miércoles, 23 de mayo de 2012

What Kind of Stress Do You Carry and How Does it Impact Your Weight?


Stress is so common in our lives. Most people don’t think they can do anything about it. We all need to come to believe that stress is not an acceptable condition because it does so much damage. But before we try to manage it, let’s try to understand how it is affecting you and your weight. Our stresses affect each of us differently.


When we talk about stress and health or weight, we’re really talking about our body’s hormones responding to an outside influence … in the case of stress, it’s some kind of threat.

What is Stress?

It could be worry or fear of a deadline, financial problems, physical ailments, relationship problems, or school exams.

Our minds and emotions have so much power over our bodies that our body and our hormones can’t tell the difference between being chased by a tiger or not being prepared for a presentation. If it’s a tiger, at least we can run away. But running away from the threat of most of our stressors isn’t possible because they keep coming up in our minds and our hormones throughout the day, and the results on our health are huge.

What are the Dangers of Excessive Stress?

According to Dr. Jim LaValle in his book, Cracking the Metabolic Code, chronically high cortisol can result in insulin resistance, huge cravings for empty carbs, belly fat, muscle breakdown, increased cholesterol and triglycerides, a loss sleep quality, memory problems, a weakened immune system, water retention and other disagreeable consequences.

It’s not generally known that cholesterol levels aren’t affected as much by the foods we eat as they are by how we manage our stress.

How Do We Measure Our Body’s Hormonal Reaction to Stress?

We measure cortisol. Our cortisol should be highest about 30 minutes after we wake up. It gives us the energy we need for the day. Normally it should decrease until lunch and taper off slowly into the evening when we’re ready for restful sleep.

However, if we’re involved in chronic stress, our body secretes cortisol in higher patterns. Here are several common types:

A stressed out person is on high alert all day. Cravings are common, driven by high cortisol levels.
The night owl gets into a pattern that prompts high cortisol for energy late into the night. Eventually it begins keeping them up even when they want to go to sleep. Over time it can lead to greater stress from the lack of quality sleep. Morning cortisol becomes lower, making it harder to get up and going in the morning.

The couch potato has typically had such high cortisol levels for so long that the cortisol levels throughout the day begin to drop. It’s hard for them to feel like doing anything at all. Everyday activities begin to be neglected and the result is often weight gain. If they force themselves to exercise or get active, they can feel even worse. The usual advice to be more active, eat better or apply more willpower may not work very well.

ACTION STEPS:
  1. If we don’t do something about our stress, it can lead to many health problems including weight gain. So start by journalling your life and begin to recognize the lifestyle factors that trigger your stress levels.
  2. Look for ways to vary your schedule and check your stress level at each of these times. Keep making adjustments until you find yourself in a more normal rhythm.
  3. Take time during the day for a scheduled break and measure your stress.
  4. Get your life on a more predictable schedule that starts the day with greater energy and slowly tapers down in the evening as you move toward restful sleep.
References:
“What Kind of Stressed are you?” Tom Nikkola, Director of Nutrition and Weight Management at Lifetime Fitness, June 26, 2011, www.lifetime-weightloss.com/blog

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