What's the deal with stress?

What is stress?

Stress is your body’s response to uncomfortable and harmful situations and environments. When you are stressed out your sympathetic nervous system (SNS) takes over, which is what turns on that “fight or flight” response. Your adrenal glands then begin to produce hormones such as adrenaline, which prepares the body to essentially “run away” or “fight back” against the stressor.

Stress is not a bad thing, it is necessary to help motivate us to get things done, and lets us know when we need to leave a dangerous area or situation. Stress can be life saving. On the other hand, chronic stress (being stressed for a long period of time/ 3 months or longer) is when it becomes harmful to the body.

What happens when you have chronic stress?

When someone is chronically stressed they may have symptoms of high blood pressure, high blood sugar, poor digestion, kidney failure, depression, increased heart rate, anxiety, fatigue, anger, and irritability.

How does stress relate to weight gain?

The body naturally looks for a way to reduce stress by seeking out and causing cravings of high fat, high sugar comfort foods. These foods give you the sugar (energy) you need in order to run away from, or fight whatever is endangering you. The only thing is that you are not actually in danger, all the body knows is that you are stressed. Since you are not in actual life threatening danger and don't need to run away from anything, you are not using the sugar (energy) that you just consumed, so it ends up being stored in the liver as fat, leading to weight gain.

Stress and High blood pressure

As mentioned previously, stress is the root of many dis-eases within the body. A main one, being high blood pressure. When you have chronic stress, your body begins to adapt to the high level of stress hormones in the body, resulting in chronic high blood pressure. If you want to stabilize your blood pressure, focus on decreasing your stress.

How to reduce stress?

First, we need to figure out what is stressing you out in the first place. Then, we can remove or reduce the stressor. If you cannot exactly remove the stressor, there are a few other strategies that can help.

Breathwork and meditation This is one of the best and quickest ways to reduce stress. Taking time out of your day to practice deep diaphragmatic breathing signals your parasympathetic nervous system (PNS) to turn off that “fight or flight” response, bringing restoration and balance back into the body. When feelings of stress start to arise, remember that your breath is always with you, and you can tap into the power of your breath whenever and wherever. I recommend doing this outdoors/by an open window as Nature is calming to the body, mind, and spirit.

Cleaning up and organizing Having a clean space allows you to feel more open and allows more mental clarity. Having a cluttered environment is like having a cluttered mind, which can lead to overthinking and feeling overwhelmed, which can lead to feelings of stress.

Allow yourself to rest and be present We live in a world that is always on go, always wanting the newest and coolest things, wanting everything as fast as possible (fast food, speeding through traffic, fast money, etc.). With this sort of mentality we are inducing stress on ourselves, and eventually this will lead to chronic stress. When you feel yourself in a rush, and trying to keep up with the ever so changing society, take a second to pause, slow down, and be present with yourself in that very moment. Notice how you are feeling, and ask yourself “what am I rushing for?” There is no need to rush our lives, as we are always in divine timing.

To wrap things up, stress is the root cause of a multitude of dis-eases within the body, but with self care, love, and nurturing, you can reduce your stress, release your dis-ease and welcome feelings of being at-ease.