Feeling stressed?
We’ve all been there – work troubles, family disputes, or just simply – you’ve got a lot on. In a modern world, stress is kind of inevitable.
In the past, the main causes of stress were short term. A bear chases you – your body goes into ‘survival mode’ and kicks in fight or flight.
You sprint (or engage in fisty-cuffs) with the bear and the problem resolves itself (somehow). Your body returned back to ‘normal’ after the stress trigger had gone. Without that response, you probably wouldn’t have survived.
That’s acute stress – although I’d argue there’s nothing cute about being chased by a bear…
In the modern world, stress looks a little different – I don’t know about you but I don’t see many bears wandering around the UK looking for a scrap. Stress these days is a lot more chronic – or long term. It’s being overworked. It’s having an argument with your partner. It’s moving house. It’s all of these issues that take us into that ‘fight or flight mode’ but then… don’t go away.
Sometimes these things can last for months.
That’s chronic stress and that’s where the biggest problem lies. That’s what’s making it harder for you to lose weight.
The impact of stress on the body
So what actually happens when you get stressed?
Let’s start with acute stress and return to our friend the bear…
You’re out in the woods and you see him coming towards you (I don’t know why I’ve made this bear male, but here we are). There’s no time to think, your body just responds automatically.
Your stomach drops and your heart rate increases – all you can focus on is the bear.
This is your body moving to a high state of arousal – not like sexy times arousal – just alertness.
Your body releases hormones (epinephrine and norepinephrine) into the bloodstream, releasing stored energy from fat cells.
Your heart beats faster, your breathing rate increases, and your body focuses on driving blood to your muscles and away from ‘non-vital processes’ (like digestion – you can digest your breakfast after you’ve escaped the bear).
You run as fast as you can and escape the bear.
Phew.
As all that was going on, your body was stimulating cortisol. This increases alertness and awareness, but it also triggers learning and adaption. That means next time you get chased by a bear – you’ll know what to do.
Cortisol also has an anti-inflammatory effect and triggers the immune system to fight off any bacteria that might have entered the body.
Cortisol often gets a bad rep – but as you can see – in times of acute stress – it’s really useful.
After the stress is all over, your body returns back to its ‘normal’ state. This process only works if the stressor is removed within a few hours… otherwise you start to run into problems.
Let’s change the scenario up a bit – you’re no longer being chased by a bear, but your boss, Gavin, has been on your case. He’s working you to the bone and you’ve stayed late every night this week.
There’s a big report due and your job is riding on it. On top of that, your car broke down last week and you have to pay £567 to get it fixed.
Wow – I’m stressed just writing about that.
So what happens then?
At first, your body’s response is pretty similar, arousal increases and you're in 'fight or flight' mode.
Over time, your reaction to cortisol becomes dysregulated. It’s theorised that overexposure desensitises your body to cortisol. This can lead to a perpetual state of low-level inflammation.
The impacts of that include:
Some forms of cancer
Depression
Osteoporosis
Rheumatoid arthritis
Fibromyalgia
Chronic fatigue syndrome
Chronic pelvic pain
Temporomandibular joint dysfunction
Aging
Memory impairments
Reduced immunity to infections
Increase in abdominal obesity
Dysregulation of appetite
Just to name a few…
So as you can see – long-term exposure to elevated cortisol levels isn’t exactly ideal for you body.
Which brings me nicely into talking about…
Why stress makes weight loss harder
Our drive for food changes when we’re stressed.
In the short term, it decreases – after all, you don’t want to stop for a croissant whilst you’re been chased by a bear…
However…
The opposite is true for chronic stress. With chronic stress, you can end up eating both MORE and more frequently. Especially high-calorie, hyper-palatable foods - which are a recipe for a calorie surplus.
The first thing to note here is that calories in vs calories out still applies. Stresses doesn’t lead you to defy the laws of physics... but it CAN change where excess energy is stored.
You might have spotted (in the laundry list of impacts of stress) ‘increased abdominal obesity’. Calories balance still applies, but when cortisol levels are high – that excess energy is stored as fat around the abdomen.
Tie that to the fact that high calories foods tend to be lower in volume, they're pretty easy to overeat. That means you're more likely to gain fat - especially around you're stomach.
The next way it affects your feelings of fullness. In a study by Adam and Epel (2007), leptin (the fullness hormone) was artificially increased whilst the participants were stressed. Even though the participants should have been feeling fuller (from the leptin) - this wasn't the case. This suggests that, in the presence of high cortisol, hunger won't always decrease.
So what does that mean?
When you’re stressed, it’s harder to get those physical cues of fullness – making you more likely to overeat.
Let’s add emotional eating into the mix. You’ve come home from work exhausted and burnt out. Your stress levels are high and you feel anxious. You need something to give you a sense of relief.
If you're being chased by a bear, eating is the last thing you want to do, but in this case, there’s no physical danger. So your body has some leeway to let you use the ‘rest and digest’ system.
As you eat, blood is directed to your digestive system, giving temporary relief from the fight or flight response you're in. You temporarily feel calmer.
“Huh, that feels good.” You think to yourself, even if on a subconscious level. Your brain starts rubbing its hands together, it’s learnt something – eating makes me feel good.
After the temporary relief resides, the feelings of tiredness, burnout, and stress eventually return. Eating didn’t solve the problem, but it did temporarily relieve it – and thus the habit of emotional eating is born.
Finally, to add fuel to the fire, when you’re stressed your brain is physically less capable of exerting self-control. That means you're more likely to be led by motivation to eat something and fall into old habits.
Stressed people are physically less capable of eating mindfully, often snacking more and having irregular meal patterns.
Being stressed increases your drive for food, whilst also decreasing your ability to say no, and not signaling to you when you’re full… yeah. It makes dieting a hell of a lot harder.
So what’s the solution? Can you live a stress-free life?
How much stress can you tolerate?
Well, a stress-free life would be kinda boring – but how much stress is ‘good’ for you?
Well, that depends on your allostatic load – that’s how much stress your body can physically deal with at once. Stress doesn’t just come from feeling stressed. It also comes from exercise, dieting, not sleeping enough, illness and so on. Basically, anything that affects your nice calm steady state is a ‘stressor’, but as you can probably guess – a little bit of stress isn’t a bad thing.
Let’s talk through an example (these numbers are completely arbitrary).
Let’s say you can deal with 100 units of stress at any one time.
60 to exercise
30 to dieting (your calorie deficit)
10 to your day-to-day stresses – let’s say your commute.
Your body can deal with that amount of stress absolutely fine.
Let’s say the next week you go extra hard in the gym – you push yourself and hit loads of PBs – this week's exercise needed an extra 5 units.
So now you’re over you’re 100 units, but only just. Your body goes,
"Hey it’s alright, as long as you give us adequate recovery time, you look after yourself and don’t give any more stress – we’ll adapt and get stronger ready for next time."
Now we can deal with 105 units.
But, instead, let’s say the next week was a disaster.
60 go to exercise
30 go to diet
20 goes to day to day stresses (train strikes mean you’ve had to drive into work and you get a parking ticket)
20 goes to the big deadline you’ve got coming up on Friday
5 goes to your mother-in-law who’s getting all up in your business.
All of a sudden that’s now 135 units – that’s 35 units over what you could deal with…
This can lead to burnout and your body needing time to recover. Your performance will suffer, it’ll be harder to diet (because why have the extra stress), and you’ll probably say something to your MIL that you shouldn’t…
So how do you stop you’re from getting to that point?
How to decrease your stress
The basics.
Sorry to tell you this but the basics really do make a difference.
Aim to hit these habits daily to manage your stress:
30 minutes of activity daily
See sunlight daily
Drink water
Get enough sleep
Speak to another human
Focus on what’s in your control
After that look to address the root cause of your stress – where is it coming from? Is there anything you can do to alleviate that?
One of the easiest ways to reduce stress is to avoid the ‘stressor’ – but that's not always possible. All you can do is focus on what's in your control. And if you’re struggling with stress long term, it’s worth speaking to a professional about it – especially if it’s affecting your mental and/ or physical health.
P.S. I've recorded a two-part podcast mini-series on stress (and how to reduce it) - you can listen to it here
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