You can follow any diet, but if you’re stressed, your body can still be out of balance. Why? Because stress overrides everything! In this episode, Jen explains how adrenaline-driven stress can take control, leaving us feeling off-kilter no matter how well we eat. Stress is something we all experience in different ways, with a variety of symptoms, making it challenging to pinpoint and address. Tune in as Jen breaks down how stress impacts our health and why managing it is essential for true balance.
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SHOWNOTES
Stressed-Out or Burnt-Out?
Stress is one of those things that we all experience to different degrees and through various symptoms and ailments, which can make it challenging to diagnose and treat. Insomnia, anxiety, depression, hypertension, headaches, heart palpitations, diarrhoea, or constipation, loss of libido, aches and pains, exhaustion, behavioural issues, cognitive difficulties, anger, substance abuse, feeling disillusioned, withdrawn and helpless are just some of the manifestations of long-term stress.
Dr Edward Creagan, an oncologist at the Mayo Clinic, describes the response to prolonged stress as being ‘like a football player who has repetitive trauma in the game. One hit, and he’ll survive, but add up week after week of hits in a season, and he’ll be hurting. He may not be able to handle it anymore.’
Our bodies give us clues to let us know when we are under too much negative stress, but we tend to be so busy and so focused on the external needs and demands of our lives that we don’t have time or can no longer hear, what it’s trying to tell us. The problem with our stress-related coping behaviours and physiological responses is that they tend to set off sequences of events that trap us in adverse health effects. Let me give a couple of common examples.
When stressed, we often reach for things that will give us short-term energy hits or comforts; stimulants such as coffee, alcohol, nicotine, sugar, or fatty foods are usually the first things we seek. The problem is that the things we reach for to relieve our stress cause more stress. When we are experiencing stress, it’s because (among other things) our adrenal glands are tired, so we grab a coffee, cigarette, glass of wine or packet of chocolate biscuits to calm and comfort us, but as we devour these things, our body systems are further taxed by dealing with the toxins, fats or sugars, which further fatigues our adrenals and reduces our ability to cope. So, on we go. Fighting fires and causing more damage along the way until we get to the point where we can no longer get through the day without the stimulants we are now dependent on to help suppress the symptoms we are experiencing.
Think about the effects of stress on our blood pressure. When we are experiencing stress, our adrenal glands release the stress hormone cortisol, which mobilises excess fatty acids, metabolic wastes and glucose stored within our arteries. When our cortisol levels are too high for too long, the probability of atherosclerosis (clogging of our arteries) increases dramatically. It’s a vicious cycle: the stress causes high blood pressure, which releases more cortisol, which in turn releases more toxins, which block arteries and increase blood pressure. We’re living in the ‘stress loop’.
Stress Overrides Everything
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