Our entire post today is dedicated to that unavoidable, unrelenting, silent but deadly, and all to often ignored…. stress. You have it, I have it, and that overly peppy neighbour who always has a smile on his face has it too. Stress is vital to our health and safety, yet has evolved to become the source of many medical ailments and diseases. Can we completely remove stress from our lives? I sure hope not, because that would mean never exercising! Can we manage stress so it is less detrimental in our daily lives? Yes.
Let’s explore stress together, and maybe we can come up with some solutions for taking back the control stress has whisped away from us over the years.
Too Much of A Good Thing
Stress can be generally described as any strain on our bodies, whether it be physical, mental, or emotional in nature. When we experience stress, our adrenal glands release the hormone cortisol into our bloodstream. Cortisol is our “natural” energy drink. It increases our reaction time, alertness, cognitive abilities, and strength to a certain degree. When we find ourselves in dangerous situations, cortisol increases our “fight or flight” response. Sounds great doesn’t it? Bring on the cortisol! As with most things, too much of a good thing can be detrimental. To quote Brendan Brazier, Ironman Triathlete and vegan, “Stress is like fire: When controlled and used for a purpose, it serves us well. Left unbridled, it can consume us.” (Brazier, The Thrive Diet, 2007).
We live in a world that breeds stress; quick unhealthy diets, long work days, polluted environment, relationship troubles, responsibilities that wouldn’t fit into a 36 hour day… We have a lot working against us. All these stresses, though not life threatening on their own, do contribute to an ongoing release of cortisol from the adrenals.
The Silent Killer
Our bodies can only handle a certain amount of cortisol before it needs to recover from the stress hormone. If this recovery does not take place, and our bodies are subjected to ongoing release of cortisol, we predispose ourselves to a host of problems. Initially, we will experience fatigue, mental clutter/fog, and sleep disturbances. If the level and frequency of stress is high enough, we can get into more complications. Our bodies interpret stress as a reaction to a threatening situation, and our bodies can shift to a survival mode. We start to store and conserve fats, and rely more on carbohydrates as energy. The more carbohydrates we burn through, the more we will crave these foods. A combination of the survival mode and cravings can lead to weight gain. Hormonal imbalances leading to nutrient imbalances can cause digestive problems, hampered hydration, and poor recovery after workouts. Further down the line, stress can lead to even more serious diseases and implications, including depression, types II diabetes, fibromyalgia, and so on.
The ironic thing about sustained stress, is that each of these complications just lead to more stress. If you’re too tired to be productive during the day, yet can’t sleep at night to get rid of the fatigue; you’ll just be more stressed that you can’t find the energy to get things done.
Nutritional Stress
Stress from the foods we eat deserves it’s own section. It is believed that the majority of stress experiened by North Americans is caused by nutritional stress. Processed foods, unbalanced macronutrients (fats vs proteins vs carbohydrates), hydration, and a lack of wholesome foods causes UNPARALLELED stress on our bodies. Food is supposed to provide us the energy we need for all our other daily activities. A lot of the foods we buy actually tax our bodies of energy in the digestion process, robbing us from some of that valuable energy. I can’t possibly cover everything on nutritional stress in this article. But I will provide you with two resources. The first is a book called the Thrive Diet, written by Brendan Brazier (quoted earlier). I am neither recommending or suggesting you follow the thrive diet, but there is a lot of good information on nutritional and other stresses. Secondly, I will be posting an article on nutrional recommendations in a couple weeks. There will be a bunch of ideas you can adopt into your diet to minimize the nutritional stress on your body.
Balancing Stress
As mentioned before, some stress is beneficial. We stress our muscles every time we go through a MORFit Boot Camp. But we stop the stress, recover, and come out stronger and more fit than we were before. If you went through three boot camps every day for 4 months, the stress would be too much. We wouldn’t recover, fatigue would set in, and possibly injury. Stress also strengthens our immune system in the same way. If stress lasts too long, the immune system is overloaded, and we are at increased risk of illness and immune system ailments.
Below are a couple strategies you can use to try and manage the effects of stress in your life:
1) Be aware of stress symptoms (fatigue, mind clutter, unmotivated, performance decline, weight gain, weight loss, sleep disturbance, mood swings, decreased sex drive)
2) Educate yourself on what you’re eating, and start making healthy substitutions
3) Balance work, recreation, and other responsibilities. Do you really need to put in the overtime? Is there something more productive you can be doing instead of watching “The Last Ten Pounds”? Will I be more relaxed if I take the kids to the park and leave the dishes till tomorrow?
4) GET YOUR SLEEP!!! 4-6 hours is not enough for the vast majority of us, yet this is a very common amount of sleep for many of us. Getting good quality sleep every night can do wonders for stress levels, positively affecting everything else.
5) Choose your battles. Some of us are more high strung than others. Turning every little squabble into a warzone may get you your way more often, but it will come back at you in stress. Cortisol makes no exceptions for type A’s. A good question to ask yourself in these situations, “Will this really matter 6 months from now?”.
If you have any other suggestions, please leave a comment. Every little bit helps. I wish you all a stress-limited week. Check out Brazier’s book when you get the chance!
-Stuart
