All about STRESS!

AHHH don’t we all love being stressed!? yeah…not so much. I want to share with you how stress affects your body, mood and behavior! But also how to cope and help you out! (Don’t get me wrong I know we will always have some sort of stress in our life, but we can manage it to some degree.)

Stress on your body can include headache, muscle pain, fatigue, stomach ache, weaken your immune system or sleep problems.

Stress on your mood can include irritability, depression, lack of motivation, feeling overwhelmed and anxiousness.

Finally stress on your behavior can include not being as active, not as social, drug or alcohol misuse, over or underrating. Of course these are all just a couple of symptoms but there are many more.

Okay, okay, so now that we got the not so fun part out of the way, lets talk about some healthy ways to manage. Of course there is yoga, deep breathing and meditation. Which are great things but I wanna ask you something. What do you like doing for fun? What are your hobbies? I think when you find those out and implement them when we are stressed, that can help a lot! For me, it’s working out, hiking, being with my friends or family and going to God! When I was researching about stress I came to Mayo Clinics page. They said “Aim to find active ways to manage your stress. Inactive ways to manage stress — such as watching television, surfing the internet or playing video games — may seem relaxing, but they may increase your stress over the long term. And be sure to get plenty of sleep and eat a healthy, balanced diet. Avoid tobacco use, excess caffeine and alcohol, and the use of illegal substances.“

I Lastly want to share how much stress can impact your ability to maintain a healthy weight. Whether it’s the result of high levels of the stress hormone cortisol, unhealthy stress-induced behaviors, or a combination of the two, the link between stress and weight gain is high. (To be honest there is a lot of science behind it but I don’t want to bore you too much hah) Basically it affects your cortisol levels which impact your metabolism and sugar cravings.

To help break that cycle here are some ways!

Make exercise a priority, even if it is just a walk!

Practice mindful eating-without distractions.

Drink more water for many reasons, but one is a lot of people confuse thirst with hunger.

There are lots of other thing that can help! Overall everyone is different and has different goals. So just do whatever works best for you! (But don’t go stressing out how to figure out how to de-stress;)