De-Stress For Success with Isabella Ferguson
This podcast is about finding calm. I talk to the experts and bring you evidence-based practical methods to help you destress and live purposefully. In my early 40’s, I bowed out of a 20 year legal career “to spend more time with the kids”. However it was more than that. Decades of running on high anxiety and drinking to cope had had its toll on my nervous system and I was burnt out. I didn’t know it at the time, but from there I started years of recovery and ultimately stepped into a new way of living. I went to rehab, retrained as a counsellor and coach, created a successful counselling practice, became a motivational & corporate wellness speaker, took up painting and now support others to destress for success.
https://isabellaferguson.com.au
De-Stress For Success with Isabella Ferguson
2. Making Informed Choices: The Truth About Alcohol and Stress
Ever reached for a glass of wine after a long, stressful day, convinced it’s just the relief you need? Buckle up, because this episode is about to challenge everything you thought you knew about the relationship between alcohol and stress. Together, we’re going to dig deep into the complex, often paradoxical, ways in which alcohol interacts with our stress levels. Discover how that seemingly harmless tipple can actually ramp up your baseline stress over time, disrupting your hormonal balance, neurotransmitters, and even your sleep patterns.
But it doesn't stop there. We'll also journey into the psychological implications of using alcohol as a coping mechanism, and how this dependency can stifle the development of healthier stress management strategies. We're not advocating for absolute sobriety here, but by the end of this episode, you'll have the knowledge and understanding to make more informed choices about alcohol's role in your life. It's time to reshape our understanding, to stop merely surviving and start truly thriving. If you're a regular, moderate to heavy drinker, please remember to seek medical guidance. This isn't just an episode, it's an invitation to re-evaluate your relationship with alcohol and stress. Let's navigate this terrain together!
https://isabellaferguson.com.au
#alcohol #alcoholawareness #stress #stressmanagement #burnout #burnoutprevention
ISABELLA FERGUSON
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My web: https://isabellaferguson.com.au
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Stress has become an all too common companion for many individuals. While there are various factors contributing to stress, one often overlooked aspect is the connection between alcohol consumption and stress. So on today's episode, I'll shed light on how alcohol, often turned to as a coping mechanism for stress, can paradoxically exacerbate stress levels. Stressed people drink to cope with stress without realising that alcohol compounds it. Do you start to feel stressed as soon as you wake up and immediately reach for alcohol when you walk in the door after a long day? Perhaps you're in your mid-40s, feeling like you're always spinning templates in the air, drinking too much and not feeling any relief when you wake up the next morning? Well, it could be the alcohol. This subject fits fairly and squarely within my wheelhouse, both in terms of education and training as well as from a personal perspective. I'm a counsellor, this naked mind coach and grey area drinking master coach. In my professional life, I support people to drink less and de-stress, but this topic also impacts me personally.
Speaker 1:In my previous life as a stress lawyer that drank to cope with stress, when I started my path to drinking less and ultimately quitting, I learned the science of alcohol, what it chemically does to your brain, and it was a game changer for me, and this is exactly what we're going to talk about today. Some of this information will surprise you. You will likely not look at a glass of wine quite the same way again. Before we get started, two quick things to mention here. If you are a consistent, moderate to heavy drinker and by that I mean at least three to four glasses every night, without big breaks in between please seek medical guidance about your alcohol use and how to safely start drinking less. You may be physically addicted and you need a medically guided detox. Secondly, I am an alcohol free woman, but I am not anti alcohol by any means. I socialize with drinkers. My family members are drinkers. I certainly do not want to come across as somebody that judges people that drink or who is anti alcohol.
Speaker 1:This podcast is purely about the relationship between alcohol and elevated stress levels and how drinking less can dramatically decrease your stress levels. So let's get started. Stress is a natural response to challenging situations, and the body's stress response involves the release of stress hormones such as cortisol and adrenaline, and it's probably safe to say that you probably know this fact already. Interestingly, alcohol can both dampen and heighten the stress response, depending on various factors such as the amount consumed and individual differences.
Speaker 1:Alcohol is one of the only substances that is both a depressant and a stimulant. The way that alcohol works in our system is this when you have a glass of wine, the alcohol triggers the release of dopamine in the brain, leading to those feelings of pleasure and euphoria commonly experienced by people who drink. Dopamine is a neurotransmitter associated with pleasure, reward and motivation. The surge of dopamine after you drink alcohol acts to reinforce the brain's association between alcohol consumption and reward, and it's this link that contributes to the development of cravings. In the short term, the dopamine's sedative effects can suppress the release of stress hormones. This is why we turn to alcohol to relax in the first place.
Speaker 1:The calming influence of alcohol on the nervous system initially can create that sense of relief and tranquility. However, this initial relief is short lived and can actually lead to more stress in the long run. The relief, the depressing impacts of alcohol, lasts for approximately 20 minutes only, as the blood alcohol level slowly increases. But when this is occurring, with the release of the depressant dopamine, your brain has registered an imbalance. Something is not quite right in the system. It's not quite as it should be, and in order to keep you safe and protected. The brain seeks to retain homeostasis this is what it is designed to do and it releases stimulants to counteract the depressant in the form of weight for it, stress hormones, adrenaline and cortisol.
Speaker 1:As your blood alcohol level starts to decrease after the first drink, you might have noticed that you start to feel restless and stressed once more. It's usually this, in fact, when you start to look around for another drink to counteract that kind of restless feeling and try to get back into that high or euphoria that you had after that first drink of wine. However, the baseline level of stress has increased because you have stress hormones surging or lingering in your system to counteract those depressing effects of alcohol. And here's the fact that many of us don't know about and maybe don't want to hear. Those stress hormones stay in your system a whole lot longer than the dopamine. A lot longer, say, at least three or four hours, and much longer if you are a reasonably heavy drinker, and a lot more stress hormones have been released. So, hello, 3am, wake up. Have you had one of those wake ups after you've been drinking the night before where you pass out reasonably quickly and easily but you suddenly and immediately wake up at 3am. That's the stress hormones in your system. So, paradoxically, we drink to relax and de-stress, but it makes us a lot more stressed in the long run.
Speaker 1:Here is another not so fun fact, but one you need to know about if you're a drinker of alcohol, if you are a regular heavy drinker, your consistent and heavy drinking can disrupt the body's hormonal balance, leading to an increase in stress hormones even during times when alcohol is not present in the system. So even when you are not drinking, your body releases stress hormones in anticipation of the drinking that it's used to you consuming. This can contribute to heightened anxiety and sensitivity to stresses in your everyday life, creating a cycle where alcohol is sought as a means of escape, but which is a large contributor to the stress that you're seeking to escape from in the first place. So your body, as a means of trying to protect you, to keep you alert, to create this balance in your system, is one step ahead of you. It's anticipating your regular hit of alcohol and releases stress hormones in these moments to counteract the expected alcohol.
Speaker 1:If you're a regular, consistent, moderate to heavy drinker and by that I'm talking about three glasses of wine every night you are probably noticing that you are regularly feeling antsy, restless, stressed, depressed, anxious, even when you're not drinking. With all of these stress hormones in our system, even after a few glasses, your baseline level of joy is decreased, it's down. You're not operating like the well-oiled machine you were meant to operate at, so instead, your enjoyment of life, of everyday activities, like spending time with your kids, going for a walk, a hike, having a barbecue with friends, going to the movies, those things that you once enjoyed a lot, perhaps when you were younger, before alcohol became a regular feature in your life, you're not going to find as enjoyable. Being a consistent drinker takes the shine off life, and this is often a very missed aspect of being an alcohol consumer. You feel like you need alcohol to feel normal, to enjoy everyday activities, and you might be contributing this lack of enjoyment to other things in your life.
Speaker 1:Well, if you're feeling it, if you notice that your alcohol use has stepped up a bit, it can be really useful to take a reset, have a break from alcohol, for I think it's always useful to have at least a six-week break to try and recalibrate the system and start to experience the levels of joy that you are meant to feel when your body, and, in particular, the neural transmitters, are operating as they should be. It takes years to recalibrate the system after decades of drinking consistently, but I guarantee you a few months off will feel amazing. So why do we drink to levels where it creates a stress in our system? Why do we do this to ourselves? I think this is really fascinating and knowing this is really quite important. If you are a consumer of alcohol, if you are, no judgment, that's great, but it's really useful to know a little bit around the science of why we do it. Why do we enjoy it so much? Why do we think we like to drink so much?
Speaker 1:Well, it comes back to dopamine. Dopamine is a reward chemical. It's released by the ancient reptilian part of our brain to, as a kind of reminder to us, a reward to do the thing that we were doing when it was released, again for survival. So it's meant to reward us, remind us to do those survival activities, things like eat, connect with others, reproduce, so to do those things we need to do. To survivors, human beings, it's associated with those very basic activities we need to do to survive, but in this modern world of ours it is artificially released in massive amounts. We get dopamine dumps when we do things like drink alcohol, eat sugar, watch pornography, game all of those things that we get very quickly addicted to. That's marketed to us, by the way, in very sophisticated ways, because there's so much money behind the industry of these activities, because they've got a captured market that's addicted to come back again and again, so of course, they're going to create very enticing advertising that promises things like success, happiness, if we consume these things. They're designed to hook us in. There are also activities that tend to make others a whole lot of money at our detriment. So that's my big spiel against big alcohol over for now.
Speaker 1:The other reason why we drink the way we do or in particular, specifically I'm talking about why we believe we need to drink the way we do is because we've developed deep seated beliefs that alcohol actually is a benefit to us, that alcohol relaxes and de-stresses us. This is also really fascinating to me as a counsellor and coach that helps people to drink less, because this is where I step in to help you really shine a light on these beliefs and pull them apart a little bit, challenge them and untangle you from these beliefs. If you think of a specific belief, so let's say the belief that alcohol helps me relax and de-stress. If you think of that as being positioned at the top of an iceberg, that bit that we can see on top of the water alcohol helps me de-stress. Well, like an iceberg under the water, the bits we cannot see in our subconscious are all the layers that make up the belief, the assumptions, experiences, observations, perceptions that we have witnessed and gathered over the course of our long life.
Speaker 1:Since when we were children, for example, we might have seen our parents reach for a glass after work, utter something like God, I need a red wine, what a day. Or pop, open that bottle, I need de-stress. You might have seen advertisements of people relaxing with a glass, or particular characters in movies and TV shows. I'm thinking, for example, that mum in modern family always grabbing a glass of wine to deal with the stress of kids in the household. All of these components form the belief that we need a glass of wine to relax. It's almost elevated to something alluring and special, this reward. But here's the thing All of those assumptions, experiences, observations and perceptions that are the ingredients, the building blocks of this belief are untrue.
Speaker 1:They're not factual. They've been based on stories and advertisements that are not based on fact. So what's the truth? Well, it's the science. It's the objective facts. It's what alcohol does chemically to your brain and bodies. It's the science. It's what we've just gone through really quickly. It's the massive dump of dopamine and then it's the immediate lingering release of stress hormones that actually act to increase your baseline stress over time. On top of this, you can work out what the truth is by your own very real experiences that you've had after drinking. So this might include the 3am wake-ups, the loss of sleep, the increased stress over time, the decreased joy in your life, the increased tolerance. If alcohol, for example, fix stress, we wouldn't need more and more of it. So part of changing habits to replace your initial beliefs to the truer and more factual beliefs is really building up all of this evidence to counteract all of those stories we've gathered over the course of our lives to turn it into a more factual belief.
Speaker 1:Alcohol makes me more stressed. Alcohol also changes our mood. It affects the neurotransmitters in our brain, such as serotonin, dopamine, gaba, which are linked to mood regulation. While alcohol might enhance their effects initially, overconsumption and regular use can disrupt the delicate balance of these neurotransmitters and this can potentially lead to increased feelings of anxiety and depression, both of which are, as we know, closely tied to stress. The disruption to quality, restorative sleep that is caused by alcohol is very much linked to an increase in your stress levels.
Speaker 1:I'm only going to touch on this very briefly because I'm not a sleep expert, but I do have one that is going to pop on the podcast in a few episodes to really deal with the topic of sleep and, in particular, stress and sleep. Well, alcohol can severely impact sleep patterns. Although it might make you feel drowsy and facilitate falling asleep initially, it disrupts the later stages of sleep, leading to poorer sleep quality overall. Poor sleep in turn contributes to higher stress levels, and that creates that vicious cycle. If in doubt, use your Apple Watch or your Fitbit or Simla and compare your sleep quality when you've had a few glasses compared to when you've been alcohol-free for a week or more. It's a telling experiment, believe me.
Speaker 1:As the short-term effects of alcohol wear off, what's known as a rebound effect often occurs, where stress and anxiety levels can surge as alcohol is leaving your body and the depressive effect is wearing off and we spoke about this briefly. It can happen even after one glass of wine, it can leave you with heightened feelings of anxiety, and this is often referred to as the rebound anxiety effect. It's just really good to know this when you are reaching for that very first glass of wine, or whatever it is your beverage of choice, that that glass of wine will be initially quite lovely for the first 20 minutes. But playing the tape forward in half an hour to 40 minutes you're going to experience that rebound anxiety and it's going to create heightened feelings of stress, more so than when you started, more so than when you're having that first glass, and that's going to lead to, more often than not, the second glass or the third glass. And this is now actually how I see a glass of wine. I pause and see it as a big fat glass of stress that I just don't need and I look for something healthier to relieve my stress rather than that glass. Again, no judgement. If you do consume alcohol, I just think it's really good just to know why it is you're seeking it and if it's going to give you the thing you're after.
Speaker 1:Alcohol's impact on the brain can also amplify the negative emotions and thoughts that you might already have at the time. If someone consumes alcohol as a way to escape stress. For example, you might find that your stresses feel even more overwhelming when the alcohol affects diminish. I'll just very quickly touch on four more ways that alcohol can exacerbate stress. Firstly, consistent, regular to heavy alcohol consumption can lead to various physical health problems liver damage, cardiovascular issues, weakened immune system and, not to be alarmist, but it is associated with the increase of seven types of cancer. It is a carcinogen. These health concerns can themselves trigger stress and anxiety.
Speaker 1:The psychological dependence relying on alcohol as a coping mechanism can lead to psychological dependence. This not only perpetuates the cycle of stress, but it can hinder the development of healthy coping strategies these healthy strategies that we're going to talk about in this podcast, that you can put in place to deal with your stress. That is not an exacerbator of stress like alcohol is. Lastly, the stress that alcohol can cause to your relationships with others, relationships with your partner and your family. You become more argumentative, you can become louder. If you drink more than your partner, they're going to notice and that itself can become a relationship issue. An alcohol can impact your relationship with yourself. So if you're drinking a lot, you're always breaking those moderation goals. You end up drinking more than you ought to. You're going to feel more fatigued the next day, probably less inclined to put your sneakers on in exercise or catch up with friends or jump to the things you want to do. It's going to impact how you view yourself, how you feel in your own skin and look.
Speaker 1:Taking a break from alcohol, even just for six weeks, can be such a valuable exercise because, well, firstly, you can really experience the, the lovely health gains, the sleep, the greater motivation, the mental clarity that comes with out alcohol in your system, and you can actually then find out well, who's in control of alcohol. Is it me, or is it the substance? Is it the bottle itself? I know that when I was a busy professional, and I still see it in all of my ex-colleagues around me now. Alcohol is that very reliable, available, quick fix there for you to grab when you have a long day, when you are stressed and you've got advices that you need to do. That advice doesn't feel so bad if you've got a glass of wine to accompany you, right, so you can end up feeling like a bit of an old friend. A reward, the, the alluring thing that's going to take the edge off and numb the thoughts. This episode really is just here for you. If you are noticing that you're drinking more and more, the sleep is impacted, you're waking up feeling more stressed than ever, that it could be the alcohol that is the contributor to elevating stress, and it's just good to know that what it is you are looking for in that glass is not, in fact, what you are actually receiving.
Speaker 1:Once understandable that people turn to alcohol temporarily to alleviate stress, it's just really important to recognize that this approach often backfires in the long run. The neurochemical and physiological effects of alcohol can exacerbate stress, leading to those harmful cycles. Instead of reaching for a glass of wine, we just need to make more space in our lives to explore healthier coping mechanisms, those things that we know about exercise, mindfulness, deep breathing these are all ways of raking the stress cycle or releasing that stress valve and creating healthier neural pathways that don't involve a pathway straight to a glass of wine. There are 101 reasons to explore drinking less, and perhaps unbiased. But for many of my stressed clients that have eliminated alcohol largely from their lives, one word that is very frequently, if not always, used by them is calm. They feel a sense of calm that they haven't been able to feel for a long time. So a compelling motivation to drink less is to feel calmer and less stressed. You don't have to be a big drinker, you can simply just be curious about the health gains that come with less alcohol in your life. Give it a shot, get through four weeks to six weeks and shoot me an email let me know how you feel and if that sense of calmness actually arrives.
Speaker 1:Taking a break will not fix everything. It can often just be the start of a greater exploration of your life, your habits and stress levels generally. But drinking less alcohol will take away the increased surge of stress hormones that your body pumps into your body to counteract alcohol, that very substance that you've reached for in the first place to try and seek some stress relief. Drinking less will improve your sleep quality, reduce those stress hormones and create space to allow you to reassess your work life balance. It's hard to do this when you're constantly fatigued, and I'm just going to end on this note no one regrets not having a hangover. I hope this episode has been useful for you. I work with many professionals and drinking less has been a game changer. The chaos easers, as does the tendency to ruminate on work related conversations. That degree of calmness and contentedness that is often associated with drinking less is worth its weight and gold. If we could bottle that feeling, we'd be millionaires. Thank you for listening today. Everyone, really grateful you tuned in. See you next week.
