How Stress Can Be Controlling Your Behaviour & Health (without you even realising!)

Stress is having a huge impact on peoples health without them even realising.

The severity is highlighted by the fact the World Health Organisation described it as

‘The health epidemic of the 21st century’

But how does stress actually impact our health?

We are going to look at this today from a behaviour perspective. This is summed up very nicely in a study which looked at 4.5K people and their behaviour when stressed.

When stress levels were high;

Around 50% of them ate more food and more junk food

Around 30% started drinking or drank more.

Around 15% started smoking or smoked more.

So instantly we can see how this will negatively impact our health.

If we consider the impact it has on us mentally, we also now know there is a lot of research showing that when stressed around 50% of people will also report heightened anxiety and or depression. Again, not great if our aim is health optimisation.

And then lastly let’s look at it from a physiological standpoint. When stressed, this actually makes building muscle and strength much harder due to higher levels of cortisol in the body working against the creation of new tissue.

Or if our goal was to reduce body fat we also know that elevated cortisol levels are likely to increase appetite whilst also breaking down the muscle that we already have which then makes weight gain more likely than loss!

Stress is also strongly linked to conditions including IBS, IBD, Crohn’s, Psoriasis, high blood pressure and elevated heart rate.

So hopefully you can see that if optimal health is the name of the game, stress is not our friend.And many people don’t even realise that the symptoms they have and behaviours they display are signs of elevated stress levels.

So what do we do about it? A really good starting point is simply starting to manage our stress levels a little better and stop ourselves from existing in the fight or flight side of our nervous system (sympathetic) so much, and shift it back towards the calmer rest and digest side (parasympathetic), signalling to our bodies that there is no immediate danger as we can relax!

Here are 5 key things you can do to manage your stress levels;

1. Track it- Knowledge is power! Measure your current levels of stress with metrics like resting heart rate and HRV and then look to improve these with your stress interventions!We want HRV as high as possible and HR as low as possible.Schedule in down time
2. Schedule in down time- Doing nothing is still doing something and needs scheduling into your diary just the same as any other activity! If it’s in the diary it’s way more likely to get done and stop you booking in other things and filling up all your time. This is important to give you scheduled time of physical and mental rest.
3. Have a daily practice of stress management- Don't just wait until the weekend or a holiday for down time. Add something in daily for as little as 5 mins to help you constantly manage and stay on top of your stress levels. This could be reading, breath work, yoga, stretching, journaling , puzzles or whatever helps you slow down the pace of life and busy mind and down regulate your nervous system.
4. Regular exercise - Exercise or daily movement can be an excellent way of helping lower stress levels and one that comes with lots of extra benefits! In particular, low intensity steady state cardio or even just walking outside are known to lower stress levels. If you can also do it outside in nature it turbo charges its impact.
5. Sleep- Poor sleep increases our stress levels and also our stress response and so getting into a good sleep routine is crucial for its management. Check out this podcast for how to help improve your sleep Listen Here!

Have a strong, fit and healthy week

Lizzie

The One Percent Club