By Aaron Boike, B.S. Kinesiology, ACE Certified Personal Trainer and Health Coach
Stress is a fact of life for most of us in the modern world. Between work, home life, kids, and digital stressors (phones, computer, screen time etc.), it is hard to escape the stresses of daily life. Research suggests that our over-stress problem may have a lot to do with our over-fat problem, too. In the United States, a whopping 70% of adults are overweight. Might there be a correlation between our fast paced lifestyle and our waistlines?
Stress and weight gain actually makes a lot of sense when you look at the science. There are a few main mechanisms that cause the body to gain weight when you’re stressed.
When You’re Stressed, Your Body Thinks You’re Burning More Calories Than You Are
According to Pamela Peeke, MD, and a professor at the University of Maryland, when you’re stressed your body goes into “fight or flight” mode, which tricks your body into thinking it’s burning calories to cope with the stressor. Back in our caveman days, this was almost always the case. Stressors were likely to be life and death situations that required an extraordinary amount of physical exertion (i.e. running from a bear). In modern times, however, stressors are more likely to be chronic stressors such as a work project, lack of sleep, or time crunches related to your busy schedule. These stressors don’t burn any calories, but still produce the same fight or flight response from your body, tricking your body into thinking it’s burned calories to cope with the stressor. As a result, we get hungry when we are stressed or develop food cravings for calorie dense foods.
When you’re Stressed, Your Body Produces Cortisol, Blunting Your Body’s Ability to Burn Fat
Cortisol is the body’s main stress hormone that is released in response to any stressor, regardless if it is a life or death situation or a looming deadline at work. One of cortisol’s actions is to prepare the body to “fight or flight,” meaning the body needs to mobilize fast energy for use overcoming the stressor. This results in a spike in insulin, the hormone that shuttles blood sugar into working cells. While this a good thing if your life is on the line, it is a bad thing if the stress you’re dealing with is not resulting in physical exertion, as it causes your body to shut off fat metabolism in favor of glucose metabolism. This means that chronic stress results in less fat burning and more hunger, because when blood sugar is low (following an insulin spike) your brain tells you that you’re hungry.
Need to Reduce Stress? Try These Tips:
- Get Daily Physical Activity – This releases feel good endorphins, helps you sleep better at night, and can help you feel better about your body, all leading to less stress.
- Cut Back on Caffeine – While caffeine can be a nice pick-me-up, it also can raise your anxiety level. Try limiting yourself to no more than two 80z cups of coffee per day, or cut back altogether if you’re sensitive to caffeine.
- Keep To-Do Lists – This is one of my favorite ways to reduce stress. Instead of letting your growing to-do list ruminate in your brain, write it down! It’s amazing what this can do for your anxiety level.
- Meditate – In as little as 10 minutes per day this can lead to a huge difference in your stress and anxiety. Try a guided meditation app like Headspace to start with.
- Prioritize Your Life – We live in a fast paced world already, and often there are things in our life that aren’t serving us. Take time to recognize your priorities and get rid of the things that don’t add to your quality of life.
Sources:
Block, J. P., He, Y., Zaslavsky, A. M., Ding, L., & Ayanian, J. Z. (2009, July 15). Retrieved February 28, 2018, from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2727271/
Can Stress Cause Weight Gain? (n.d.). Retrieved February 28, 2018, from https://www.webmd.com/diet/features/stress-weight-gain#1