Stress - what is is? How it can impact the way our body functions? What can we do about it?
Stress is often misunderstood. It is misunderstood to be just a psychological problem related to feeling anxious, depressed or low. But stress comes from many other sources and can have a huge physical impact on our body and our health.
There is psychological stress such as work, high work load, long hours, relationships, financial woes but there is also physiological stress. This comes from illness, injury, smoking, alcohol, pollution, intense exercise, nutritional deficiencies and, imbalanced blood sugar levels.
Interestingly our bodies can’t distinguish between the two and the reaction is the same – our bodies release adrenaline our fight or flight response and also a hormone called cortisol, our stress hormones. The stress response is totally normal and is actually a very important protective mechanism from our bodies to save us from oncoming danger.
For example, if you step out in front of a bus and get that rush of adrenaline that makes you step back and save yourself. Adrenaline releases stored glucose into our blood stream so we have the energy readily available to ‘flight or flight’. Once that danger has disappeared our adrenaline and cortisol levels should return to normal and we then carry on with our day.
However, nowadays in our society where we are often under constant stress, both psychological and physical, we are in this heightened sense of stress permanently, which means our stress and cortisol levels remain elevated. This means our blood sugar levels are also raised but we are not using this energy up to fight or flight. Instead we are sitting at our desks and don’t use the circulating glucose. Our bodies are very clever and want our blood sugar to stay within a certain range so it needs to store away this excess glucose and it does this by storing it as fat usually around our abdominal area as ‘visceral fat’. The helps as a form of protection for our vital organs as our body fears we are under attack.
Not only does stress impact our blood sugar levels and weight, it can also trigger our body to down-regulate our immune and digestive systems so energy can be used for survival. This is helpful during times of short term stress, however, with prolonged stress this can have a huge impact on our ability to fight infection and digest our food effectively, leading to frequent colds and gut or IBS symptoms like bloating, gas or constipation.
Chronic stress may also be corrosive to the brain – we think that it could cause brain cell bodies to die and the connections to pull back and die.
So what can we do?
It is obviously not feasible to remove all stress from our lives. So we need to look at managing and counteracting the stress we are under, making sure we are looking after ourselves.
We need to look at stress levels and our health like a bank account – we don’t want to be spending more than we are putting in, and if we are spending more we need to make sure we are putting more in!
5 ways to reduce stress:
Balanced intake of nutrients – we often use up a lot of nutrients when we are stressed as our body is in that fight or flight mode all the time so we need to make sure we are providing out bodies with all the nutrients it needs to recover and repair.
Balance our blood sugar and energy levels - adrenaline is released when our blood sugars drop too low to to trigger the release of stored glucose to get the levels back up again. Having protein and healthy fats with each meal or snack can help us manage this. For example, meat, fish, egss, beans, pulses, lentils and nuts and seeds. Also making sure the types of carbohydrates we are eating are more slowly broken down so opting for complex carbohydrates like wholegrains, for example brown rice, oats, and vegetables rather than the more quickly broken down and absorbed sugars like white bread, and sugary snacks.
Remove any unnecessary stress - its OK to say no sometimes! If you are having a particularly busy week its OK to say no to evening plans to make time for you to relax in the evening - make sure you prioritise you and your health
Me time – Meditation (CALM App or Headspace), spending time outside in nature without your phone, reading a book, having a bath etc.
Walking in nature in a green space for just 20 minutes has been shown to help lower cortisol levels.
If you are struggling with managing stress and associated symptoms like digestive problems, I can help.