Feeling stressed out around the holidays? These tips might help. (WYDaily/ Courtesy of Unsplash)

As we head into the holidays, W&M News spoke with Dr. Elizabeth De Falcon to learn about ways relieve stress and practice self-care over winter break, to strengthen our collective immune systems. Dr. De Falcon is a practicing physician with William & Marys Health Services. She is a licensed pediatrician and Fellow of the American Academy of Pediatrics.

In the simplest terms, stress is just your bodys reaction to any change that requires response. So, it could be anything: a mental strain, a physical strain or even an emotional strain. Honestly, its different for every person. What stresses me out may not stress you out, but if were talking about physiology, then our stress response would be mostly the same.

Without going into the specific names of all the different parts of your brain, its just that your brain perceives stress or danger or threat. Then it sends out a signal from what is essentially the command center of your brain to the rest of your body, through the nervous system. Then the nervous system starts acting on a fight or flight response and all these different neurotransmitters and hormones get released. All these different substances start flowing through your body just to get you prepared to respond to that stressor.

A lot of times, youre not even aware of it. Most of the time the threat comes and goes, and as the threat goes away, the stress response decreases. Think of a car whizzing past you on the street. Its stressful for a second, but the feeling is very short-lived. Its important to understand that not all stress is bad. It serves an important biological purpose. The stress response has been vital to our survival and evolution. When the saber-toothed tigers were hunting us down, our bodies learned how to respond to that.

If you translate that to now, lets say youre taking a test and you feel a little bit stressed. Youre supposed to have a certain level of stress, because its your bodys way of motivating you to focus on something important. After the test is done, theres this sigh of relief because that stress is gone and your body just goes back to a kind of homeostasis where its feeling ok.

But sometimes that stress hangs around for a little while. Thats when you start running into problems. You may find that even though the threat is gone, youre not feeling better. You may be experiencing increased heart rate and breathing or generally feeling edgy all the time. Thats a sign that youre bumping over into a low-level, acute stress or chronic stress state.

Thats when we start to think about cortisol. Youve probably heard about cortisol as a stress hormone. In the moment, it actually helps your body boost its immune system and decrease inflammation, but if its there for a long time, then you start to get into different problems.

I always tell people to seek medical help if they start seeing signs of chronic stress. Some of the red flags would be that you feel in a low mood all the time. You may stop hanging out with your friends or your family. Youre just kind of retreating and not interested in the things you used to be interested in. You may be sleeping too much or too little. Some people experience physical symptoms. They have an upset stomach or heartburn or headaches, because their blood pressure is up. They might feel a knot in their chest. All of those things could be signs that youre experiencing anxiety, so you would definitely want to see your doctor at that point.

It comes down to the basics of general healthy living. For example, if youve not been on a good sleep schedule over the semester, you really need to prioritize getting on a healthy sleep scheduleand make it a realistic schedule that you can keep doing once we get back on campus. If you were not addressing your dietary needs during the semester, start to incorporate healthy, nutrient-dense types of foods into your diet.

Also, exercise is super important. Just from a perspective of improving your cardiovascular health and improving your circulation, regular exercise will help get all those immune cells pumped around your body. You dont want to smoke and try to minimize your alcohol intake.

Then, of course, what weve all been focused on over these last nine month is taking steps to minimize infections. So, being very diligent about washing your hands, keeping your distance from pretty much anyone who doesnt live in your house, and wearing a mask if you have to go out and about.

When you have a healthy immune system, when its functional, you dont even know its there. Its protecting you from things that are trying to kill you, viruses and bacterial infections, but you arent even aware of it.

But just like a car runs out of gas when left idling, if you are not fully addressing the things that boost your immune system, eventually that car will run out of gas and then that leads to a whole host of problems. You might start noticing that youre getting more colds or struggling to get over minor illnesses. Thats really just because when your stress response is revved up all the time, it has the opposite effect on your health and it starts down-regulating your immune system.

This is something I always recommend to my patients: practice gratitude. Its such a simple, easy thing that anyone can do. It doesnt have to be complicated. Just get a little notebook, or even make mental notes, and focus on three things that youre grateful for in a day. No matter how crummy the day is, theres always something that we can find that we can be grateful for.

Studies show that if you practice gratitude, there are positive changes in your brain that actually change your outlook on things. Along those lines, theWellness Centerhas all kinds of wonderful mindfulness, meditation and exercise resources available online. They make it really easy to access, so Id also recommend trying out some of those offerings.

Adrienne Berard is a research communications specialist at William & Mary News and this story was published on Dec. 18.

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Tips for staying healthy and managing stress over the holidays - WYDaily

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