Stress impacts various aspects of our lives & can be brought by our work, personal life or a host of other factors. Chronic stress can impact both our physical & mental health & create problems such as weight gain, obesity, high blood pressure, heart diseases & diabetes. These issues can be overcome by improving the quality of life.
Stress looks at your personal response to the environment. Everyone experiences stress in their life. When we think of stress, most of us see it as negative. We experience both negative & positive stress.
Positive stress is called Eustress & helps to improve motivation, energy levels, concentration, performance & coping mechanisms. Eustress is not chronic & will vanish after a small period of time. Eustress can occur when you are starting a new job, receiving a promotion, getting married, having a child & going on an adventure, travel or holiday to name a few actions.
Negative stress is called distress. This results in decreased performance, anxiety, displeasure & decline in physical health. Distress can be caused by a lot of factors such as death of loved ones, unemployment, injury, interpersonal conflict & many more.
Are stress & Obesity interrelated ?
Obesity is caused by a number of genetic, general lifestyle environmental factors. While genes do play a role in obesity, it is not the only cause. Therefore it is important to consider other environmental factors such as diet, exercise, diseases & stress. Although eating too much & moving little can lead to obesity, distress plays a vital role in obesity & weight gain. As we experience negative stress (distress), our diet specifically junk & sugary stuff become our dopamine to cope with stress. Around 43% people use food & binge eating to counter stress.
When we experience sudden stress such as life threatening situations or death of loved ones, our body enters flight or fight mode. When this happens, our nervous system will free up stored sugar & fat in the body & send it to different parts of the body for energy. Our body stops some functions that are not required for immediate survival. This includes insulin secretion as well.
As discussed in our earlier blog, Insulin is a hormone produced in Pancreas that regulates our blood sugar level. If Insulin is not secreted, blood sugar/glucose (derived from breakdown of the food we eat) will not be distributed to different parts of body & tissues and will continue to remain in our blood stream resulting in a spike in blood sugar levels. In a healthy situation, the stress response will wipe off very quickly & your body will function normally. At the first instance, it is hard to believe that long term/chronic stress will lead to obesity since it is difficult to put on fat if your body is using stored sugar & fat for energy. It is important to note that this situation occurs in a high stress situation not in case of long term/chronic stress. Given that our body gets used to stress response over a period of time, our body does not realise that we need energy during stressful situations. As a result, our nervous system does not release stored fat & sugar. Chronic stress will result in excess storage of fat & sugar. Over time, it can result in obesity with fat accumulating on our belly & middles.
Chronic stress impacts our hunger & desire for eating in a profound way thereby influencing our hunger & satiety hormones.
Leptin is produced in your fat cells where it has the ability to suppress your satiety thereby reducing your calorie intake. This hormone is involved in regulating your energy metabolism & reducing your energy expenditure. On the other hand, Ghrelin is just opposite of Leptin. Ghrelin is released from the stomach lining travelling through blood to the brain. Ghrelin increases before the meals & reduces after meals. When we are in stress we increase our cortisol level which can directly impact our Leptin response. This ultimately results in lack of satiety (or feeling of fullness) & leads to overeating. It is found that overeating due to chronic stress occurs more in women rather than men since men generally smoke or drink to cope up with stress. Women who restrict/control their intake regularly are the ones who end up overeating in stressful conditions.
When experiencing long term stress, most of us end up consuming high fat & high sugar foods since it releases feel good hormones in our brain and we end up craving for more & more & thus leading to a vicious circle.
How can you cope with stress?
- Get your 8 hours of sleep
- Avoid poor food choices when stressed
- Shift your Dopamine from binge eating of sugar stuff to some healthy conditions such as exercise, meditation, reading
- Speak to people close to you and let them help
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