<p>I have read many of the posts, and I would like to suggest something that others may not have, although yoga was mentioned by one. While I am not trying to dismiss anyones recommendation about calling the doctor. But I will tell you what I think that it may be possible to turn this around by yourself, because I think that the reason for what you are going through is very possibly your cortisol level being elevated.</p>
<p>I actually was in very bad shape a few years ago. I am a “Type A” person, and I was suffering terrible insomnia, my breathing was irregular, and I even went to see a sleep specialist. I was bloated, allergies/asthma were completely out of control. I couldn’t get any work done, I’d just move slowly through my day like a zombie. I looked like I was rapidly aging and I began to see an abundance of gray hairs (I was too young and it was too much).</p>
<p>Now, I’ve always basically had a “rough time” in life and have survived a lot of stuff while remaining upbeat, so while I am sure there was adequate fodder for someone to blame this on “my life”, I didn’t think it was it. I did think that something was out of whack in my system that made me unable to tolerate what I always had.</p>
<p>Anyhow, I can’t even remember everything else that was wrong, but it was bad. After years of being sedentery, I suddenly started exercising. Although I thought that I was careful, the combination of the insomnia, stress, and general state of my body being in disorder, I ended up at a hospital in PSVT. Although I walked into the hospital smiling and on my own two feet, my experience there resulted in me being defibrillated 2x in order to restart my heart into a normal pattern, and I left the hospital in a wheelchair and on many drugs. One of these drugs (levaquin I believe) actually wreaked havoc on me as well, and so when I got home, I took myself off of it. </p>
<p>Anyhow, this all was a huge wake up call that my life was in jeopardy if I did not turn things around. I found this article by a Dr. Pauline Harding, MD: [HOW</a> TO AGE RAPIDLY OR NOT](<a href=“http://www.nutrition4health.org/NOHAnews/NNW02HardingAging.htm]HOW”>http://www.nutrition4health.org/NOHAnews/NNW02HardingAging.htm)</p>
<p>Her credentials are: residency trained in Internal Medicine, Board Certified in Family Practice, and licensed as a Nutrition Counselor. She is an instructor in the Department of Family Practice at the University of Illinois College of Medicine in Chicago. She has been on the speakers’ forum for the Rush Presbyterian St. Luke’s Medical Center Conference for Body-Mind Healing and the Wilson Foundation Conference on Ethics for High School Science Teachers, and she has acted as panel discussant for the American Psychological Association. Dr. Harding is Medical Director at Prairie Trail Family Medicine in Winfield, Illinois. Her medical practice embraces a potpourri of natural healing techniques, especially as they apply to problems associated with environmental sensitivity and other allergies, fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue, colitis, sleep disturbances, and menopause.</p>
<p>Anyhow, while the purpose of her article was aging, I had hit on her article because I believed that my problems may have been related to gluten sensitivity and high cortisol. Cortisol is the “stress” hormone related to the flight or fight response. People (including me) tend to use food or other things to correct an inbalance, but after reading her article, I saw myself in her examples, and I began to implement her steps:</p>
<p>"Measures to normalize cortisol rhythm and levels are remarkably effective</p>
<p>…energy slumps can all disappear when cortisol rhythm is corrected. Infection and/or irritation of mucous membrane resolve often without use of antibiotics or corticosteroids upon following these lifestyle guidelines:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Go to bed by 10 p.m.</p></li>
<li><p>Eat breakfast by 7 a.m.</p></li>
<li><p>Avoid excess sugar and starch.</p></li>
<li><p>Eat low glycemic index meals every 5 hours, i.e., meals in which the rapid-to- digest sugars and starches do not exceed by weight the slow-to-digest meats, fish, poultry and eggs. Better yet, skip the sugars and starches (including the inflammation-inducing grains) in favor of not-overcooked vegetables.</p></li>
<li><p>Avoid gluten grains if you have a grain intolerance. </p></li>
<li><p>Maintain erect posture and avoid prolonged periods of sitting or flexion posture (such as fetal position during the night).</p></li>
<li><p>Control pain.</p></li>
<li><p>Manage emotional stress. (Following the first 7 guidelines provides a good foundation for accomplishing guideline number 8.)"</p></li>
</ol>
<p>I also went and got a program called “AM/PM Yoga” with Rodney Yee, and began doing the morning segment, which is only 15 minutes long each morning before I ate a thing. This was 5 minutes of guided relaxation, 10 minutes of gentle (but very effective) yoga, and 5 minutes of guided meditation. I did this every morning without fail, and it became my “compass”, and brought my mind back into accordance with my body. I made saving my life a priority, and that meant returning to exercise. If at the end of my morning yoga session, I still felt tired, I went back to bed (no matter what time) rather than eat starch/sugar/caffeine to keep going, to ensure that I could exercise later. If I can credit one thing for really turning things around, it was that tape. Read the amazon reviews, many agree.</p>
<p>I resumed aerobic exercise (which I kept an eye on with a heart rate monitor). Of course, I was not always consistent, but I did notice that when I missed a day, I would get an endorphin drop, and would make sure to resume the next day. </p>
<p>The key thing is that I really began to force my brain to listen to my body, and I realized that my brain had ignored and become disconnected from my own body.</p>
<p>Although I never tested for celiac, I did eliminate gluten and this completely turned my life around. For the first time in 20 years, I became completely free of all allergy and asthma drugs. After doing this, along with the other things, my sleep reregulated itself. I went from exercising for 5 minutes with struggle to exercising 1 hour with a steady heart beat. I began to smile for the first time in years, my skin looked better, etc…</p>
<p>My perspective on dealing with people and things that I could not control also improved dramatically.</p>
<p>So if you are in a complete panic and unable to access anyone or anything else, trust in accessing yourself. You’ve managed to keep yourself here all of these years. Start with basic survival first: How you sleep, how you eat, how you move through your day. This is how the human animal in its most basic form was constructed to be. I also added “get out into the sun”. We weren’t meant to sit at computers/TVs/desks in houses all day. </p>
<p>None of this is meant to discount anyones advice to see a doctor, but if you need to get control over yourself to even get there, please consider some of this article. It’s not everyday a person gets defibrillated. I have since consulted with several doctors of my own, and they agree with what I did. Not only did I lose weight, turn around the insomnia, but I also normalized my own blood pressure and heart rate.</p>