If you spot this on your neck, your cortisol is dangerously high.

if you spot this on your neck your cortisol levels may be dangerously high now what's funny is that lots of people come into my practice and they say you know I feel so stressed and they're showing all the signs and symptoms of stress but then there are other people who come in and they don't say they're stressed at all and their body is actually showing the exact same signs and symptoms of stress so in this video we're going to talk about one specific area of the body what it says about how stressed you are and the three main reflex zones I notice are strongly correlated with adrenal stress hey guys I'm Dr Alex hin board licensed acupuncture and doctor of acupuncture in traditional Chinese medicine and author of the health book master of the day so let's jump in now there would be no way I could shoot a video on the stress response and where it shows up in the body without talking about a bit of My Own Story I mean for a lot of people they call some of these signs and symptoms adrenal fatigue now while that is not necessarily a real medical diagnosis day-to-day the symptoms themselves are real and they indicate pretty significant physiological dysfunction in my own journey in my own journey of getting sick and in my own journey of healing there was a phase of my life in my early 30s after working 80 hours a week for a prolonged period of time eventually I woke up one night in the middle of the night with my first heart palpitation unfortunately for me it woke me up in the middle of the night and it sent a jolt of adrenaline through my body so I woke up and I felt my heart fluttering and I felt electrical Sensations going through my legs it doesn't make it very easy to fall back asleep when that happens it wasn't just a one time or a two time or a 50 time occurrence it was the beginning of years of HPA access disregulation this symptom was just one of the very first signs that I had pushed my body Beyond Beyond where it should be and that this was the straw that broke the camel's back as time went on for me not only did I continue to have heart palpitations not just once a day but 20 times a day and on top of that I had insomnia almost every single night no matter how early I disconnected from work I couldn't sleep I had lost 10 to 15 lbs and if you look at how thin I am I don't have 10 to 15 lbs to lose my stomach digestive system had almost entirely shut off in the sense that I had no appetite I lost weight I was nauseous all the time I couldn't digest anything and on and on and on it went now looking back at this sort of period of adrenal fatigue what this really was was I was exposing myself endogenously to too many stress hormones for too many years and the reason why I was doing that or how that was happening was that I was pushing myself excessively and working way too long hours in this video we're going to talk about three of the main reflex zones that I encourage my patients to look out for because looking back at my own story of getting sick if I spotted these I could have recognized this a year or two before I got really sick and by the time I had noticed that I was way too too sick it was too late you know at that point you're looking at a 6mon to 2 to three year healing journey and recovery from these kinds of chronic stress hormones like this now let's talk about this area of the upper back right where the cervical spine means the thoracic spine is an area that sometimes gets a fatty deposit now this fatty deposit is sometimes called a buffalo hump if you can imagine what a buffalo looks like they have these big fluffy humps on the top of their shoulders there and this area sometimes shows up in a condition called Cushing syndrome the reason that this happens is that excessively high levels of cortisol one of our key stress hormones lead to a hyper accumulation of fat in lots of different areas sometimes it's called moonface sometimes it's called buffalo hump right up here uh and obviously central obesity right around the midsection all of these can be accelerated from excessive levels of stress hormones in your body now why does Cushing syndrome happen to certain people one thing that's important to talk about is just because you're exposed to Chronic unrelenting stress does it mean you're going to develop the buffalo hump or Cushing syndrome on its own Cushing syndrome can come from again circulating levels of cortisol that are way too high for too long can come from corticosteroid use some people are chronic corticosteroid users and as a result it's mimicking this exact same state internally and other people very rarely can develop this as a result of tumors that happen now again most people who are exposed to really really chronic stress do not develop Cushing syndrome which is very important to remember but you may see people like this and it may not be obvious as to why a fat deposit here between the shoulder blades would be related to chronically elevated levels of stress stress hormones like cortisol for example I mean after all if you're exposed to Chronic health problems or chronic symptoms sometimes it's not even easy to know where they're coming from I mean that's the reason I put together that free guide below which is it's really the root cause quiz from traditional Chinese medicine point of view you know if you're having heart palpitations or insomnia or you're having constant indigestion and food just won't settle in your stomach take that quiz go through that free guide because it's going to show exactly the organs from a TCM point of view that are the root cause of that symptomatic pattern we've actually put together a whole whole bunch of linked videos for each organ system that can help you sus out really where this is coming from and what part of the body so download that Cushing syndrome aside the buffalo hump and the moon face what are some other signs and symptoms of stress that you may not notice as much right because again I I find it very enlightening how did I get myself so sick how did I miss the signs and symptoms and yet so many people that I see come into my clinic and they see the exact same thing so I would say there are three reflex zones that you should pay close attention to number one is basically the m muscles right the jaw and the sternomastoid muscle the jaw people come in all the time they have chronic TMJ they have chronic tension a lot of the time this is strongly correlated with the stress response it is not the only thing right there can be structural reasons there could be biomechanical reasons but most of the time when I see people who don't have this every day and they suddenly come in it's during a period of high stress so you can think if I'm experiencing a lot more jaw tension or TMJ lately I need to really dial back what's going on in my life right now the reflex Zone number two is the sternomastoid muscles sometimes what happens is people people are actually feeling you know this tension all along the neck all day long and most of the time people resort to structural explanations right if you go to a PT or a chiropractor they may say all that this is is just you know your posture is terrible you're hunched over like a caveman but that's only one possible cause because lots of people sit all day long and don't have any neck or jaw pain at all for some people the second sign that you're under more stress than you think is excessive tension in these stylomastoid muscles these big meaty muscles of the neck here the Third is actually chest tightness right so chest symptoms are the most obvious this is a precursor to elevated heart rate heart palpitations and arrhythmias things like that if you're having an elevated heart rate or you're noticing a lot of sensation in your chest or you might just be having palpitations right if you're having a dysrhythmia like that then chances are you are obviously under very high levels of stress and you may not even know it in traditional Chinese medicine we view the heart as basically the center of the nervous system the heart is basically like not only the physical organ but also metaphorical in a way just like when someone says something or like you fall in love with someone we say it affects the heart we say heartbreak right when something doesn't go well in love your physical heart is not broken obviously so what does heartbreak mean it's a cultural concept so when people are really happy we say that it strengthens the heart function and when people are going through serious Adverse Events it does affect the heart but the heart primarily is the mirror of the nervous system when people are happy they're healthy they're at rest usually the heart function is more coherent and when they are not when the opposite is true you get an elevated heart rate even after you stop working you can get palpitations and you can get irregular heart rate the electrical signals are easily disrupted by stress hormones thinking of the heart as the center of the nervous system it's no surprise that a lot of symptoms of elevated stress hormones we feel in the chest and one final little Cascade here that's helpful to know because I wish I knew this before I got sick was that there's a two to three-part phase of going through this sort of burnout this kind of adrenal fatigue as people call it the first level let's to say is you notice the heart rate being elevated any of us exposed to stress the physical stress of exercise the stress of work work get an elevator heart rate that's normal but if your heart rate is elevated for too prolonged of a period of time especially when youve stopped working you may notice on a rough day takes a couple hours for the heart rate to come down you're noticing it in your chest if that goes on for a while that elevated heart rate we start to see the heart skip so you get a palpitation and if the palpitations keep going on because you haven't gotten things under control then you may get palpitations again and again and again the way I think about exhaustion of the nervous system one of the ways you can think about it is your heart rate higher than normal is it staying higher than normal longer are you having palpitations and are you having anxiety or panic attacks that's a good Spectrum to think of how severe is my nervous system being disregulated now these symptoms are very common in my private practice and I work with a limited number of new patients every single month in my clinic in Los Angeles or virtually via tele medicine so if you guys would like to reach out you can just call my Clinic Dr Alex hind.com clinic or click the link down below this video and I've also put together a brand new online program called introduction to Healing with traditional Chinese medicine if you guys were ever curious where a lot of your symptoms come from what are daily lifestyle practices as you can do and what's a general overview of this totally different view of Health and Longevity check it out it's the link right below this video in the description I'd love to see you inside and I also have another very interesting video on this exact topic right there