Jaime Hartman (00:07):
Welcome to the AIP Summit Podcast, your go-to resource for taking control of your autoimmune health, presented by AIP Certified Coaches. I'm Jaime Hartman
Marie-Noelle Marquis (00:16):
And I'm Marie-Noelle Marquis. And we are here to equip you with the tools, knowledge and the support you need to effectively use the Autoimmune Protocol.
Jaime Hartman (00:23):
And today we are taking a deep dive into one of the most important lifestyle factors that can accelerate your healing stress management.
Marie-Noelle Marquis (00:38):
Have you ever noticed that your autoimmune symptoms flare up during stressful periods of your life after a big deadline or family conflict or even during the holidays? Well, that is not a coincidence. Today we are taking time to talk about stress management, not as a luxury or a self-care buzzword, but as a foundational part of living well with autoimmune disease. If you've ever felt frustrated because you're doing all the things right, including following the AIP diet to the best of your ability, yet your body is still feeling inflamed while this episode is for you.
Jaime Hartman (01:17):
So when we talk about stress, we're not just talking about feeling overwhelmed or feeling anxious. Stress is a physiological response. When your brain perceives a threat, whether that threat is real or imagined, it activates the stress response releasing hormones like cortisol and adrenaline. This response is designed to keep us alive, but in short bursts. The problem is that for people with autoimmune disease, stress often isn't just a short-term burst, it's chronic. Chronic stress keeps the nervous system stuck in that fight or flight mode, that activated mode to help keep you alive. This can dysregulate the immune system. And for autoimmune conditions, immune dysregulation is already our core issue. So instead of protecting us, long-term stress can quietly fuel inflammation,
Marie-Noelle Marquis (02:16):
And the research consistently shows us the link between chronic stress and autoimmune flareups. And here's why. So stress increases inflammatory signaling in the body that inflammation is designed to protect us, as you said, Jaime. And when we are under stress, the body shifts to protection mode and alerts all the guards, and that's the immune system, right? So stress by designs will disrupt our gut barrier function by creating leaky gut and gut barrier function, as we know, is really critical for immune regulation, and this is one of the three factors that will activate the autoimmune response in the body, right? We talk about there is a genetic component to autoimmunity, but really the trigger and leaky gut are two things which are key in activating that autoimmune response and something that we do have to an extent control over mitigating. So that is so important because as you mentioned, we think about stress as this just anxiety in our life, but that direct physiological impact on the gut is really one of the core reason why there's such a connection between the stress and the autoimmune disease.
(03:28):
And stress also interferes with sleep. It interferes with a blood sugar balance and hormone signaling and all these systems talk to your immune system. So for many people, stress again is not just a trigger, it's an amplifier of what's going on already. So a small dietary slip, a missed night of sleep, an old infection, all that can hit a lot harder when stress is high. And there's something really important. This is not about blaming yourself, right? You didn't cause your illness by being stressed, but learning to work with your nervous system and different ways you can regulate it can really give you back a sense of control and help you on your healing journey,
Jaime Hartman (04:11):
Right? So let's, on that note, clear something up. Just telling someone with an autoimmune disease to just relax is about as helpful as telling them to just stop being inflamed. Stress management isn't about pretending life isn't hard. It's about building capacity. It's about helping your nervous system recover more quickly and spend more time in a regulated state. So this is a key distinction here. Stress elimination is unrealistic. We cannot eliminate stress from our life. Stress resilience, on the other hand, is achievable and extremely powerful. There's some good news here too. Even small consistent practices can make a meaningful difference.
Marie-Noelle Marquis (05:04):
And I love that you said consistent. It's so important. Now let's talk about what actually can help, especially for people with autoimmune disease who are already using a dietary approach like the autoimmune protocol. Jaime, what are some strategies or tools that you use to manage your stress?
Jaime Hartman (05:22):
For me personally in those acute moments of stress, when I'm in a really stressful situation in the moment, one of the things I find extremely beneficial is a calming breath technique. And I'm sure our listeners have heard of these things before. They might be familiar with techniques like box breathing for example. But the technique that I personally use and that I teach, what I teach my clients and that teach my yoga students is a very simple calming breath technique that doesn't include any of the holds that you traditionally are taught to do when you're doing something like box breathing. And the reason I find that beneficial is because when I'm stressed, I'm tending to hold anyway, kind of restricting my breath. So when I practice a calming breath technique, what I'm doing is just trying to even out my breath. So I usually will start by noticing how I'm breathing and paying attention first to the inhale and just counting to whatever feels like the natural fullness of an inhale.
(06:25):
So I might start inhaling and count 1, 2, 3, 4, I usually get to five or six and I feel like, okay, I'm ready to exhale and then I exhale and then do that again and then start to count with the exhales as well and match the two. So if I find that breathing and counting into six feels really good, then as I exhale count to six and you start to just feel like you're kind of being, I don't know, on a swing or they're like waves rising and falling, if that starts to feel good and you want to extend the exhale, that can add another level of calming to it, but not necessary. This is really just very personal. I've done that in doctor office waiting rooms. For example, I have Crohn's disease, I get a colonoscopy every year as part of that. And that in the waiting room before I go in is when I feel the most stressed.
(07:23):
I just do that calming breath technique there that really helps me regulate my nervous system. I think another type of stress that I experience a lot is that feeling of I've got too much stuff to do or too many things in my mind and it's all swirling around. So another technique I find that's really helpful is doing just kind of a mind dump where I'm going to just write down all the things that I'm concerned about that are rattling around in my brain, helps to get it out on paper to see it. Then maybe I can kind of recognize which ones can I take some actions on, which ones should I just be putting aside. So those are sort of the two that come to my mind when I think about how do I manage stress when I'm really experiencing it.
Marie-Noelle Marquis (08:03):
I love those. Let's see, for me, I guess they're tools for immediate stress. And then there's the big picture stress. And when I'm thinking about the big picture, I like to use something I call the stress bucket and I like to integrate it very strategically. So basically I start with a list of all the stressors in my life. And the idea is you write each of them on a separate piece of paper and put them in a bucket or a hat. Actually just finding the right vessel is part of a stress relief for me. It's like, oh, it's going to be in a hat now. And then the idea is once a week you pick out one stress and work on it. So it sort of gives me, it's that surprise of like, okay, I don't have to stress about what am I going to address.
(08:58):
And you take it out of the hat and it doesn't have to be something that completely vanishes from your life by the end of the week. The key is you can't be stressed about the exercise of reducing stress, right? You just try your best and okay, this is the stress you work on. And it could be setting boundaries with friends and learning to say no or something or a certain person and then you work on it as best you can. And then at the end of the week, you just put it back in the bucket and you'll keep working on it at a later time. And if you've finished and it completely feels like this is no longer in your life, then you can tear it up. But it really helps you manage and decrease stressors in layers instead of trying to eat the whole stress elephant all at once.
(09:49):
So it's a practice that I've really encouraged clients to do and that I started doing and I found that it helps me more proactive in feeling less overwhelmed. I dunno, there's all these big stress, but I don't know where to start. And then when it comes to everyday stress, I'd say I just kind of surround, I pepper my world with little things like my mom's photo on my phone as a screensaver literally will help me be put my stress into perspective. For some reason, I start my day with a coconut matcha with adaptogen to help adrenals carry Athene in case I get overwhelmed like little things that I have around. And what's funny is that what stresses me out is that I run out of time to do everything I need to do. So because of this, I'm getting really good at saying no and at setting boundaries because I have to be so protective of the time I have. And setting boundaries is a huge stress management tool for me as well. So there's a lot of little simple tools that really are at our disposal, but that we miss sometimes. So on that topic, Jaime, do we have a clip in it for our listeners? I think
Jaime Hartman (11:00):
We do. We're going to share with our listeners a portion of the audio from a presentation by one of our fellow AIP certified coaches. Her name is Leah Williamson. This was presented as part of the second annual AIP Summit. So way back in 2021, Leah is a nutritional therapy practitioner and a board certified health and wellness coach. She's also a registered yoga teacher and she uses crystal sound balls and a range of different therapies for managing stress and related dysfunction in her practice. Leah is based in Australia and as of 2026, she's working out of the foundation's clinic in Wilston, Brisbane with a functional and integrative medicine doctor. So you can learn more about Leah by searching for her by name on the AIP Certified Coach Directory. And of course, I'll make sure to put a direct link to her profile in the show notes. So let's take a listen and then Marie-Noelle and I will be back on the other side to talk about what we learned.
Leah Williamson (11:59):
And so now I'm going to give you a few of my tips to help with some of the stresses in your life and help get you into a parasympathetic state, rest and digest state. And so food is an amazing starting point that definitely helped me get to where I am, but then it's not also what you eat, but also how you eat it. So we're going to talk a little bit about that now. And I like to do this by what I call is the ceremony of eating. So the ceremony of eating is just simply meaning designing something that works best for you and your family around mealtimes to take the stress out of mealtimes. So some of those things that we did in our family that worked really well was we decided to set a consistent mealtime and we set expectations around that. So maybe we can't eat every meal together, but we knew that the dinner meal was always going to be at a particular time, 6:00 PM That time ensured that my husband would be home from work, we would be home from all our activities and dinner would be ready by six, and we would all sit down and come together as a family.
(13:17):
And so that was this consistent expectation that we had set. And then another expectation we set was turning off all the electronic devices in the house, and that includes a TV and that includes adults with electronic devices as well because you can't be sitting there yourself on an electronic device while telling your children that they can't be either. And the other thing we really enjoyed and thought was a really nice addition was we set and decorated the table. So we got an old tablecloth and we went outside and picked flowers just from the garden and around the area and put the flowers on the table. And we actually set the table, we put the plates down and the knives and fogs. And I know that sounds so simple and maybe you're already doing something like that, but if you're not doing that, I really urge you just to have a bit of fun with it and have a little bit of a play.
(14:11):
The children as an activity actually sat down and drew place mats and it was just on a piece of paper, but we used them as place mats. They made decorations for the walls to give it a feel like we were in a restaurant or something like that. And that gave them an activity to do before dinner time, which minimized the stress on me while I was trying to get dinner ready. And that was a win-win situation for everyone. So coming into dinner time, we were all nice and calm and we're enjoying the pretty things and had discussion points to talk about while we're sitting at the table. And while I'm talking about the table and coming around and having discussions, it's also great opportunity to discuss the food you were eating and where that food came from and reconnecting back to that food. So we've taken the children out to the local farm where we might buy some of our produce.
(15:06):
So where we're eating that food, we just say, oh, this has come from the farm. And our children recognize that as well. And it's a nice talking point and they share their memories of when they go out to the farm. And it's a really nice pleasant dinner conversation. And it's also being thankful for the food and thanking our farmer for this beautiful amazing food that we are eating as well. And that enjoyment puts you into that parasympathetic state which helps you to rest and digest that food. And then something away from the dinner table as well is a nice thing to do if you can do it. And if you have the space is to grow your own food or maybe even get some backyard chickens. We had some chickens for a while there, which the children just absolutely loved getting the eggs and knowing that the eggs were coming from the chickens and just growing your own food can give so much pleasure as well, just reconnecting with the earth.
(15:56):
But also if you don't have the room, maybe just even a little pot plant where you can just have a herb growing or something like that. I know my children really enjoy going out and just snipping off some of the herbs and collecting them in a little container and bringing them back in so that we can put them on the dinner table. And it makes them more inquisitive and more willing to try things because they've seen it and they know how it grows. And sometimes they have an aversion to eating anything green as most children do. But seeing it growing outside and them collecting it, they'll have a little taste of it and realize that they actually do like it and that green doesn't necessarily mean it tastes terrible. And the other thing I like to do too is if the children want to come in and help me in the kitchen, or I might ask them as well, I let them, even if I'm stressed and tired and it is going to be slow me down, I still will encourage them to come into the kitchen with me and help.
(17:00):
This really is a great learning moment for them. It's a great test of your patients as well sometimes, but seeing how you put meal prep and cook the food, the children really get involved with that and then they're more willing to eat the food as well. So these are just some ideas that we put together for the ceremony of eating. But even if you don't have a family, maybe you can think about some ideas where just for yourself, you can sit down and create your own ceremony of eating. Maybe that's a regular mealtime, turning off those electronic devices, even just sitting the table for yourself, just making a moment out of mealtime to put you into that really nice parasympathetic state of enjoyment and really being mindful and present in the moment and knowing the food that you're eating because how many times have we sat down at the table or sat at our computer to eat and next minute we've finished our meal and we don't even know what it is that we've eaten, that's not eating in a rest and digest state. That's definitely eating in a sympathetic state. So these ideas are to kind of cultivate your own practice around what would work best for you. So take a moment or pause the video or whatever it might be afterwards to jot down and just journal some ideas of how you would create your own ceremony of eating.
(18:25):
So yeah, just getting the children involved in the kitchen, that's a big one I love. Now my son who's 10, he will come in and he'll cook part of the meal. He's coming up with his own recipes, getting him to taste the flavors of the food. So if we're making a sauce to go on the food, getting him to taste that and seeing what else could be added to it so that can suit his palate, we found that's being really helpful as well. He's more likely to eat the sauce or whatever it is that we're putting on our food if he's tried it while he's been making and had some kind of involvement in that and that discussion as well, like getting in there and having that discussion around food, around ways that we can even minimize stress in our family lifestyle. I think a lot of times these days we're too busy and too caught up to even and to caught in that hamster wheel to even stop and think about how we can ask for help and children want to help as well.
(19:31):
And I'm sure other family members in the household they want to help. So just unburdening some of that load that you might have in order for them to help you will really minimize a lot of that stress. One thing that we really love to do is to go for an after dinner walk. So walking again will help you digest your food. So we tend to eat our dinner and then pack up the kitchen quickly. We make it a bit of a game. Can we pack up quickly? That'll mean we can go and have a longer walk around the block and then we'll go outside altogether. Take the dog for a walk around in the evening, especially when it's a little bit warmer weather, it's so nice outside and just make a bit of a game out of it. We've got possums in our area, we'll look for the possums.
(20:22):
And you get 10 points if you find one. Or there might be a bat flying past or you might spot a bird or you're just checking out the moon and the stars and getting that fresh air. And that's definitely going to put you into a parasympathetic state and it's a great healthy exercise, a nice mindful walk around the block that the whole family can enjoy. And then coming to the house after that, it's just about ready for bedtime and everybody's being calm during that whole process and haven't sat in front of an electronic device or the TV where things are being pushed at us. We've gone outside and enjoyed some of that time, so you might want to incorporate that into your nighttime routine. And then of course, leading by example. And a lot of these things you might already know, but it's also great to have that refresher just to remember these things.
(21:18):
So children are monkey see, monkey do. If I'm sitting there on my device, they're going to ask me why I am on the device. So just making sure you make that time too to really be present and if there's particular foods that they don't want to eat, making sure that you are eating all the foods as well that you're putting out just leading by being that good positive example that your children are watching and seeing everything that you are doing. And then another time, another great thing too to minimize stress around mealtime is planning and preparation. And I'm sure there's so many different videos and talks that you've probably seen already about planning and preparation, so I won't go into too much detail about that, but I recommend it for all my clients. It really does make such a big difference when you've done your preparation.
(22:20):
I usually sit down and meal plan on a Friday night so that I can go out on the weekend or order in whatever I need to do to make sure that I can do some meal prep over the weekend when I have a little bit more extra time. And one thing that we've been really enjoying doing, especially since we're home more and not going out so much these days, given the climate of the world that we are living in, is having family theme nights. So maybe on a Friday night we might have a Mexican theme night where we can get dressed up and we can cook the food and we can play the music and we can do some fun things like that. These meal ideas are just all with the base of shredded chicken. So very simple. You can just do that in your instant pot or your slow cooker, just basic with any herbs or spices in it.
(23:14):
Then make up a big batch of shredded chicken and then add these spices to it after. So you might want to freeze half so that one Friday night when you don't feel like cooking, you can just pull it out of the freezer, add some Mexican spices to it as you're heating it up, make a bit of a Chipotle mayonnaise or whatever it is that you're able to have make a paleo flatbread to go with that. You've got a Mexican kind of themed night or you could do an Indian night. So same thing, shredded chicken, do your Indian spices. You might want to make a Raider, which is really just getting some coconut yogurt and adding that to the meal as well. And a paleo flatbread again, or same with a Greek night. So chicken, greek spices that ziki made out of coconut yogurt with some cucumber in it and flatbread again.
(24:11):
So there's just some all different ideas there. Using the one base of shredded chicken that you've only had to cook once. And then just adding some extra things to that. You can even pre-cook the flatbreads ahead of time and put them in the freezer and then pull them out when you're ready to do your theme night. So that's just a little bit of fun around meal preparation and planning that you can add into your week as well. And now just before we finish up, I'm just going to give you some breathing techniques. So like I said earlier, probably heard people say to you, meditation is so great and it is amazing, but it is a practice and it's not something that you can expect to master straight away and everybody's different with it. So maybe some people can, some people find it difficult and we're not used to sitting still so often anymore.
(25:01):
And when we sit still, that's usually when the mind floods up and we have all these different thoughts coming up. But that's a good thing as well because that's us processing, that's it coming up. So when we sit, still don't need to just sit there and saying, oh, I shouldn't be thinking all these things. Let them come up, let them acknowledge them. Sometimes those thoughts can be difficult thoughts to have, but it's worth going through that process to get to them. So though, if you have trouble just sitting and meditating, you can do it anywhere. And one little meditation I really like is a shower meditation because that's usually a few minutes, five minutes that you have to yourself, and it's something that you need to do every day. So while you're doing this need to do shower, you can do this, need to do meditation, and from there you might gain a deeper practice.
(25:56):
So with the shower meditation, quite simply work out what works best for you, but maybe you might like to visualize washing stress and anxiety as the water runs from you and down into the drain, let it all go down into the drain, washing that off you and feeling clean and renewed and ready for a new day. Once you hop out of the shower, or another thing you might like to do, if you are shampooing your hair, you can wash away those negative thoughts as you are washing them and they go down the drain. And then when you're putting your conditioner in, conditioning in positive thoughts, there's a couple of little exercises you can do while you're in the shower. Sometimes I like just to get in the shower and just simply breathe those deep breathing exercises that a lot of meditation instructors or yoga instructors teach you to do, which is that deep breathing down to get into that parasympathetic state, just breathing in through the nose and ride down to the belly. And you might do that for a count of two and in for a count of two and out for a count of two, or you might want to slowly increase that, whatever it might be for you. Doing that in the shower can be quite helpful too. So that might be something else that you might like to do.
(27:19):
And another one that I really like too is it is a yoga pose called legs up the wall where you come to the wall and you have your legs up on the wall and being in that state can put you into a parasympathetic state, can calm the mind, calm you down, less stress and anxiety. It can also help you once you've finished feel re-energized again. So this is a great one to do maybe around 5:00 PM before you would cook dinner when maybe there's not much going on. And if you don't have time to come to the wall and the children in the lounge room, you can put your legs over the couch, you're still getting that same similar effect. So I've got my legs up on the couch there, and then my daughter came and joined me as well, and I usually do that around 5:00 PM and just feel a bit more re-energized.
(28:13):
It's also great if you've been on your feet all day as well, can really help with the feet and the fluid and the feet. And so putting your feet up the wall can be all over the couch can be great for that. So that's just from the side angle. I'm just lying there. The TV's going on in the background while the kids are watching and I'm just breathing all. The other thing is maybe you're sitting there and you're watching tv and then you can just hook your legs over the couch and that's just another version of that. Maybe after a little while, you might want to turn that TV off and you no longer need the TV on because you like being in that position so much. It's calming you right down. And then maybe sometimes you might even want to come to the wall and give that a try.
(28:55):
But just starting on the couch with it, if you're lying on the couch already anyway, just hook those legs over. I know that I probably get so much more than putting my legs up the wall than I do watching TV these days. Let's face it, there's nothing on TV much anymore. So just laying there before bed is a great practice as well to really get you into that calming deep parasympathetic state ready for rest in bed. And another little thing is too, is going back to the fact that we are home so much these days is maybe creating a little space of your own. So if you've got everyone constantly home and you're feeling like there's nowhere for you to go, maybe just making a dedicated corner in the house where you can just read if you want to or you can put some nice things there and just sit and enjoy a cup of tea.
(29:53):
Having just the ritual of having a nice herbal tea and drinking that slowly and mindfully and really smelling and seeing how it feels in the body, the taste of it, and just sitting there and drinking that tea. And even if that is just for five minutes, doesn't it already just sound so delicious? And that's just getting you into that beautiful, relaxed state. But with everything that I've talked about tonight, the main thing is making it work for you. So you can take all of these ideas or just one of these ideas, I recommend just taking one or two that will work for you. Or even thinking up your own version of those and just really making it work for you and just starting out there, just getting started in itself is a great progress to moving forward with your health. If you're already doing the deeper work that is amazing, some of these things might just add or enhance that work that you're doing. If you're already eating a beautiful diet, eating all those nutrient dense, beautiful foods, then a few of these exercises can really help enhance that and really minimize that stress to optimize that health. So just find one or two places to start, one or two things and just start there. But you do you and what works for you and your family best because you know best, what's best for you and your family.
Marie-Noelle Marquis (31:26):
I love the term ceremony of eating. This is something that was part of our ancestors' way of eating that has definitely been lost. I feel with modern day living and eating in a parasympathetic state is essential for those of us with autoimmune disease. So I think creating a ritual around food is such, it's such a great way to manage rest. And I love that she mentions the shower because this is something that we know we're already doing. It's not like an additional task to do in order to manage our stress. I think that's really great.
Jaime Hartman (31:58):
Yeah. Now if you are a member of the AIP Summit Community, you have access to the archives where you can find this whole presentation, including the slides and much more. As always, I'll put a link in the show notes to our website where you can learn more about the membership, which now includes both paid and free options. And if you choose the free option, you'll have limited access to the archives. But for the month of February, that will include Leah's presentation.
Marie-Noelle Marquis (32:25):
So as we start to wrap up this episode, we should acknowledge an important point, which is that one of the biggest stressor for people with autoimmune disease is the pressure to do everything perfectly. Healing does not come from perfection. It's important to remind ourselves, it comes from consistency and compassion. Stress management is not about becoming a calmer person, and that's a very, very important concept to grasp. It's simply about creating an internal environment where your immune system feels like it doesn't have to stay on high alert.
Jaime Hartman (32:58):
So if you remember just one thing from today's episode, let it be this. Stress management is not optional for autoimmune health. It's essential. But that doesn't mean adding more to your to-do list. It means choosing practices that help your body feel safer, help your body feel more supported, and help your body become more resilient. So start small, be gentle, and remember that your nervous system is listening. So if this episode resonated with you, we would suggest maybe you share it with someone. Someone who needs to hear that rest and healing are not weaknesses, they're actually wisdom.
Marie-Noelle Marquis (33:44):
And remember, AIP is more than a diet. It's a protocol with multiple branches and multiple ways to approach it. Through this podcast, AIP certified coaches aim to bring you resources so that you can feel confident about doing AIP on your own, but with the knowledge that you're not doing it alone,
Jaime Hartman (34:01):
We'll be back with another episode in two weeks. You can find the AIP Summit podcast in your favorite podcast player. So be sure to follow or subscribe to make sure you don't miss an episode.
Marie-Noelle Marquis (34:12):
And if you'd like to leave us a rating and review, it will help others find this podcast where we are committed to helping you use the power of the autoimmune protocol to elevate your wellness journey to new heights.
Jaime Hartman (34:28):
The AIP Summit Podcast is a Gutsy By Nature production. Content presented is for informational purposes only, and is not intended to be a substitute for medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health provider with any questions you may have for regarding a medical condition.
