The purpose of this blog is to provide you with an insight into the impact stress has on our body, our nutrition and our goals. The purpose is not to treat your stress, lifestyle disease or risk factors. The purpose is awareness rather than any kind of prescription and this should not be used as medical advice in any way. If you believe you have any issues described in this blog, we encourage you to speak to your trusted health professional and seek guidance from them.
Managing stress is integral for total health and longevity
Stress is an adaptive response to a perceived or real threat.
After stress has passed, the body must come back to neutral.
This can have harmful effects, both short and long term.
Short term it can:
cause changes in our appetite (increase or decrease),
cause gastrointestinal upset,
increase cravings for indulgences/comfort foods.
Long term it can:
cause IBS (Irritable Bowel Syndrome),
impaired immune function,
disrupted sleep,
increase levels of fatigue,
increase water retention,
potentially lead to weight gain/obesity.
Stress, or a stressor, is anything that knocks us out of homeostasis or homeostatic balance.
This means stability, balance, equilibrium, basically our “normal” state.
The stress response is our body's way of trying to get back to normal.
A short term stressor can evoke a “fight or flight” response that prepares us to defend ourselves and survive.
When stress passes, a negative feedback is triggered to terminate the stress response and bring the body back to a state of homeostasis.
However, if the stressor becomes chronic and/or exceeds our ability to maintain the stress response, it becomes harmful because homeostasis cannot be reached [13].
The body requires some stress in order to adapt. Both mentally and physically.
However, just like inflammation (which we have discussed in a previous blog here: What is Inflammation?), it is chronic stress that we are concerned about when it comes to its effect on the body, our health, our body composition and more.
Sources of stress could include restrictive dieting, overtraining, mental and emotional stress.
The impact of stress is based on the pressure it applies.
The greater the pressure, the further from “normal”, the harder the body needs to work to get back to baseline.
Stress affects all aspects of human functioning.
There are 4 main categories of stress:
physiological
cognitive
behavioural
emotional.
In regards to nutrition, eating patterns may change, sleep patterns may be disturbed, and we may experience extreme levels of fatigue [2].
Stress can be a vicious cycle.
Reactions to stress make problems worse.
The way we cope with stress can be problematic.
Over - caffeinating, under-sleeping, overworking, overtraining, under recovering, emotional eating, substance abuse.
People under stress tend to select coping strategies that help in the short term, rather than the long term.
Possibly because they choose emotion focused strategies rather than problem-focused.
They tend to do things that make them feel better immediately and find it hard to look long term.
The Stress Hormone: Cortisol.
Our levels of this stress hormone fluctuate during the day.
They are very high to start the day and reduce as the day progresses.
Cortisol levels increase slightly during or around training, which isn’t a bad thing.
Cortisol is a hormone that mediates the stress response and sleep-wake cycle.
Excessive and chronically high cortisol can cause insulin resistance, reduced immune function, and other negative effects. High evening cortisol is associated with insomnia. [1]
Cortisol doesn’t cause fat gain or prevent fat loss, which is a popular myth.
However, it does have a role to play in water retention which may mask fat loss. That said, our response to stress can have an impact on our body composition. [3]
Stress and Sleep
Stress can also have a negative impact on our sleep.
This can lead to increased hunger, food cravings, food reward, and portion sizes of food after a night of poor sleep [4].
Physiologically it can lead to reduced loss of body fat and increased loss of muscle [5].
Stress can also affect our appetite.
Some people tend to lose their appetite while the opposite occurs with others; increased appetite and craving more calories dense, rewarding foods.
Chronic stress commonly results in the later. [6]
Stress eating response.
When looking at stress eating as a habitual response we can follow the Cue, Routine, Reward loop.
Stress is a cue, followed by the routine of eating (generally a calorie dense, highly rewarding combination of carbs and fats), the reward is short term stress relief.
Research on addiction suggests that the brain-reward circuit may be a key player in stress-induced food intake.
Reward and repetition lock in the habit loop, eg eating chocolate to relieve stress becomes a repeated behaviour, and even a habit. [7]
Stress and Comfort food.
Eating calorie dense, highly palatable, highly rewarding foods such as high fat and carbohydrate foods can cheer people up and make them feel better.
They can be labelled as comfort foods: ice cream, chocolate, chips, cookies, donuts, etc.
However, with repeated consumption of these foods it can increase the chances of weight gain due to the impact it has on energy balance. [8]
Food and our emotions.
We have a tendency to consume healthy foods during positive emotions and a greater tendency to consume junk food during negative emotions.
Emotional eating can lead to a point where you may be unable to distinguish between hunger and the emotion because you’ve learnt to eat in a response to the emotion as well as in response to hunger.
Eating to reduce emotion can lead to compulsive overeating and obesity [10].
The action of using food to self medicate to reduce stress can lead to a short term food reward habit [18].
Dietary Restraint is a form of stress.
Overly restricting yourself from foods you enjoy or even the feeling of being on a diet can cause stress.
Restrictive and rigid dieting can increase cortisol.
Finding a way to enjoy your way of eating is important to reduce the feelings of stress and improve adherence [11].
IBS - Irritable Bowel Syndrome
Stress is a key risk factor of IBS. [12,13]
The treatment of IBS should be done in consultation with a dietician and should focus on managing stress and stress-induced responses. [13]
Due to the effect stress has on the gut-brain axis, stress can cause flare ups and exaggerate symptoms of IBS including abdominal pain, diarrhoea, a change in bowel habits, bloating of the abdomen, flatulence, urgent need to go to the bathroom.
Stress can cause gastrointestinal (GI) inflammation, and has been associated with inflammatory diseases such as Crohn’s [14].
Stress also leads to increased susceptibility to colonic inflammation and reflux [15,16].
Immune Function
Severe stress can suppress our immune system. [14]
Stress and Food Choices:
Under stress, people tend to eat a more westernised dietary pattern with more emotional overeating, overconsumption of high-fat, high-salt, high-sugar foods and reduced intake of fruit and vegetables. [17]
Now we have an understanding of the impact stress has on our health, our body composition, our goals and our sleep. The next step is to look at strategies to cope with stress in relation to your nutrition.
Identify if you are a stress eater
Identify your stressors. What is causing you stress?
Try your best to mitigate the stress. Can you control it, avoid it, reduce it, fix it? If it is uncontrollable, can you try your best to put a plan in place to control it. Making a plan can help you mitigate the stress and even if it doesn’t it will give you the sense of control. Try mindfulness meditation (See below for options)
Replace the stress eating with a positive behaviour. Enjoyable things you can do that are more constructive. Reading, catching up with friends, exercise, walking, writing, playing music?
That old chestnut of controlling your environment. Remove the calorie dense items from your personal surroundings, home and work. In the absence of highly rewarding foods, there is less incentive to eat them to self-medicate your stress. You can’t eat what isn’t there.
Suggestions for mindfulness apps:
Headspace
Calm
Smiling mind
Insight Timer
Waking Up
Wim Hof Method
It is also worth trying to resolve the issues and causes of stress rather than looking for a short term solution.
Try to focus on the long term fix. We recommend speaking to someone you feel comfortable talking to and if possible seeking the guidance of allied health professionals.
Summary:
Stress is a natural and often unavoidable feature of life. It has some beneficial aspects; under some conditions stress helps people perform better.
When the demands of stress are too great and for too long, the body needs to work harder to recover from the stress. This can cause other areas of health to deteriorate.
Identifying stressors and working on coping strategies that focus on the long term rather than the short term can go a long way towards improving our overall health.
Managing stress can have a positive effect on weight loss. [17]
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