Stress: The Saboteur of Progress.

You are almost a month in to your new routine you committed to with the ringing in of the New Year. You perhaps have changed your eating habits and added more exercise in to your daily schedule. But why is it that you are putting in all this hard work and yet you feel like you are going nowhere fast? It’s because the arch-nemesis of your metabolism is silently snickering in the corner: STRESS.

We all have it. Each and every day we are faced with stress. But the tricky thing is, it’s not just the stress you experience from your job or managing your kids’ schedules. There are multiple forms of stress that you might not even realize existed.

TYPES OF STRESS:

  • Physical Stress — Exercise, hard labor, giving birth.
  • Chemical Stress — Environmental, pollution, such as exposure to pesticides and cleaning solvents, and the personal use of chemicals, such as drugs, alcohol, nicotine, and even caffeine.
  • Mental Stress — High responsibility, long hours, lack of sleep, perfectionism, anxiety, and worry.
  • Emotional Stress — Anger, fear, frustration, sadness, betrayal, and bereavement.
  • Nutritional Stress — Vitamin/mineral deficiencies, protein or fat excesses or deficiencies, food allergies, dehydration and chronic inflammation.
  • Traumatic Stress — Infection, injury, burns, surgery, and extreme temperatures.
  • Psycho-spiritual Stress — Relationship, financial, or career pressures; issues of life goals, spiritual alignment, and general state of happiness.

In response to stress, our adrenals fire up, and with the production of adrenaline, noradrenaline, and cortisol, our liver produces and releases more glucose in order to bring our levels back to normal so that our body can recover properly. In primitive times, this happened rarely for those acute moments, like chased by a lion. RAWR.

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Our body’s response to stress is considered major priority by the body. It is our fight or flight survival response!

Adrenal function is favored over reproduction, metabolic rate and other endocrine (hormone) functions. The Adrenal Glands are therefore allowed to “steal” nutrients and hormonal precursors from the rest of the endocrine system.

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However, in our modern day society, we experience the multitude of stresses listed above, which consistently puts our adrenals in a state of chronic stress.

Chronic Stress Response = Chronic Output of Cortisol

So, what effects can come from this chronic cortisol in response to our stress? Check out this slide from my NTA lectures:

When we are in a state of stress, the only thing our body cares about is reacting to it and getting you in the “safe zone” again.

Imagine you are fighter pilot cruising along and all of a sudden you get attacked from behind. Alarms start sounding, and your mechanical signals start beeping at you that you’ve been hit. You shut down the unnecessary in order to survive so you can get out of the danger zone. MAY DAY! MAY DAY!

When stress hits us, all other systems in our body want to shut down in order to save us from the outside “threat”. So if you are experiencing stress, you most likely have digestive issues, fertility issues, hormone imbalances, a weakened immune system, and insulin resistance, among many others.

So, no wonder your body isn’t wanting to drop the extra fluff or put on the extra muscle. Your body is in a state of constant emergency!

Even though I love CrossFit and High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT), adding MORE of it to an already stressful situation is going to backfire. You won’t drop the extra fat around your tummy, and you’ll most likely experience burnout, or even injure yourself if you aren’t careful. You need rest days to recover.

Hands down THE MOST IMPORTANT THING that I think EVERYONE should focus on is getting enough good quality sleep. I’m talking AT LEAST 7-8 hours minimum. You may think, “But I get only 5 hours a night and I look and feel amazing!” BULL-POO. I’m calling your bluff. You may think you are functioning just fine, but your system is fighting so hard to maintain what all your are throwing at it, that the moment you get sick, man, YOU ARE SICK AS A DOG and down for the count for days. Sure you might bounce back and get into your routine again, but over time those elevated cortisol levels are going to come back and bite you in that precious squat booty you are working so hard for, setting you farther back than you can imagine. Nobody wants to lose those booty gains! Am I right?

Stress is serious, y’all. Looking at the list of stresses above, I am unfortunately experiencing every.single.one.of.them. and trying my damndest to not have a mental-freakout-break-down-panic-attack-because-there-is-so-much-to-do-and-not-enough-time kind of moment. I’m pulling back on a few things (even the things I love) so I can focus on my overall health. Yeah, it sucks, but I’d rather manage my stress as best as I can NOW rather than experience extreme adrenal fatigue that will be harder to bounce back from because I wouldn’t give myself a break.

But what about so-and-so who is like superman and does everything and still manages to be ok? YOU ARE NOT THEM. Let’s not worry about others for a second, and take some time to worry about yourself. It’s ok if you can’t do what your best friend/husband/coach/whoever can or can’t do. Everyone has their own levels that they can handle. Besides, why do we feel like we constantly have to “be busy” in order to be productive? To be honest no one cares.

Do what is right for you. Do you want to be a better athlete, mom, husband, co-worker, teammate, college student? Let’s take care of YOU.

So, here are my top 10 tips to help you combat stress so that you can reach your goals and feel, think, eat, sleep and perform, your absolute best. And feel your happiest, too!

de-stress tips to reach fitness weight loss goals

I’d love to know:

What are your favorite ways to de-stress?

Please share your thoughts in the comments!

beWELL

3 thoughts on “Stress: The Saboteur of Progress.

  1. Kelsey Reply

    Thumbs up to this entire post + your suggestions to de-stress! I know I put a lot of those into play when life gets a bit crazy! The first thing I always do when I know I’m stressed is write it all down. Once I get everything out of my head, I know I tend to feel better! I used to just get around 5 hours of sleep, and totally thought it was okay. Now that I get closer to 7, I don’t know what I was thinking before – I feel way more amazing now!

    • madison Reply

      Thanks so much Kelsey! 🙂 Glad to know you are getting more sleep! It is SO important! — I love to journal and make to-do lists to help de-stress! Writing it out should be number 11!! Thanks for sharing! xo

  2. Pingback: Motivation Mondays: New Mommies. | beWELL by madison

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