Day 661 - New goal - biohacking stress - https://golifelog.com/posts/new-goal-biohacking-stress-1666479705423
I've just set a new goal: Biohacking stress.
Not sure why it took me this long to realise, but through a series of serendipitous content I chanced upon, [like sleep and insulin resistance](https://golifelog.com/posts/stress-and-insulin-resistance-1666395617976) and [sleep and stress](https://golifelog.com/posts/stress-and-sleep-1666304617982), I connected the dots to my latest hypothesis about my health:
My stress levels are chronic and is the root cause of most of my minor to major ailments in the past decade.
A quick run-down of all the ailments caused by stress in the past 10 years (since 2011):
- Bad diet habits like junk fast food
- Bloatedness, intestinal discomfort, poor digestion, bad gut microbiome
- Overall weight gain
- Visceral fat build up (the 'hidden' fat that's stored deep inside the belly, wrapped around the organs like the liver and intestines)
- Insulin resistance, likely near pre-diabetes level (own diagnosis)
- Immunity issues that led to surgery on my leg in 2012
- Gut issues that led to surgery in 2017
- Recent muscle/joint pains and injuries - back, shoulder, neck, Achilles tendon
- Multiple rounds of burnout every year or alternate years
- Overall increased chronic fatigue (not sure if linked to adrenal fatigue)
- Poorer mental health - anxiety, low moods
The horror is realising that all that I've been doing with my sleep and diet biohacking is just treating the surface symptoms. No wonder I've been doing it so long but still feel like something's missing. Like how I'm really happy with how far I've come for my diet, but can't shake off the feeling that despite it, I'm still not feeling that sense of wellbeing I crave for. Same thing with sleep. The habits are settled but the fluctuations in sleep quality seemingly outside of my control had been frustrating. I say "seemingly", because I didn't know that stress could be the underlying factor.
Now I do.
So I can't keep doing sleep and diet biohacking in good faith without also addressing the huge elephant in the room: my stress.
So I've set a goal to work on it:
> Reduce and remove stress to healthy levels as it's been the root cause of my sleep, diet and health problems for the past decade since starting my first business in 2011.
Still got much to learn and work on. This problem runs deeeeep.
But at least I recognise it and am now aware of its impact.
Baby steps onwards!
Not sure why it took me this long to realise, but through a series of serendipitous content I chanced upon, [like sleep and insulin resistance](https://golifelog.com/posts/stress-and-insulin-resistance-1666395617976) and [sleep and stress](https://golifelog.com/posts/stress-and-sleep-1666304617982), I connected the dots to my latest hypothesis about my health:
My stress levels are chronic and is the root cause of most of my minor to major ailments in the past decade.
A quick run-down of all the ailments caused by stress in the past 10 years (since 2011):
- Bad diet habits like junk fast food
- Bloatedness, intestinal discomfort, poor digestion, bad gut microbiome
- Overall weight gain
- Visceral fat build up (the 'hidden' fat that's stored deep inside the belly, wrapped around the organs like the liver and intestines)
- Insulin resistance, likely near pre-diabetes level (own diagnosis)
- Immunity issues that led to surgery on my leg in 2012
- Gut issues that led to surgery in 2017
- Recent muscle/joint pains and injuries - back, shoulder, neck, Achilles tendon
- Multiple rounds of burnout every year or alternate years
- Overall increased chronic fatigue (not sure if linked to adrenal fatigue)
- Poorer mental health - anxiety, low moods
The horror is realising that all that I've been doing with my sleep and diet biohacking is just treating the surface symptoms. No wonder I've been doing it so long but still feel like something's missing. Like how I'm really happy with how far I've come for my diet, but can't shake off the feeling that despite it, I'm still not feeling that sense of wellbeing I crave for. Same thing with sleep. The habits are settled but the fluctuations in sleep quality seemingly outside of my control had been frustrating. I say "seemingly", because I didn't know that stress could be the underlying factor.
Now I do.
So I can't keep doing sleep and diet biohacking in good faith without also addressing the huge elephant in the room: my stress.
So I've set a goal to work on it:
> Reduce and remove stress to healthy levels as it's been the root cause of my sleep, diet and health problems for the past decade since starting my first business in 2011.
Still got much to learn and work on. This problem runs deeeeep.
But at least I recognise it and am now aware of its impact.
Baby steps onwards!