Stress, Weight Gain and Illness

When we're stressed, we seek comfort, relief in food. When we're stressed we lack restful sleep. When we don't sleep, our hunger hormones are out of whack. When our hunger hormones are out of whack, we eat all the food! All the bad food. We increase our risk of getting diabetes, heart disease, and so much more. What came first the chicken or the egg? I think the answer to our question won't be so difficult to find.

When we're stressed or anxious for short periods of time, moments like that are healthy and show us that our fight-or-flight response is still working. In fact, cortisol is actually beneficial to your body, at normal levels. The problem is, many of us today face chronic stress, chronic anxiety. When the levels of cortisol remain so high, for so long, it can do some real damage.

Its been proven that stress is the root cause of many illnesses people have today. Things like heart disease, asthma, obesity, diabetes, headaches, and depression/anxiety. Let's not leave out that stress and anxiety also accelerate aging and interfere with sleep. So let's talk about it, the viscous cycle of stress, weight gain, lack of sleep, and chronic disease.

Let's study this photo of this man for a moment.... He's stressed out! He's got lots of work to do and he's drinking coffee to help him get through it. The problem is, that's his fourth cup already.

Coffee can be a useful tool because of it's caffeine content but (and here's the big BUT) too much can be bad! I used to hear it all the time from my dad and I probably still do from time to time, "Everything in moderation." And, don't worry, I'm not trying to snatch coffee away from you completely and forever. Instead, I'll give you a tip that helped me reduce my coffee intake from an insane 10 cups a day to a mere 1/2 of a cup.

Tell me about it. I was crazy. I might've even had more than 10. I was obsessed with losing weight at the time and coffee had become my crutch. I had to give up coffee many times to really make some improvement with my recovery. Nowadays though, when I have some caffeine, water makes a huge difference. Instead of drinking cup after cup, I drank a bit and then guzzled down water the rest of the day.

Water, is incredible! For the first time I felt that boost that caffeine gives you without the jitters and what I call "stress face" or the "adrenal fatigue" state. Coffee is a natural diruetic and the large loss of water can leave us dehydrated and puts the body in stress. That's why water can help so much. Too much caffeine also triggers cortisol, and our stress can go from "I'm just chillin" to "I think I'm going to die!" When our cortisol levels are so high, all the illnesses we talked about, might become your new daily struggle. Caffeine has also been known to interfere with sleep so when we put that on top of the stress that we already carry on our shoulders, getting a little shut eye could really become almost impossible.

A famous study done by Dr. Lee Burk, proved that Laughter Yoga could help heart attack patients. In his study, heart attack patients were divided into two groups. One was the "laughter group", the other was the control and was the "non-humor group". After a year, the "laughter group" had fewer arrhythmias, lower blood pressure, lower levels of stress hormone, fewer recurrent heart attacks, and they also required lower doses of medication.

Coffee isn't the only culprit. Work, school, and our personal lives can really up the ante. Stressful working conditions, in all aspects of life, can make it hard for us to relax and lower our stress levels. From, taking care of your children, to your career, to school, and just about anything that has strict deadlines and requires you to be your best 100% of the time..... woah! I'm already getting tired just talking about it! These things lead to chronic stress, chronic anxiety and it makes it hard to avoid the diseases that come along with it. Stress can constrict the arteries, increase heart rate, and also causes shallow breathing. One study found that stress could even affect the way blood clots. Stress causes blood sugar to surge and also causes sugar cravings! Our blood sugar levels are already high and then, our brain is telling to eat some sugar to trigger the release of serotonin. Our brain is finding any and every way to get us to relax. The issue is that, sometimes, even the brain can make mistakes and poor choices.

You might be addicted to stress! We brag about the little sleep we got and how busy we are to take some time off. We love telling people how, seemingly, "full" our lives are. The other issue is that, eventually, stress really does become like a drug. We seek larger and larger amounts of it. When we get bored at work, we stress ourselves out to get that release of adrenaline, a boost. Here, is where the viscous cycle lies.

We begin to use stress as a tool, like we would with coffee. And, as I've exhibited, sometimes we can get out of control.

Reducing the amount of stress in your life will not only help you prevent disease but may also help you fight it. So, to win this fight against stress and anxiety, we need to give ourselves new ways to cope. We need to outsmart our brains by finding out what our triggers are and either how to avoid them or how to cope against them. By learning and knowing why we get so stressed and anxious, we can work on breaking our habits and our natural instincts that aren't so healthy. Stress is the catalyst to many health problems that we might avoid if we can lower our stress levels. I will soon be posting "10 Ways to Lower Stress Today!" so keep an eye out for it to help yourself and your health.

Until next time, I'll be laughing!

Barbara