I had a couple nights of bad sleep. Because I’m the sort of dork who tracks, well, everything, I knew I had a crash coming my way. Naturally I took to Twitter to meet my biohacking needs and asked for tips on how to lower the stress hormone cortisol. And wow people must be stressed as hell as I got hundreds of responses.
Cortisol pumping constantly is what happens when you are in fight or flight stress mode. Being in a parasympathetic state is good sometimes because you can’t be stressed all the time. It will kill you.
Using a tracking app called Welltory that incorporates manual HRV readings and my Apple Watch this is what I looked like this morning. The red and choppy fluids are supposed to signify that I’m not doing well and losing energy.
So I started taking as many pieces of advice on the thread.
- Meditated
- Went outside for sun
- Took extra vitamin C
- Took ashwagandha
- Sang to reset my cranial vagus nerve into parasympathetic
- Used a Theragun to massage everything
- Went for a walk in the woods
- Took a cold shower
- And then said fuck it and took a benzo because it’s not all holistic
All that effort seems to have paid off because a few hours later Welltory was telling me maybe I could use a little more stress in my life. I’d like to think it was the meditating and herbs but sometimes also pharmaceuticals.
