager is going to university, you have a work/relationship/family pressure, or maybe a dying parent - and you still have to balance all the things and keep all the balls in the air.

It's these times when the stress isn't going to last forever, but it's going to be sticking around for a little while - long enough to be impacting you.

The trouble with stress is that there are so many different kinds of stressors, and your body cannot discern what is worth responding to or letting go of - it responds to each in the same one way. By switching down your reproductive and digestive functions and ramping up the processes that are going to enable you to survive more easily. Which is how extended periods of stress affect your digestion, menstrual cycle and period, your blood sugar, blood pressure, immune response, and lots of other things.

One of the things that happens regularly when really stressed is food cannot be broken down easily, so you can get pain, wind, indigestion, constipation/diarrhoea, and generally a very uncomfortable tummy. This is because the processes involved in breaking down your food (hydrochloric acid, enzymes, bile, peristalsis and the mechanical action in the stomach) aren't being stimulated properly.

Here is my dietary and lifestyle advice for you should you be going through something challenging, and which can make a big difference:

Meals that are easy to digest

Soups, stews, curries, smoothies - things that are easy to break down or are already partly broken down for you already, to take the load off your digestion when it's being down regulated in the sympathetic response. Avoid salads and raw foods if possible and try to keep to cooked foods - e.g. a baked sweet potato with peas and hummus vs green salad with lots of raw veggies.

Chew your food thoroughly

Chewing stimulates your digestion, providing a hugely important signal to your brain and stomach/intestines that food is arriving and the necessary processes need to fire up in preparation. Ideally chew until your food is liquid/mushed up like baby food - and that includes soups and smoothies too.

A little breathwork and/or EFT (tapping) before and after meals (and also when you can away from meals)

Alternate nostril breathing and regular or faster EFT is ideal. These are fast and effective ways of dialling down the sympathetic, fight/flight/freeze arm of your nervous system so the parasympathetic, or rest and digest arm can come online and you're able to digest your food more easily.

Keep eating

It's tempting to avoid food when you're stressed, and if the situation is short lived it's probably a good idea to honour that drop in appetite. But when you're very stressed and it's going on for days, you need to eat. You burn through a lot of valuable nutrients when your stress response is activated, so you need to keep those stocks topped up to keep you going and make sure that other processes in the body don't start to flag. Nutrients that are particularly helpful to focus on are:

Vitamin C in citrus fruits, especially kiwi, and fresh vegetables. Vitamin C deteriorates on cooking and cutting, so add some berries to a smoothie (with protein to balance out the sugar), and consider a supplemental vitamin C so that you're getting enough, as long as it doesn't interfere with any meds.

B vitamins from wholegrains like brown rice, oats and quinoa, nuts, seeds, meet and fish (especially organ meat - so get your hands on some good paté), eggs.

Magnesium from dark green leafy vegetables and wholegrains. This one is so important - you just BURN through magnesium when you're stressed and we generally don't tend to get enough from our diet, so again supplementing would be ideal. A favourite way is by having a lot of magnesium salts in an evening bath. If you don't like baths you can have a magnesium foot bath. The bath will help you top up your levels AND sleep better, so a win-win. If you're looking for a magnesium supplement and you know it doesn't interact with any medication you're taking, a good version is magnesium glycinate.

Protein to help keep you going between meals and provide the all-essential amino acids that will be in huge demand from your nervous and immune system. Best quality, organic, wild/grass-fed, outdoor reared meat, poultry, fish and eggs, live Greek yogurt, tofu, beans and legumes.

Complex carbohydrates will keep you stoked up with energy without spiking your blood sugar levels and draining your energy. Look for brown/red/wild rice, oats, quinoa, buckwheat, sourdough, sweet potatoes. Ideally combine with a protein to keep you going for longer, and know that these foods will also support your serotonin pathways and therefore help balance your mood, especially if you're also having foods like salmon, bananas, cottage cheese, live natural yogurt, turkey, chicken, eggs, nuts and seeds.

Step away from coffee and alcohol

This is oh SO SO tempting, especially when you're at your limit and/or incredibly exhausted. I know myself what a welcome thing they can be in these situations. BUT, you will feel, and be, so much better for avoiding them. It's boring but necessary - instead, have just one coffee in the morning or green tea or a matcha late (this has caffeine so don't have in the afternoon, but also l-theanine which is calming, so you won't feel frazzled) - you don't need any coffee jitters. And instead of a drink, a mug of chamomile might be oh so sensible, but you'll feel soothed and sleep better for it. If you need that feeling of having a drink, try the non-alcoholic Tanqueray with tonic to make a G&T, or buy some Botivo, or some zero alcohol beer. Avoid the non-alcoholic wines, which aren't there...yet.

Meal examples

Scrambled eggs with sourdough and leftover veg/smashed avocado (this can be breakfast, lunch or supper)

Porridge with almond butter, ground seeds, stewed apple and a dollop of Greek yogurt (can batch cook for ease)

Toast (ideally sourdough) with peanut/almond butter and squashed raspberries

Smoothie with berries, nuts, seeds, spinach, cinnamon, mint and your preference of milk (ideally full-fat whole milk if tolerated)

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Dal with veggies and brown rice (make a big batch for ease)

Spiced sweet potato, chickpea and spinach soup with coconut milk

Slow cooked chicken/beef/lamb stew/curry with green veg and brown rice/hunks of sourdough

Kedgeree

Tray baked salmon with vegetables and chickpeas

Cook a roast chicken with a batch of roasted veg alongside for more than one meal
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Oatcakes and peanut butter or fish or chicken paté

Medjool date with almond butter and dark chocolate

Dark chocolate and a handful of nuts

Cottage cheese and left over chicken

Go to bed early

The absolute BEST way to support your body as it undergoes a period of intense stress is by sleeping. This is THE most effective form of self care in this situation. You may not sleep as long as you do normally, for a variety of reasons, but if you can go to bed early, you'll be harnessing the most nourishing hours of sleep, which are those before midnight. After midnight the quality and level of nourishment isn't so potent.

A friend of mine, a fellow nutritionist, went through hell when her husband had a leg injury which got infected and caused sepsis so was in hospital for weeks. She had 3 young kids, one with special needs, a job and a house to sell and a relocation from London to Munich to balance alongside that. She went to bed at 7.30/8pm and was up at 5 and managed to get through the hellish weeks pretty much unscathed, because of this.

A little time to yourself, in silence

There is a lot to process, think about, plan, and to feel, during these intense times. Your nervous system can't do that unless you provide the opportunities to do so, and you will sleep better having given yourself that time - you'll be less likely to struggle to get to sleep or wake up in the night if you're able to think through things and integrate during the day. If not, because it has to happen, it will wake you up at night. This means time - maybe during a car journey or walking the dog - of silence, away from the phone, so that your brain can tick over. Also, your nervous system is going through a lot and you will benefit so much from providing it with some time when you're not giving it things to take in and process.

Once it’s over…

If you can, give yourself some buffer time before you launch back into the normal swing of things. Sleep, walk, get a massage, have long baths in the middle of the day, journal.

Consider acupuncture and herbs

If the experience has been especially difficult and distressing, and/or you aren’t bouncing back once it’s over, I highly recommend seeing a good TCM practitioner for acupuncture, which is so effective and supportive for bringing the body back into balance. Also, a good herbalist can prepare you a personalised concoction of herbs to help build up your resilience and oomph. If your experience has been traumatic, I highly recommend getting some biodynamic craniosacral therapy for helping your body process and let go of the stress, as you do so emotionally and mentally. I’m continually astonished by how supportive this modality is and recommend it in a heartbeat. Look for a therapist here

love Bean x

How to manage intense periods of stress