3 Ways Stress Affects Your Health & 3 Strategies To Help

“If you do not manage stress, it will completely undermine all the other positive changes you make.”

-Dr. Sarah Ballantyne

Say what?! You heard the doctor. Speaking of, if you don’t follow her, you should go do that now @thepaleomom. MAD SMART!

But I mean honestly, who ISN’T overwhelmed these days? We’ve got work duties, family responsibilities, finances, disagreements with loved ones, emotional health, past regrets… the list goes on and on. Anyone else ever feel like dealing with life like the Grinch? Been there.

What is even more concerning than the overwhelm or stress itself, is the pedestal that we put it on. It’s like a competition of who can be the busiest. Congratulations! You’ve won a lifetime of unhappiness and 12 autoimmune conditions! Sorry, autoimmune conditions are nothing to joke about. But I do have two of them, so I think I’m allowed.

Honestly though, why is stress something that’s looked upon as a badge of honor? I’d like to change the conversation around this inevitable part of life.

Before I tell you how this “trophy” is actually detrimental to your health, let’s define it. Webster’s defines stress as “a physical, chemical, or emotional factor that causes bodily or mental tension and may be a factor in disease causation”.

Woah. Even Webster’s recognizes the factor stress plays in our health. What Webster’s doesn’t mention is that the body recognizes ALL stress in the same way. So whether you’re being chased by a bear or chased by deadlines at work, your body sees it all the same. Even positive stresses, like exercising, can have a negative impact when the OVERALL stress is excessive and/or chronic.

Think about some of the areas of your life that can be stress-inducing. Lack of sleep, nutrient deficient diet, lack of movement, over exercising, work responsibilities, family crisis, household tasks, parenting, lack of connection, etc. That is a lot for your body to handle! Now let’s see the ways that this stress may be impacting your health. And all three of these effects are inextricably connected to one another. (This is an EXTREMELY brief overview of what goes on in the body. You can find much more in depth material on this topic from The Paleo Mom.)

1. Compromised Digestion

You may hear me reference digestion in just about every health blog post, but that’s because its importance cannot be overstated. When you’re under stress, your adrenals release cortisol (the “stress hormone”). This has many effects on the body, one of which is putting your body into a sympathetic state (fight or flight). This means that all the non-essential things your body is doing (digestion, reproduction, bone formation, etc.) must be put on hold in order to, um, stay alive and stuff. This is not a huge issue when the stress is acute (short-term), but you can see how this becomes one when you are under chronic (long-term) stress, and your body is unable to perform these “non-essential” functions (that are still pretty darn important). Another aspect to consider is that chronic cortisol output can lead to leaky gut. This means that things are getting through the lining of the gut that shouldn’t be, in turn causing inflammation. Which leads us to #2.

2. Inflammation

Inflammation is a key player in every disease. It is controlled by the immune system, which we’ll get to in #3. Inflammation gets a bad rap, but it’s actually the body’s innate response to pain, sickness, injury, stress, etc. But it is meant to be present for a short time. So, much like cortisol, the real problems with inflammation arise when it becomes chronic. In an acute situation, inflammation goes to the injury site, breaks down damaged tissues, then rebuilds it. But with chronic stress, inflammation is constant, and can end up targeting healthy tissue and damaging the body. Hence, the very oversimplified part it plays in chronic disease.

3. Immune System

Remember how I said that all three of these are connected? Here’s the abridged version of how: about 80% of your immune system is located in the gut, and the immune system controls (or is supposed to control) inflammation in the body. What is the role of stress in the immune system? Back to cortisol, it alters the way that your immune system communicates, meaning the system’s effectiveness goes way down. When this happens, inflammation can go a little crazy and break down perfectly healthy tissue, while other parts of the immune system stop doing anything. When chronic in nature, this makes you more vulnerable to illnesses and conditions such as autoimmune disease, depression, cancer, cardiovascular disease, and more.

Quite the uplifting read, wasn’t it?!

The good news is, this is not your unavoidable fate.

There are ways to minimize (but not eliminate) stress so that your body does not endure a chronic output of cortisol. Here are a few strategies for dealing with all that life throws at you.

1. Worry about what you can control, not what you can’t. And I don’t mean be a control freak about everything that you can. That won’t help ANYONE. What I do mean is to reduce stress in the areas that you are able to, like trying to get as much sleep as you can, or cutting out foods that you know don’t make you feel well, or maybe just STOP EXERCISING SO DANG MUCH! Anything that you can do to reduce the total stress response will go a long way.

2. Find your stress relievers. I don’t just mean #selfcaresunday, either. You need daily activities that help you relax. This is different for everyone. Walk your dog, meditate, read a book, clean your junk drawer, paint your nails, go to Target alone, drink a glass of wine or coffee. Find the thing that you love to do, and now do it intentionally. You drink that cup of coffee like it’s the last one you’re ever going to have. Savor the moments that you take care of yourself. Just being aware that you are doing it will automatically make you less stressed.

3. Adjust your mindset. Change your “have-tos” to “get-tos”. I get to serve people at work today. I get to fold laundry. I get to go grocery shopping. If you were physically or mentally unable to do these things, you’d be in a lot tougher spot than you currently are. So be grateful for what your body and mind CAN DO. That doesn’t mean it’s sunshine and unicorns every day, but overall, I think most of us have it pretty good. Gratitude does WONDERS for the mind and body.

I know all of this is much easier said than done. But the beautiful thing about Nutritional Therapy is that it not only deals with diet, but with all aspects of life that can contribute to these issues. So if you’d like personalized help addressing these issues, shoot me a message or email, and let’s chat!

Whatever you do, please don’t honor the stressful life by competing for the “busiest person ever” title. You deserve more than that. We all do.