A Novel Approach for Reducing Stress that Fuels Chronic Illness Symptoms

Reducing Stress to Reduce Symptoms - a process to regenerate your good health

This is a companion piece to my interview “A Novel Approach for Reducing Stress that Fuels Parkinson's Symptoms”, on the Parkinsons Recovery Radio Show.

The audio is also included here, with permission. Below this are the questions asked by the host, Robert Rodgers, and the precis/short summaries of my answers. The relevant timestamps are also provided, for finding and listening to the corresponding full replies.

01:50 HOW DID YOUR INTEREST IN CHRONIC DISEASES BEGIN?

It is a long story. My husband got cancer when we were 30 years old, and we where told that this type of cancer was over-represented with young men with a high level of education. Indeed, he is now a professor. So from that day, I knew that we could think ourselves into a disease. Major diseases always come with a specific personality trait and there is a very mental side, even where we traditionally think of diseases like cancers as a physical disease. So that caught my interest.

Later, when I became a therapist, I heard several stories about people with what we today call physical diseases, that became better due to mental therapy. As I did not like the short timeframe available for helping people with cancer, I took up chronic diseases, and made my small experiment with local people with chronic illnesses. I gave them five long therapy sessions, and every time saw that I could reduce their symptoms here and now.

I was amazed. If people can reduce symptoms like tremors for minutes and hours, then it of course it is possible to do it for longer periods.

I looked on the internet to see if there were others like me that were interested in, and capable of, reducing symptoms.

I only found a few therapists, but I found a lot of survivor stories from people writing about their own progress.

05:05 WHAT DID YOU FIND BY SEEKING OUT STORIES OF RECOVERY FROM AROUND THE WORLD?

I found that they all had a long list of how they reduced symptoms, telling everything they did from the start until they had recovered.

All the lists were unique at first glance. But reading more and more a pattern emerged. I could see there were four types of activities involved.

06:07 WHY DID YOU PICK PARKINSON'S OUT OF ALL CHRONIC ILLNESSES TO START WITH?

To make a long story short, I chose to dig into Parkinson's Disease, as people have a normal lifespan, so no hurry. Also, the symptoms are more visible, so it is a lot easier to see when my therapy helps. Tremor is a good example. You can catch it on video, so people can see it and persuade themself: Yes, it is possible to reduce tremors via mental therapy.

07:15 HOW WAS LEARNING ABOUT ADRENALINE A BREAKTHROUGH?

I found the common denominator to all these activities which people did to recover, and that was stress reduction. So all the activities survivors did could be explained by the fact that they targeted adrenaline. The common thing was a reduction of adrenaline!

08:32 HOW DID YOUR BIOLOGY BACKGROUND INFORM YOU, AND WHAT CAN WE LEARN BY LOOKING AT ANIMALS AND THEIR SURVIVAL INSTINCTS?

As a biologist, I have a lot of background knowledge of cells, physiology, organs, and also animal behaviour. So that is a very good pool of knowledge to draw from when looking at humans, and the nature of both a healthy person and a diseased person.

We can learn a lot from looking at animals. We are an animal, and even though we live in a modern world, we still have a complete set of survival instincts, this has not changed for hundreds of thousands of years.

Our brain is operating in the dark. Even though we can see, the brain still only gets inputs from our senses and must interpret that. The output is the same as for our ancestors: we go in and out of fight-flight and freeze many times a day. Some people more than others, but in this respect, we are not a lot different from the meerkats in the desert we see on television.

All-day long, we are alarmed (that is dopamine) and dependent on what the body and brain automatically calculates. We are either going back to a calm state, or the signals are converted to switching us into our danger instincts of fight, flight, or freeze.

Going into fight and fight, we see tremors as symptoms, building up tension in the body, and freeze is the same freeze state you also see in Parkinson's Disease. So Parkinson's symptoms are right in the middle of our danger instincts. In this way, people with PD show all the signs of being in our danger instincts fight-flight and freeze, and going in and out of these.

PTSD and Chronic diseases

11:02 WHAT DID YOU LEARN BY LOOKING AT VIDEOS OF SHELL SHOCK IN WORLD WAR ONE?

I have used three hours a day for three years (more than three thousand hours) searching the internet for videos and studies that could give me answers.

When I made my small test experiment with people with different diseases, I found that I could help them all with stress reduction. Regardless of diagnosis, I could help them reduce symptoms. Among these people was a war veteran with severe PTSD. So this brought me to old videos from the first world war where they mention the word shell shock. Seeing these videos is like seeing a concentration of all chronic diseases, and the easiest one to spot is Parkinson's, as tremor, stiffness, problems walking, bad posture, and frozen faces are seen in nearly all of these videos.

So the conclusion is clear from my perspective. While shellshock as is now called PTSD, it is a result of a short period of a terrible war. Chronic diseases and Parkinson's Disease, on the other hand. are a result of a whole long life in a stressful environment. Even if you have a fun job it can be very stressful, filled with pressure and ambition.

11:08 WHAT IS THE BEST RESULT YOU HAVE ACHIEVED WITH WORKING WITH A PERSON WITH PD?

I was lucky that one of my first clients with Parkinson's Disease got a new neurologist. This doctor thought it was strange that he did not have the symptoms any longer and sent him to a new DAT scan. He passed without a sign of PD, and was ordered to stop using the medication. So he is now free of the diagnosis. He had traumas from a father that attacked his mother with a knife. This trauma made him tremor when he was out in crowds, as he instinctively was searching for dangerous people. I helped him to remove this trauma and others as well.

The problem here is that as stress symptoms such as tremors are natural, you can never be cured of them, but you can come closer and closer to normal.

The normal is to get a tremor when you are excited, scared, or worried, but going back to a calm normal state with no tremor when the source of excitement or danger is not present.

We need to remember that this is our survival instincts. We are not a master over this, it is our automatic instincts that decide. The only thing you are a master of is after hearing this podcast, is if you want to continue to have these traumas for the rest of your life or if you want to get help from me or other therapists that are specialized in diseases.

17:11 WHAT ARE THE BLOCKS TO YOUR METHOD WORKING?

I find that people lacking time is the big problem. So if you have both children and a busy job this is difficult.

If you are a lonely mother it is difficult.

It is difficult to help people taking a lot of medication, as their symptoms are controlled by the medication. We do not know if a symptom is related to danger instincts, or it is related to a side effect of the medication.

As my coaching is based on symptoms being both natural and signs of stress, they are the key to becoming better. They are the portal to mental and physical health.

19:17 WHAT INSIGHTS DOES YOUR STRESS TEST PROVIDE?

I have made a Stress Test that can help people to evaluate which stress type they are. This can be a kickstart to becoming better, and to begin to understand this new world of stress symptoms and survival instincts. It leads up to my online course, which I call HOPE shortcut, a systematic way to better health.

I chose the word HOPE as this is the first thing we need to install in a person with a chronic disease. The next thing is to help people to learn to interpret their symptoms and flare ups in stressful situations

After this, I describe the four strategies I found in survivor stories and an explanation of why they work.

I then coach people to take action going from passive to active and to help themselves.

[22:13 - 22:30] So for persons listening to this interview, a week later, what would you most like for them to remember about this interview?

That they can do something and they should find my Facebook group where I'm sharing post. I call it Overcome chronic diseases, Parkinson's, stress and associated symptoms. So join the group and learn more about your own health and stress because no person on the earth are not having stress symptoms.

Instead of thinking about diagnosis, we should let go of that and look at our symptoms. So a diagnosis is a basket full of symptoms, but I have a saying, let me see if I can remember it now.

That the diagnosis for symptoms was star constellations is for stars, only a human grouping. That you need to be maybe 30 people with Parkinson's in the same room before you can find one that has the exact same symptoms as you.

You can find other diseases that have similar symptoms as Parkinson's. So diagnosis are overlapping and it's because it's, yeah, artificial, these groupings. Maybe it's a little hard to get in, but you have your unique symptoms of stress and other person has their unique basket full of symptoms. And to start looking at every symptom individual in the perspective of biology and instincts, things get so much easier.

Because I think most people have seen and noticed that the symptoms vary during the day or during the week. It's not just the same size and speed all over. Maybe you can have some symptoms like that, but a lot of the symptoms are varying up and down.  And if you look closer, you will see that it's dependent on the stressful situation you are. So I think I have to repeat myself. So what you should remember, come to my Facebook group, learn more and install a new hook.

Of course you can get better. There's always a corner in your mind and body where you can become better. And see what happens and let go of the idea that you can cure anything. Just focus on the small things you can improve during the day and week.

[26:33 - 26:50] Listeners to your encouraging and promising presentation are probably guessing that you're not from the United States. Where are you located?

I am a Dane. I'm in Denmark, that's on top of Germany and close to Sweden. I'm living close to Copenhagen, so I have a strong Danish accent and I hope you bear with me.  But I'm doing the best I can. The good thing about being a Dane and being in my online course is that I never overcomplicate things because my vocabulary doesn't give me that chance. So it's very easy to understand. I keep it down to the ground and explain in easy terms what to think and what to do. And I'm never more an email or messenger post away from you, so it's easy to get new ideas or post something in my group to get more knowledge.

[27:54 - 28:12] What's the best way for listeners to get in touch with you directly, Lilian?

Yeah, I think that in my Facebook, join that and it's called Overcome Chronic Diseases, Parkinson's Stress and Associated Symptoms.

I think I'm the only one in the world called Lilian Sjøberg. So that's quite easy to find me. I've got a YouTube channel as well

[29:36 - 30:19]Thank you so much for taking the time to offer us these encouraging possibilities for what persons can do to celebrate symptom relief from a diagnosis of Parkinson's disease.

Yes, thank you for being there and listening to me. It's a new road ahead and I can actually see that also doctors are coming closer to this because now dopamine is starting to be, can we call it, left and they're taking the next breakdown product that's noradrenaline and maybe in a year or two they found out like me that it's adrenaline that is the problem here.

But again, instead of taking a pill that stops this process of dopamine being converted to adrenaline, I think you should give yourself the present of dealing with your trauma and body memories and stressful thoughts and behaviours because that's in my words “the real thing” that you dig down to the root cause. Do not take this chemical approach and stop a natural flow of chemicals from dopamine, noradrenaline to adrenaline.

So actually I hope that doctor out there that's also listening to it, will connect to me. It would be nice to help these guys with this biological perspective, but it's good that they're coming closer.

I think it actually takes a biologist to see this bigger picture. There's a tendency to digging down into the brain, into chemicals, but things get so much easier if you take an overview and you see the historical perspective, you look to the side to our animal friends and see how they react.

I also use old idioms that there's a lot of wisdom in them. So actually know what I'm telling is the truth:

• You can have butterflies in your stomach when you are nervous. That's a physical symptom on a state we know is sort of mental.

• You can have a lump in your throat if you do not dare to speak.

• You can have red cheeks. If you are embarrassed, you can get red in your face because you are embarrassed. It's a physical symptom of mental distress.

• You can get a broken heart. That's a physical symptom on problems with your love life and so on.

There's hundreds, idioms at least in Danish and I think there's a lot in English as well if you start looking at it. So it's old wisdom that body and mind is very close and connected. So if we start to divide our health in mental health and physical health but we take it that it's like a coin. There's two sides of everything, the mental and the physical things.

I hope I make myself understandable and you can connect to this wisdom of animals and history. I find most people can connect and understand.

Thank you. Lillian, thank you so much for the remarkable work that you have done. I encourage all listeners to join her online course, to connect in with her Facebook group and of course also connect in with her website.

For those of you who had been thinking, oh, there's nothing I can do for my symptoms, as you can well see, Lillian has had remarkable success working with persons who currently have a diagnosis of Parkinson's disease.