Stress Levels and Endometriosis? Say WHOOP!
If you’ve read my book you know that stress is intricately tied to endometriosis, be it disease pathology (onset, progression, recurrence) or symptoms (pain, infertility, ovulatory dysfunction, fatigue, let me go on…). It’s why I’m always yelling “STRESS IS THE ENDO ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM!”…although I’m not really yelling. That would stress everyone out.
Instead, I write a lot about it. What I’ve realized over the years, though, is that few people realize how often they’re stressed, if they realize they’re stressed at all. Some people think their personality is anxious (“I’m not stressed; I was born this way”), or they pretend to be cool as a cucumber while their brain is sinking as violently as the Titanic. Others blame their stress levels solely on one external factor (“I’m just stressed because of my job” or “My school stresses me out”) when in reality the “stress” has become a way of being.
This got me thinking, how the HECK do I help people realize how much stress is rocking their boat … or sinking it in the case of endometriosis and/or the Titanic? This is when I stumbled upon the WHOOP. [No, I’m not affiliated, I just like it]
Meet The WHOOP
The WHOOP is a wearable device (bracelet) that spies on your innards. Can’t lie to the WHOOP because it’s a lie detector, stress sleuther, and body metrics tracker that informs you what you’re doing, how you’re doing, and what you’re feeling when you’re doing it :)
It looks like a bracelet. And it’s waterproof.
If this sounds scary, and you’re recovering from an eating disorder, exercise disorder, calorie counter, or health obsessor, this is not the tool for you! Please, stay away. There are many other ways to check in with your body without becoming hyper-focused on that-which-ails-you.
But, if you’re someone who doesn’t deal with these issues and wants to check in to see how your body is secretly behaving, check out what I learned from the WHOOP and why I totally recommend at least 30 days of internal spyware.
This is cool because there’s a 30-day free trial. Yeah, you can do this for FREE, everyone. If you’re okay after 30 days, send it back, armed with your new information about your body’s stress levels. If you like it, you can become a member and keep it year-round. Find more information about getting a WHOOP Here.
What does the WHOOP track
Your vitals. It tracks your sleep (light, deep, and REM), stress levels (through a mix of heart rate, HRV, and movement), daily activity, and daily recovery. It also tracks your average HRV (Heart Rate Variability, basically how chronically stressed you are without realizing it), respiratory rate (breathing too fast?), and skin temp.
Put together, it helps inform us how
Sedentary or active we are we are.
If we don’t have enough recovery (feeling depleted?).
How stressed or not stressed we are.
How dysregulated or well-tuned our breathing is.
The things that REALLY trigger us.
How good or bad our sleep is.
And while most of us think we KNOW this stuff (like, we know our body better than anyone, right?), I argue many of us don’t really know what’s going on inside. Especially if we have a chronic disease, as one of the connecting dots I see in nearly all of my clients (as was my case as well) is a way of living that is somehow quite out of touch with ourselves. But I digress…
How to use the WHOOP to help heal endometriosis
To explore the WHOOP (and my theory we may not know ourselves as well as we think), I challenged myself to a month of WHOOP spy-ing. It’s very easy to use.
To use it mechanically, all you do is strap this bad boy (or girl, they, or whatever pronoun you prefer) onto your wrist. Download the app. Connect the two. Voila! If techno-challenged me can do it, you can too.
Now, to use the WHOOP as a problem-solving machine rather than just an info-giver, you need to put on your Sherlock hat and start to track down all the clues.
Tracking this stuff is worthless, of course, if you’re not motivated to change anything. For example, if you believe you are stressed and then see, yes, the WHOOP is telling you your code red stressed, you may be like: duh. Conversely, if you get the WHOOP because you’re tired of feeling stressed and then smooth out all the triggers, one by one, to address them, you will have a lower-stress over time.
Or sleeping. If you feel tired all the time and then see your sleep is pretty awful, you may be like “duh” and ignore it. Conversely, if you’re an avid Heal Endo follower and are keen to change things for the better, you would start investigating WHY your sleep sucks and improve it. I’ll show you examples of what I mean below.
In this way, you use the information the WHOOP is giving you about your internal working and compare that info to your symptoms. From there, you can make improvements! Don’t just track information, make changes :)
Ready to start changing your life???? Come with me as you see a one month window into how I changed mine.
My Rad WHOOP Experience
As a baseline, so you know, my life is busy. I am a Full-Time mom of 2 kids under 5 (did you know that?). In my very limited spare time, I help my hubby run his large company. Oh, and I also write big books, blogs, and social posts and respond to an ungodly number of emails.
Did I mention I’m a full time mom?
Needless to say, sometimes I feel totally overwhelmed. The overwhelm leads my monkey mind to misbehave—sometimes politely, sometimes terribly—but it’s one of my issues to overcome. I often feel overloaded, and sometimes I want to build small cages for the kids so I can simply nap (PS I don’t, but if you ever dream of doing this too, know it’s normal). At times, I feel great; at other times, I feel run down and short on energy and patience (especially after 5 pm, watch out!). So I got the WHOOP to see if it could help offer me some helpful hints on where to pick up my life
Realization #1: My sleep sucked, but was fixable
I was actually blown away by the realization my sleep was awful!!!! My kids sleep well, and rarely am I awoken because of bad dreams or mama-needs. I don’t have trouble falling asleep, and I don’t wake up with insomnia. I thought I slept fine. But the WHOOP told me otherwise. It showed a woman was most often in light sleep, waking up 10,000 un-rememberable times a night, and rarely in deep or REM sleep…the sleep we need most. In bed for 8.5 hours, I got no more than 2 hours of deep, restorative sleep.
I put the WHOOP on my husband to see if it was accurate. The husband slept like a dead man. Hmmmm, I realized it’s me…
What I did: First, I tried gentle sleep tonics—herbs and tinctures known to help sound sleep. No change. I tried melatonin. No change, except I felt groggy in the morning (me and melatonin don’t mix). I tried hops tea—this helped me with insomnia postpartum—and it was nice, but no change in the quality of sleep.
3 weeks later, my sleep still sucked. I was thinking: it’s because I have 2 kids, and I’m just unable to deep sleep. I’m always on the “go.” Maybe when they’re older, I’ll sleep when … BAM! I had an idea.
You know how we always hear no screens after dark? Yeah, as a health practitioner, I say it too: “Blah blah blah, no screens after dark.” Well, here’s my excuse for ignoring my own advice: I never have trouble falling asleep. So I watch a short video at 8 after the kids are down. Or check my email—never more than 30 min, really, because I’m a tired, tired human being come 8:30. So I didn’t think 30 min would hurt.
Well, to my surprise, the night I cut all screens at sunset (5 pm here), I slept in an optimal amount of deep and REM sleep. My total “wake-ups” that I don’t remember (none of us do, so I read) reduced from around 2 hours to 1 hour. I was getting more sleep, and higher quality sleep, in the same amount of time.
BIG WIN!
Now, it turns out that part of my fatigue and feeling overwhelmed was due to poor sleep, and the only way I found that helped me (personally) was by removing screens after dark. How is your sleep? Maybe test the WHOOP out to see if screens are contributing to your fatigue and stress as well.
Realization #2: I had some BIG stress triggers that were totally in my control
The WHOOP tracks your stress levels using 3 inputs: your heart rate, heart rate variability, and movement patterns. So you can see “high stress” if you’re exercising, or also if you’re presenting to your boss. You’d expect this.
They make the info easy to understand by telling you if you’re in a blue zone (low stress), green zone (medium stress, or simply being generally active), or red zone (high stress or exercise). Get it? Got it. Good.
What you don’t expect is seeing RED ZONE stress screaming at you across the screen when you’re doing the activities that you thought were “low stress.” Or, so you told yourself.
Turns out, I had two big moments like this, and the WHOOP told me my nervous system was not fooled by my bravado! No sir-ee. I was lying and lying that everything was okay and, well, I was stressed as all gettup.
What were my two big hold-ups? One was school drop-off, and the other was the post-dinner bedtime routine. In short, both were stressful.
Anyway, both situations made me feel like I didn’t have control (apparently), and my stress skyrocketed. Yah, it was like I was an Olympic athlete training for pole jumping…except I was standing still, frustrated with my kids’ behavior. [Note, if you don’t have kids I can guarantee you still have moments like this. The WHOOP will detect yours].
What I did: For the drop-off stress (my kid has cried at school drop-off for 3 years without anything budging it), I decided to work on my breathing. I couldn’t stop the crying (tried that), and he has to go to school, so I vowed to accept it with peace in my heart. From the moment we left the house I worked on being aware of my stress at this time, and slowing my breathing as if I was reading a boring old book. Guess what? It helped! No stress spike.
Now get this. A week into my reducing my stress around drop off my son stopped crying. THREE YEARS LATER. Turns out we were feeding off each other, stressing each other to pieces. He cried, and I stressed. Now, three entire years of stress and tears later, he no longer cries, I no longer freak out internally. What a beautiful example of how much we impact each other, eh?
As for bedtime, I made ground rules and was a solid parent about enforcing them. Rule: No acting like insane gorillas after dinner. Only calm activities like painting, crafts, Legos, etc. Now the kids follow the rules, and I am no longer stressed by post-dinner lunatics. I guess I did have more control than I realized.
With those two big stressors gone (over an hour of high stress per day), I free up my body to be well, balanced, and whole. Do you know your secret stressors?
#3 Social Media is NOT RELAXING
I wish everyone would get the WHOOP just for this reason: see how your body fares when you're “mindlessly scrolling.” If you’re like me, you may realize your nervous system is totally not relaxing while you hold your brain hostage to the pretty images.
One morning I was working. I got distracted. I thought I’d check on my social media post and respond to some messages. 20 minutes later I looked up and realized I had been snagged in scrolling. Yes, it happens to everyone. Later I looked at the WHOOP app and saw my stress has peaked in the mid-morning. “I wasn’t stressed…” I murmured as I analyzed the time. Oh. My. Gawd. It was when I was scrolling. Seriously, no obvious stress in my mind, but my body was responding like I was chased by a gorilla smacking his smelly chest.
You can see, then, why you may be really feeling awful if you’re on social a lot. I had 20 minutes of RED zone. Do you have hours? This is totally mitigable, everyone. Simply cut the cord (and feel free to join any of the class action lawsuits trying to tackle how these devices are, quite literally, as addictive as meth).
#4 I was sedentary as a zoo animal
I knew I didn’t workout that much, but as a naturally thin person who moves a lot chasing kids, I kinda sorta thought I was ok. Not! WHOOP told me I was just about as sedentary as a panda in a zoo. In fact, walking up a single flight of stairs threw me into the red zone. I ask the WHOOP AI robot, “Is it normal to go into the red zone walking up a flight of stairs?” WHOOP answers something like, “Yes, if you’re super out of shape, you lazy couch potato” [of course the AI robot was much more polite than this].
Point taken. Here I am complaining about being exhausted and doing too much when, in reality, maybe I’m doing way too little physically.
What I did: If you’re a busy person, you know how hard it is to find time to exercise. You probably have a lot of excuses about why you don’t do it too (ah hem, like me). But, like my other realizations, I knew I needed to fix the problem. This body was not going to exercise on her own.
So I got an indoor exercise bike ($250 on walmart.com). Not my jam… I like running up mountains. But now that I realize how much exercise I can get in 30 min, how I can fit in 30 min at some point in the day (even if it’s 530 AM), and how much better I feel when I workout, I like it! I’m hooked! It sounds so hokey, but I kind of forgot how good it feels to be in better shape. Thanks, WHOOP for kicking my butt to get up and do more with my body.
**Yes, exercising and building more physical stamina, endurance, and muscle will make you feel better in almost every way. It’s why it’s a chapter in my book. I think I’ll read my book again :)
#5 Being sick or stressed is really taxing!!!!!!
This is my last realization for the month, and I got sick just in time, too! Because, as it turns out, being sick puts you in the red zone… a lot. First of all, I was able to tell I was going to get sick thanks to the WHOOP, who noticed my vitals were off: HRV was lower than usual (showing a stressed system), and my temp was a little up at night. Lo and behold, 2 days later, I was sick.
On this sick day, I was in the high-stress red zone at every turn. Go to the kitchen for water: red. Go to the library with toddler: red. Driving: red. I wasn’t stressed mentally, but physically it was the same. My body was not coping well with life.
On this day, I was also told I burned 2x the number of calories as other days, although I was more sedentary than usual. Laying around and being stressed and/or sick, is hard on the body! I talk about this at length in my book, how those of us with chronic inflammatory conditions need more nutrients than our healthy peers (up to 54x!)… WHOOP was just here to remind me.
What I did: Can’t do much about being sick, except this was a good reminder to take it easy. Seeing just how hard being sick is on the body was such a good reminder to rest until the body gets back to homeostasis.
But if you’re chronically sick, or highly stressed, it’s such a great reminder that little will shift until we get out of the red zone.
What will the WHOOP tell you?
I had some friends and family play around with wearing the WHOOP to see what they found out. Here are 2 cool examples of realizations they had:
1) Always high stress: This person realized that when at their job, they had super high stress levels even though they didn’t feel stressed. It was uncanny, that when this person got off work and did intense exercise, their stress level was LOWER than when at work!! Time for some nervous system work… or finding a new job.
2) Caffeine kicks their butt: Another person found that when she drank caffeine, her stress levels were in the red zone nearly all day! She usually drinks green tea, but this day, she had a large coffee. See how caffeine can really affect the body without realizing it?
How I Feel After WHOOP
I actually feel a lot more in control of my environment, to be honest. Before the WHOOP I thought that many things were beyond my control —“no time to workout, kids can drive me crazy but oh well, life really packs a punch sometimes but what can I do?” That sort of thing. With the WHOOP I was able to see just how many factors were secretly sapping my energy that I had TOTAL control over.
It’s like the Christmas Angels were singing to me.
So here’s the equation I bestow on all reading this post: WHOOP + Problem-solving mindset = feeling better. Really, I am tickled (in a good way) about my WHOOP-assisted realizations, and how much better I feel with a few really key shifts. The less red zone stress, the better off we are (except for exercise of course, which Panda bears like me apparently need :)
Wishing everyone a happy holiday!!
Katie