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Stress is often associated with the emotional aspect of the brain. We feel the emotional reponse of being ‘stressed out’ running through our system. But stress is not purely isolated to our emotions. It can have visible physical effects on the body, that are the early warning signs that our cortisol levels is not as well managed as we might think.

When we think about stress in the body, we usully think about tense, heightened emotions. But when stress starts getting in the way of our normal daily functions, it can start presenting as some symptoms that are… well, just plain weird! On this week’s episode of the Luminous Body podcast, we’re investigating some of the ways that stress is manifesting in your body, in ways you wouldn’t usually expect! We’ll take a look at a few different systems in the body (the hormonal, digestive, muscle and bone, and skin and hair) that often present in physical symptoms when affected by stress. Whilst we don’t always associate these systems as having a strong link with stress, the reality is that our constant exposure to stressful environments can begin to interfere with how they function. And it’s not always an obvious sign! From Achille’s tendon injuries, to missed menstrual cycles, to thinning hair, if we don’t know what to look out for, these signs and symptoms can easily be dismissed or go unnoticed. But this is where being in tune with your body takes a key role in your own health autonomy - nothing in the body happens without a reason for it. We want you to be aware, not alarmed, and prepared to act in your own best health interest. So we’re going to make stress simple again, by breaking down just how cortisol works in the body, and why! By taking a step back, and being open to looking at the body and its wide-ranging influential factors, we’re not restricted to just treating symptoms - we can heal it at the root cause.


Let’s decode the secret language of stress together:
🖐How stress influences other hormones - an introduction to the thyroid!
🖐It’s not just about diet: stress and the digestive system
🖐The unusual cause behind muscle and bone injuries
🖐Stress and the secret cause of premature ageing

Get ready to unlock your inner light and start healing from within!

Unsure of where to start on your own stress management path? We get it - with so much information out there, even dealing with stress starts to sound… well, stressful! But we’ve got you covered. We’ve created a FREE e-book for you that gives our best practical advice and actionable strategies to learn how to regulate your emotions and create a well-balanced and resilient mindset! You can find your free download here!

If you’re ready to start your holistic health journey, we’d love to help you take that first step - feel free to head to our website to contact us for any information or to book your appointment now: https://www.luminousbody.co/

And if you had any comments on the show, any questions you might want answered, or you just want to connect - reach out to us directly on social media @hilary.conroy and @drjaxsonwearing

If something in this episode resonates with you or concerns you in regards to your own health, speak to your health professional for tailored advice to your own needs.

Send us a text

The fight or flight response is a critical part of human evolution. When faced with an immediately dangerous situation, our bodies react by diverting all of our energy and resources toward things that are going to help our survival - blood to the muscles, pupil dilation, and a quickened heartbeat. Other less critical functions are sidelined, only to be called back into action when the coast is clear. When stress becomes an inescapable part of life, those systems face a constant shutdown.

Forgotten keys and passwords, no willpower when it comes to snacking, constant coughs and colds - we’re often quick to blame ourselves for these ‘flaws’. Whilst that seems like an easy answer, the reality is that the truth lies far deeper (and is far more complicated!). On this week’s episode of the Luminous Body podcast, we’re diving into the sneaky signs and symptoms that might indicate your stress is starting to get a little out of control! We’ll be investigating 4 systems (the immune, metabolic, cardiovascular, and cognitive) where stress can have a very real impact. These systems all have vital roles in keeping us functioning as productive humans in our daily routine and have their own unique relationships with the stress hormone, cortisol. We’ve cleverly evolved to have stress as a fantastic call to action when we need to survive a dangerous situation in the immediate present. But if your ever familiar with the saying, it’s true - you can have too much of a good thing! Our bodies weren’t designed to be exposed to consistent and persistent stress. From affecting memory, to changing your immune responses, to increasing potential risks for some of the most common lifestyle diseases, the effect of stress on the body can’t be underestimated! We’ll help you understand the science behind these systems, and how stress can influence them, for better or for worse. Often we try an avoidance coping mechanism with stress, which unfortunately becomes a cyclical catch-22: the more we avoid dealing with it, the worse we deal with stress. But by arming you with knowledge, you’ll be better equipped, you’ll have the confidence to recognise the manifestation of stress in your own body. You are your own most powerful tool for learning!

We’re helping you spot the signs:
🧫 Constantly catching colds and feeling run down? How stress affects your immune system
🍟 It’s not just a matter of low willpower: the link between weight, diet, and stress
🫀 Explaining the impact of stress on the cardiovascular system
🧠 Why stress makes us forget things and struggle to cope with our emotions

Get ready to unlock your inner light and start healing from within!

Unsure of where to start on your own stress management path? We get it - with so much information out there, even dealing with stress starts to sound… well, stressful! But we’ve got you covered. We’ve created a FREE e-book for you that gives our best practical advice and actionable strategies to learn how to regulate your emotions and create a well-balanced and resilient mindset! You can find your free do

If you’re ready to start your holistic health journey, we’d love to help you take that first step - feel free to head to our website to contact us for any information or to book your appointment now: https://www.luminousbody.co/

And if you had any comments on the show, any questions you might want answered, or you just want to connect - reach out to us directly on social media @hilary.conroy and @drjaxsonwearing

If something in this episode resonates with you or concerns you in regards to your own health, speak to your health professional for tailored advice to your own needs.

Send us a text

Stress is an unavoidable part of life. Finances, career, relationships - stressors can come from anywhere and everywhere. Whilst small doses of stress are easily regulated by the body, our system was never designed to deal with the onslaught brought on by today’s society. We can’t outrun, out-supplement, or out-think stress completely, but we can try to out-smart it.

There are so many contributing factors to stress, big and small, that we don’t have the power to control - and that in itself can be incredibly stress-inducing! On this week’s episode of the podcast, we’re giving you the knowledge you need to change the things you can (and accept the ones you can’t!). We’ll be breaking down the 3 biggest areas in our daily lives that are increasing our cortisol levels: our lifestyle, our sleep patterns, and our diet. There are fascinating correlations between all of these factors, from the obvious (like a difficult-to-handle boss) to the not-so-obvious (like your comfort snacking - it’s actually making you more stressed AND insulin resistant!). We’ll help you understand the sometimes complicated interactions that cortisol has on the multiple body systems, and share strategies for how you reduce that impact by making simple changes in your life today. But it’s not all doom and gloom! In fact, one of the best ways to reduce your cortisol levels is to embrace stress and view it as a normal part of life, not something we need to ‘fix’. By becoming more familiar with stress and how we feel it in our own bodies, we can learn to get comfortable with stress. Whilst you might not be able to control every aspect of stress in your life, you do have the power to control your reactions to it!

All the little things start to add up:
📈 Managing the stress hormone, cortisol: is there a secret magic bullet?
📈 Learning to regulate lifestyle stress rather than suppress it
📈 What actually is a good night’s sleep, and what role does stress play in our sleep cycle?
📈 Balancing sugars and stress - how your diet affects cortisol levels

Get ready to unlock your inner light and start healing from within!

If you’re ready to start your holistic health journey, we’d love to help you take that first step - feel free to head to our website to contact us for any information or to book your appointment now: https://www.luminousbody.co/

And if you had any comments on the show, any questions you might want answered, or you just want to connect - reach out to us directly on social media @hilary.conroy and @drjaxsonwearing

If something in this episode resonates with you or concerns you in regards to your own health, speak to your health professional for tailored advice to your own needs.

Send us a text

Often in an emotional event, we experience an outpouring of energy. This could range anywhere from a burst of rage, a wave of sadness, or reaching the heights of joy. At its peak, these emotions can become almost a tangible energy that is coursing through the body. But often as quickly as it comes on, that same energy ebbs away. When this energy is associated with a traumatic event however, it’s often not as simple as letting that negative emotion go. So if it’s not released - where does it go?

Emotions are complicated. They are often oversimplified into ‘good’ and ‘bad’ categories to help us make sense of them. In reality, emotions are simply information from our body that we can choose to respond to, or not - there’s no need for those labels! We’re encouraging you to feel all of your feelings on this week’s episode of the podcast. Emotions are helpful responses from our brain that can act as guideposts for positive action and adaptability, and can shape how we interact with the world around us. Whilst we must place a high value on these reactions, it’s important to remember that the power of how we respond to those emotions is ultimately up to us. We’ll be exploring what can happen if we attempt to ignore or block our feelings from occurring and aim to give you the confidence to embrace the full spectrum of your emotions. We’ll also break down the biochemistry of emotions, such as stress, and the influential relationship it has within the body’s physical processes. Not only are emotions able to provide information from our everyday reactions, but they can also be a critical deciding factor for our survival. We’ll be showing you the incredible way our brains can store memories of our emotional responses to shape the way we respond to life-threatening situations and increase our chances of surviving time and time again. Traumatic events like this can provide us with powerful information, but it can also have other long-lasting effects that are not as beneficial. When negative emotions are not released and resolved at the time of the event, the energy from that reaction becomes trapped in the body. This can lead to a multitude of chronic health issues and is often missed as a potential cause. We’ll investigate how past traumas may be stored within your muscles and systems and causing pain that can go unresolved for decades, and exactly how you can use emotional release techniques to resolve it - once and for all.

Feel all of your feelings:
🙂 There’s no such thing as ‘bad’ emotions: how to embrace the full spectrum of your feelings!
😔 The biochemistry of emotions, and how they influence physical reactions
😮 The link between our emotions and our survival instincts
😐 How emotions are stored in the body - could it be behind your chronic pain?

Get ready to unlock your inner light and start healing from within!

If you’re ready to start your holistic health journey, we’d love to help you take that first step - feel free to head to our website to contact us for any information or to book your appointment now: https://www.luminousbody.co/

And if you had any comments on the show, any questions you might want answered, or you just want to connect - reach out to us directly on social media @hilary.conroy and @drjaxsonwearing

If something in this episode resonates with you or concerns you in regards to your own health, speak to your health professional for tailored advice to your own needs.

Send us a text

Thousands of years ago, life was as simple as predator versus prey - and you wanted to ensure you didn’t end up the latter. Our bodies evolved to have a natural reaction to dangerous situations to give us a fighting (or flight-based) chance of survival. Whilst our daily lives have changed radically from a hunting ground routine, this innate take-action system has been slower to adapt. So what happens when the body can’t quite discern between a real threat, and an email from your boss?

In the middle of a particularly busy work week, you might be tempted to throw your hands up in the air and wonder: who even invented stress anyway? But without it, the human race would never have been able to grow and move forward, let alone even continue to exist. Whilst it can be difficult to place qualitative and quantitative determinants on stress levels, it’s important to consider that it can be vastly different from person to person. On this week’s episode of the podcast, we’re exploring stress and what it means for our physical and emotional health. We’re breaking down just exactly what stress is on a scientific level, and how this natural biological process interacts with multiple systems throughout the body as part of your sympathetic nervous system. Stress often has a negative connotation as something that is destructive and an internal factor that needs to be controlled and pushed down. Whilst this may sound fairly counterproductive, there are actually ‘good’ stress levels and situations that we need in our lives every day! We’ll look into how you can embrace positive stress in your life to help you grow and develop skills that improve your adaptation to the stress we experience on a day-to-day basis. But whilst we depend on short bursts of good stress to evolve, consistently being under stress takes a deeper toll on our bodies. We’ll be breaking down the different types of stress and how they affect the functionality of our systems, alongside the potential health issues that can arise from sustained stress. Stress is getting a PR makeover on this week’s episode, and we want you to learn to embrace and utilise stress to your own advantage.

Don’t stress! We’re taking care of all of it for you:
🤯 What is stress, and what does it biologically do to your body?
🤯 Embracing stress as a normal and healthy part of life!
🤯 The difference between short-term and long-term stress
🤯 Understanding how stress and your emotional and mental health are linked

Get ready to unlock your inner light and start healing from within!

All information that is provided in this episode is general, with the intent to increase greater holistic health awareness. If something in this episode resonates with you or concerns you in regards to your own health, speak to your health professional for tailored advice to your own needs.

If you’re ready to start your holistic health journey, we’d love to help you take that first step - feel free to head to our website to contact us for any information or to book your appointment now: https://www.luminousbody.co/

And if you had any comments on the show, any questions you might want answered, or you just want to connect - reach out to us directly on social media @hilary.conroy and @drjaxsonwearing

If something in this episode resonates with you or concerns you in regards to your own health, speak to your health professional for tailored advice to your own needs.

Send us a text

The human body is fascinating in its functions. It can be considered like a numbers game. We have evolved 11 complex organ systems to walk, talk, breathe, digest, think, and live. These systems then require one or more of the thousands of types of biochemical reactions to occur. These reactions take place within our cells, and there are approximately 37 trillion cells within the human body. In each cell, there are a billion biochemical processes happening within a second. So when the nutrients needed for these critical functions are not available? Well, no wonder we don’t feel our best.

Nutrient deficiencies can commonly be identified in physical symptoms, like weak bones, cramped muscles, and sore eyes. But some of the more intangible symptoms can be the most worrying - deficiencies can result in patients feeling like a shell of who they used to be. We’re continuing our investigative series into some of the most common nutrient deficiencies on this week’s episode of the Luminous Body podcast! We’ll be exploring all your deficiency questions and focusing on some well-known (and some less-known!) nutrients: calcium, magnesium, iodine, and zinc. We’ll be explaining how a lack of these nutrients might have you feeling physically and mentally, as well as the effect it has on your emotional well-being. These nutrients often work hand-in-hand with each other, and we’ll be exploring those relationships to help you understand the critical balances within your body. The innovation of medications in healthcare has changed the outcomes of most diseases. Rates of death and severe illness have been drastically reduced, and there are thousands of medications available to treat a wide range of diseases and disorders. These medications can influence multiple systems throughout the body, and it is important to know when to support your body in its fight for health. We’ll be taking a look at how medications can affect the absorption or availability of nutrients in your body, and which medications in particular to look out for. In a body of such complex systems, sometimes the answer can be simple. Supplementing where you’re lacking can be the key to turning your soul back on!

Becoming aware of the signs from your body:
🦴 Critical functions of calcium, magnesium, iodine, and zinc in our daily biochemical processes
🦴 Possible causes of deficiencies in any of these nutrients
🦴 Common symptoms associated with each, and how to recognise them in your own body
🦴 How to support and supplement where you’re lacking, and restore your nutrient levels

Get ready to unlock your inner light and start healing from within!

All information that is provided in this episode is general, with the intent to increase greater holistic health awareness. If something in this episode resonates with you or concerns you in regards to your own health, speak to your health professional for tailored advice to your own needs.

If you’re ready to start your holistic health journey, we’d love to help you take that first step - feel free to head to our website to contact us for any information or to book your appointment now: https://www.luminousbody.co/

And if you had any comments on the show, any questions you might want answered, or you just want to connect - reach out to us directly on social media @hilary.conroy and @drjaxsonwearing

If something in this episode resonates with you or concerns you in regards to your own health, speak to your health professional for tailored advice to your own needs.

Send us a text

Our everyday lifestyles have changed radically over the last few hundred years. Where diet was based on simple, unprocessed foods, and working involved being outside in the sun, we now isolate ourselves away inside offices, commonly eating highly processed sugary foods. This then has a dramatic effect on our ability to absorb vital nutrients from the environment around us.

We might not even consciously know something is missing, but our bodies do - and they’ll let us know about it, one way or another. Whether it’s an obvious sign, like heart palpitations, or smaller details, like cracked lips, learning to interpret your symptoms can be the key to unlocking the mystery of your nutrient levels - or lack of. This week’s episode of the podcast takes a closer look at some of the nation’s most common nutrient deficiencies: iron, vitamin D, and vitamin B12. A considerable amount of nutrient deficiencies are considered ‘modern’ deficiencies, as our food becomes less nutrient-dense than previous generations, and our lifestyles differ greatly. Deficiencies are becoming increasingly common, and being aware of signs and symptoms is critical for early diagnosis. We’ll be exploring how you can recognise this in your own body (including some less well-known indications) and also becoming aware of the at-risk population who may be experiencing a deficiency due to medication, dietary, or lifestyle influences. But it’s not always as simple as making changes in your everyday life - when the body is in critical need, it can become necessary to support it with specific supplements. We’ll share the best-proven supplementation you could incorporate into your routine as needed. Nutrients can be difficult to track, but having a healthy balance is critical for feeling vitalised and energised!

We’re on the lookout for all the hidden details:
☀️ Critical functions of iron, vitamin B12, and vitamin D in our daily biochemical processes
☀️ Possible causes of deficiencies in any of these nutrients
☀️ Common symptoms associated with each, and how to recognise them in your own body
☀️ How to support and supplement where you’re lacking, and restore your nutrient levels

Get ready to unlock your inner light and start healing from within!

All information that is provided in this episode is general, with the intent to increase greater health awareness. If something in this episode resonates with you or concerns you in regards to your own health, speak to a health professional for tailored advice for your own needs.

If you’re ready to start your holistic health journey, we’d love to help you take that first step - feel free to head to our website to contact us for any information or to book your appointment now: https://www.luminousbody.co/

And if you had any comments on the show, any questions you might want answered, or you just want to connect - reach out to us directly on social media @hilary.conroy and @drjaxsonwearing

If something in this episode resonates with you or concerns you in regards to your own health, speak to your health professional for tailored advice to your own needs.

Send us a text

Our bodies are hosts for microscopic living organisms: we can’t see them with the naked eye, but they are constantly replicating throughout our systems every day. There are over 100 trillion bacteria in our digestive system alone - more than the amount of stars in the Milky Way galaxy. These bacteria live in a constant fight for balance between ‘good’ and ‘bad’, and our everyday actions have a profound effect on who wins.

Restoring balance to our gut bacteria can be tricky, but the consequences of leaving imbalances to run rampant can wreak havoc on the whole digestive system - and the whole body. We rely heavily on ‘good’ bacteria to aid with our natural digestive processes, such as breaking down and absorbing nutrients, the motility of the food passing through, and keeping the levels of ‘bad’ bacteria in check. In this week for the Luminous Body podcast, we’ll be exploring how our environment and actions affect the balance of bacteria in our gut, and how we can use functional testing and holistic healthcare to identify and treat imbalances. We’ll be looking at a range of influences such as medications and diet to examine the link between bacteria and the perfect body host conditions. The workings of the bacteria in our gut are based on an incredibly complex system, that has widespread effects on not just the digestive processes but can extend as far as mental health disruption as well. We’ll also be discussing the prescription dietary protocols and supplementation that can aid in the healing and restoration of balance to the ‘good’ bacteria our gut requires to function healthily. This week shares another personal story, with Jaxson documenting his experience of suffering from SIBO (small intestinal bacterial overgrowth) after multiple extensive transitioning surgeries, and the intense medication that followed. He shares his journey vulnerably and authentically and proudly shows how holistic healthcare helped to heal not just his gut, but his outlook on life for the better.

We’re diving deep into:
🔬Effects of our daily actions on our gut bacteria
🔬Testing and diagnosing SIBO (small intestinal bacterial overgrowth)
🔬Restoring balance with diet and supplements
🔬The two-way relationship between mental health and your diet

Get ready to unlock your inner light and start healing from within!

If you’re ready to start your holistic health journey, we’d love to help you take that first step - feel free to head to our website to contact us for any information or to book your appointment now: https://www.luminousbody.co/

And if you had any comments on the show, any questions you might want answered, or you just want to connect - reach out to us directly on social media @hilary.conroy and @drjaxsonwearing

If something in this episode resonates with you or concerns you in regards to your own health, speak to your health professional for tailored advice to your own needs.