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Prakash Chandran: This, the Health COVID-19 podcast, was recorded on November 13, 2020. Fear and stress may be increasing in the lives of many as the global pandemic continues through the season. But it's important during this time to take action to reduce your stress and anxiety levels to prevent mental or chronic health problems.

Unknown speaker: With a relentless focus on excellence in healthcare, Pullman Regional Hospital presents the Health Podcast.

Prakash Chandran: Today, we'll be talking about the negative effects of stress and how to manage it in a healthy way. And here with us to discuss is Deborah Blazzard, a psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner at Pullman Regional Hospital. Deborah, it is great to have you here today. My first question is pretty basic here, but what exactly are the main causes of stress?

Deborah Blazzard: I feel like it really is different for every body and every circumstance, but I feel like when circumstances in our lives demand more than we can give, we start feeling overwhelmed and then this leads to stress. And the more we react to those things in our life, then the stress increases.

Some things, just generally speaking, it could be stressful to have a house full of kids if you're a young mom. It could be that we've committed ourselves to too many activities or we've got some urgent deadlines that we're trying to meet. This could cause stress. But like I said, what is stressful for one person may not be stressful for the next person.

Prakash Chandran: Yeah, that makes sense. And so often I think people think that stress is just mental and emotional, but it actually can have effects on your body as well. So maybe can you speak to that a little bit?

Deborah Blazzard: Yeah, so when normal stress builds to a certain level and is no longer serving like a productive purpose in our lives, this is when our bodies start becoming more stressed. And what we typically see as a result of that, there might be some suppression to our immune system. Some people, their digestion gets upset. And this is some of the things that our body is doing to ward off the stress and giving us little cues that things are no longer productive or no longer going very well anymore and we need to step in and take care of it.

Prakash Chandran: Yes. And one of the things that I've heard is that if left unaddressed, that long-term stress can actually cause health problems or increase risk of or to certain diseases. Can you speak to what those might be?

Deborah Blazzard: Certainly, it causes both emotional and physical damage, but probably just the health problems that one might see are the increased risk of a heart attack or a stroke. I know, a lot of stress increases the aging process. And ultimately, like in my line of work, too much stress could almost rewire your brain, just leaving you more vulnerable to depression and anxiety.

Prakash Chandran: And when people feel this way and I can certainly speak for myself, after a long stressful day, I will tend to eat more. And I always love having a drink, maybe two, if I'm being honest. I imagine that a lot of people turn to eating more and drinking more when they feel stressed. Can you talk about that and potentially some other typical, unhealthy ways people cope with stress?

Deborah Blazzard: Yeah, I think you hit the nail on the head with the hammer. A lot of people, when they're stressed out, we see some unhealthy patterns of eating. We see people staying up late. And then of course you mentioned, trying to use alcohol in order to kind ofdestress, but then it turns from one to two to three to four. And that's an unhealthy pattern. Poor sleep habits, maybe some people are trying to meet a deadline so that they are staying up way later than they should or another unhealthy habit would be just checking out and watching, I don't know, something on TV or the internet, but again, just way too late, so they're not allowing their bodies to get a good night's rest and cope with the stress.

Other people consume nicotine. and I guess another unhealthy way people deal with it sometimes is they create debt through going out and buying things that maybe they don't necessarily have the money to buy those things for. Some people just ignore it and then that's unhealthy as well. And then another unhealthy thing is that sometimes people take it out on others. It could be their family members or peers or things of that nature. So I feel like those are a couple typical unhealthy ways that people deal with stress when they're stressed out.

Prakash Chandran: We are in the middle of a pandemic and I don't know what it's been like for you and your friends, but certainly for, my community, it's basically exacerbated all of the stressors that we've already had, whether that be me and my family or my friends and their family. And so trying to cope and keep up when we live in this restricted way has been very difficult. So one of the first things that I wanted to address with you is if people are feeling overwhelmed right now during this time, and I know that's understandable, what advice might you give them to start combating this?

Deborah Blazzard: Yeah, that's a great question. I think the best way to cope with all of this stress is to just be realistic in what we expect in ourselves and also other people. And then I also know  there's a lot of literature out there that would suggest making time for yourself and getting out and exercising, that's a big thing with how to manage stress.

Another thing that I can think of is maybe be to even share some of the frustrations you're having or share your workload, because like you mentioned, there's a lot of people in the same boat, everybody is. So being able to talk to people and share what's going on puts you on a common ground with these people and you guys can help each other. I think it's important to get out and relax and enjoy life outside, because certainly, I live in a very, very beautiful place and there'll be a lot of days where I'll just take a break and go for a walk in our beautiful nature and that seems to really bring the stress level down. So just making sure if we have some unhealthy habits, that we change those habits and routines. That may mean getting up an hour earlier so that we can exercise or have some time for ourselves before the stressful day begins, that these are just some ideas on how to manage the stress in a healthy way.

Prakash Chandran: Yeah, I've heard a lot of talk about establishing a routine, but I would add to that establishing a routine that includes time for yourself, because if the routine is you just constantly taking care of other people or taking care of work, you're not leaving that time that you need to decompress and to destress. And like you said, to just go outside and enjoy nature. Wouldn't you say that's true?

Deborah Blazzard: I would agree with that. Yeah. That's super important, especially if you're a caregiver in this pandemic, certainly.

Prakash Chandran: There are going to be people listening to this that just find it really hard to establish that routine and establish a lot of the things that we're talking about and they might need alternative help. They may need to reach out to someone. What would you recommend to them?

Deborah Blazzard: Yeah, I think if there's ever a point where you feel like your activities of daily living are being altered or just being overwhelmed with feelings of either apprehensiveness or anxiety or a sense of sadness that just doesn't seem to go away despite trying to do some of these things that we've suggested, I think that would be a time when you want to reach out to maybe a local care provider first and then, after talking with your maybe primary care physician, seeing if a referral to a specialist might be warranted. And certainly that might be the course of action if the person is at a point where they've tried everything and they just can't seem to get over that hump.

Prakash Chandran: And Deborah, just as we close here, if you could leave our audience with one thing, one piece of advice that you'd like them to take away from this conversation, what might that be?

Deborah Blazzard: Just basically, we're all in this together. I think we're helping each other out. These podcasts are wonderful in the sense that we're providing information and the biggest thing is that we're not alone, that we can either reach out to a friend or a family member and you can also be that person to help other people when you get on the right track. So experiences are very valuable in today and what everybody's going through.

Prakash Chandran: Deborah, I really want to thank you so much for your time. It was very informative and I definitely learned something here today. That's Deborah Blazzard, a psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner at Pullman Regional Hospital. For more information on managing your stress in a healthy way, please visit PullmanRegional.org.

If you found this podcast helpful, please share it on your social channels and be sure to check out the entire podcast library for topics of interest to you. This has been the Health Podcast from Pullman Regional Hospital. I'm Prakash Chandran. Thanks, and we'll talk next time.