Stress, the previously much-ignored minor by-product of a busy and restless day is now rapidly gaining prominence as a leading indicator of weight gain and other maladies. 7 Ways To Beat Stress, a Prevention Magazine news item on MSNBC Health gives the full details about how stress acts on our bodies and also describes a few ways to combat the ill-effects it can produce.
Stress, causes the body to apparently behave as if its in real physical danger and releases a surge of the hormone adrenaline (also known as epinephrine) which gets the body ready for “fight or flight”. One effect of adrenaline is to rapidly elevate blood sugar by converting glycogen to glucose in the liver and also breakdown the lipids in the fat cells. As you can expect, one of the obvious consequences of this reaction is to make one feel more hungry:
At the same time, you get a surge of cortisol, which tells your body to replenish that energy even though you haven’t used very many calories in your stressed-out state. This can make you hungry … very hungry. And your body keeps on pumping out that cortisol as long as the stress continues. Sadly, few of us reach for carrot sticks in these situations. “Instead, we crave sweet, salty, and high-fat foods because they stimulate the brain to release pleasure chemicals that actually do reduce tension […] [MSNBC Health]
Another unfortunate side-effect of this adrenaline surge is the slowing down of production of the all-important testosterone hormone which aids in muscle-building. This leads to lower metabolism rates over time and further weight gain as you end up burning fewer calories in the rest-state.
While stress can obviously not be eliminated, the article gives you some good tips on reducing it including getting some exercise and even, counter-intuitively, giving in to cravings! Read the rest of the techniques and see if some of these could help you reduce the stress in your life.
