Close
You have barely slept from the neighbour’s dogs barking all night, you are running late because your son refuses to get dressed and today you have a big presentation for the boss which may be a make -or-break if you meet your sales target. This may not be how all our days start but we all know what it feels like to be stressed. Whether the root of the stress is from work, financial, emotional, personal, or physical, stress is something that is difficult to avoid in the busy world that we live in.
When you are stressed you may find that you gain weight or lose weight. This differs from person to person. Research unfortunately appears to be just as inconsistent. Some studies have shown stress leads to weight gain and others have found it to aid weight loss to certain extents.
A potential reason why stress may cause your jeans to become tighter is that stress can affect the foods you choose to eat due to lack of time for food preparation and an increase in convenience food consumption. This makes for higher intakes of high sugar and high fat foods and this contributes to weight gain.1 A high stress environment often leaves little time for physical activity and this further impacts energy balance and ability to maintain a healthy weight.
Stress can play a role in weight gain when we look deeper at a physiological level. After a sudden event of stress there is a cascade of changes in the body – including the nervous system, your heart, your hormones and immune system. Stress hormones are released to make energy stores readily available for the body’s immediate use. The body also prioritises the muscles and brain and the digestion system suffers which can cause bloating, cramping and discomfort in the gut.
It is clear that stress affects weight management. But beyond this, stress has a significantly negative impact on overall health and wellness and has even been linked to chronic diseases such as cancer. It is important to learn to manage daily stressors to 
reduce the negative impact that stress has on health. Here are 7 tips to help you:
Can you eliminate the stressor? If it is an angry boss, can you move jobs for example? This is not always feasible so then try see if you modify the situation so you deal less with the stressor or in a different way that will affect you less.
Are the consequences as bad you think they are? Often they are not. If you messed up at work and you got reprimanded, it was embarrassing but you are not fired. In the bigger picture things will still be alright.
Avoid stressful situations by assessing what your stressors are and how you can avoid them with better planning, more time being focused in certain areas or looking for other resources to assist you.
Look to your family, friends and colleagues for support and guidance. They can help you to deal with stress by talking through it and finding solutions as well as guiding you to prevent future stress.
When stress cannot be avoided look at managing it with relaxation techniques like deep breathing, mediation, prayer, quiet time and exercise.
Exercise in many forms will help you deal with your stress better. Brain chemicals called endorphins are released during exercise which is a happy chemical boosting your mood. Any exercise – from running to yoga to taking the stairs at work – will help.3 Go forth and get active!
It is important to remember to eat for health even during times of acute stress. Help your body to have long sustained energy and all the nutrients it needs during busy times. Your requirements are even higher during these phases. Try get quality sleep of 7-8 hours and avoid screen time (laptop, phone, TV) 1-2 hours prior to sleep to further improve the quality. This way you will be more refreshed and ready to manage whatever stress may come your way.
References
admin@nutritionalsolutions.co.za
Bryanston: (011) 463 5502
Waverley: (011) 023 8051/2
Pretoria: (011) 463 5502/074 808 2130
Paarl: (011) 463 5502 / 084 571 8009
JHB South: (010) 035 4800
