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Nutrition Facts For Stress Relief That You Need To Know
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Nutrition Facts For Stress Relief That You Need To Know
Stress can have a bad effect on any aspect of your life, from sleep, diet, and exercise, to work, family, and romantic relationships. Left unaddressed, chronic stress can increase your risk for conditions such as obesity, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, depression, and anxiety. When you’re stressed, your body pumps out hormones that accelerate your appetite and send cravings for unhealthy comfort foods soaring, which decreases your metabolism and increases your risk for weight gain. Interestingly, certain foods and beverages may have stress-relieving qualities, while others can worsen its symptoms.
The Best Definition Of Stress
We hear it all the time. Stress is such a common topic in our daily lives, but, do we really know what it means?
Studies suggest that stress has a different meaning for different people under different conditions. One of the first accepted definitions is that “stress is the non-specific response of the body to any demand”.
According to this definition, stress cannot be avoided. Just staying alive requires energy, which causes stress. This sounds like too much, isn’t it?
A more relatable definition is that of Humphrey (1992) that considers stress as “any factor, internal or external that makes it difficult to adapt and that induces increased effort to maintain equilibrium both internally and with the external environment”.
The interesting part is that the factors that cause stress to one person might not have the same effect on another. That means that stress depends on everyone’s perception. That is good news, because you can, for the most part, control how you perceive and how you react to what happens around you.
What Is Stressing You Out?
Most likely, you are already aware of what is causing you stress. Generally, financial problems, work, difficult relationships, parenting, and daily life business are stress contributors.
The common theme is the tendency to say “yes” to more commitments than what you can actually manage. If you tend to think that you can “do it all”, more often than not you can end up agreeing to more obligations than what you are able to handle, which may affect your life and the lives of those around you.
Ironically, it is also common to get stressed due to happy events. Weddings, new births, birthdays, family or friends’ gatherings can bring big changes or make unusual demands on you, making them very stressful.
It is important to realize that we can dramatically reduce our stress by changing our perceptions. Often times we paint events much worse than they actually are by our distorted thinking, greatly increasing our stress.
Why Is Stress Bad For You?
Having some level of stress can be considered normal. There are even those who believe that, to some extent, stress is a necessary part of life.
In a dangerous situation, stress signals the body to prepare to face a threat or flee to safety. In these situations, your pulse quickens, you breathe faster, your muscles tense, and your brain uses more oxygen and increases activity—all functions aimed at survival and in response to stress. In non-life-threatening situations, stress can motivate people, such as when they need to take a test or interview for a new job. Some people even claim to produce better results when working under pressure. This is what is called acute stress, meaning that it is a short-lived event that reverses to normal once the stressor is over.
However, when the source of stress is prolonged, the body never receives a clear signal to return to normal functioning. This is called chronic stress. With chronic stress, those same life-saving reactions in the body can disturb the immune, digestive, cardiovascular, sleep, and reproductive systems. Some people may experience mainly digestive symptoms, while others may have headaches, sleeplessness, sadness, anger, or irritability.
Over time, continued strain on your body from stress may contribute to serious health problems, such as heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, and other illnesses, including mental disorders such as depression or anxiety.
Stress symptoms may be affecting your health, even though you might not realize it. You may think illness is to blame for that irritating headache, your frequent insomnia, or your decreased productivity at work. However, stress may be the cause.
How Can Nutrition Help With Stress?
When stress strikes, the body releases the hormones cortisol, insulin, and ghrelin, which can ramp up hunger and cravings for unhealthy foods, according to Harvard Medical School. If the stressful event continues, those hormones remain elevated, increasing levels of another hormone called leptin, which helps your body recognize when it’s full. This can trigger emotional eating, food cravings, and increased risk for a condition called leptin resistance, which research has shown to be linked to obesity. Even without food cravings, stress may cause weight gain and a larger waistline due to the higher cortisol levels alone.
What most people don’t realize is that their inability to resist those cravings can make their stress worse. That’s because stress usually makes you desire to eat processed foods that are high in sugar, salt, and unhealthy fats. Blood sugar is spiked by processed carbohydrates such as chips and cookies and then causes it to crash, raising stress and anxiety.
Beverages such as caffeinated coffee or tea can help improve mental focus when taken in small amounts, but drinking too much may have unintended effects. “Too much caffeine can make you feel anxious, jittery, and more stressed than you actually are,” adds Molly Kellogg, LCSW, CEDRD, a psychotherapist and dietitian in Philadelphia.
Alcohol intake could similarly help or hurt your stress levels. “If someone has any tendency to overdo it, alcohol is a bad idea,” says Kellogg. When stress is an ongoing issue and someone continues to turn to alcohol to calm their nerves, it can actually contribute to a feeling of depression and make stress more difficult to manage in the long term.
The good news is that choosing healthy foods has the opposite effect, creating a favorable hormone signaling in the brain, which supports satiety, mood regulation, sleep, and energy balance.
When you’re pressed for time and pushed to the limit, cooking nutritious food can be the last thing you’d want to do. But be confident that your time and effort will pay off in a big way. When your stress levels are at their peak, you’ll definitely note the benefits of making healthier food choices.
Here is a list of foods to incorporate into your diet to help keep stress at bay:
- Complex Carbs: contrary to simple carbs, complex carbs take longer to digest, prompting the brain to make a steady supply of serotonin (the happy hormone) and stabilizing blood sugar levels. Good choices are whole-grain foods (including old-fashioned oatmeal) and sweet potatoes.
- Foods Rich In Vitamin C: Studies suggest this vitamin can curb levels of stress hormones while strengthening the immune system. Good choices are guavas, red bell peppers, oranges, strawberries, papaya, kiwis, broccoli, and kale.
- Foods Rich In Magnesium: Too little magnesium may trigger headaches and fatigue, compounding the effects of stress. Healthy choices are ‘green leafy’ vegetables such as spinach, legumes, nuts, seeds, and fatty fish like salmon.
- Foods Rich In Potassium: One of the best ways to reduce high blood pressure is to get enough potassium, and half an avocado has more potassium than a medium-sized banana.
- Raw Vegetables: Crunchy raw vegetables can help ease stress in a purely mechanical way. Munching on celery or carrot sticks helps release a clenched jaw, and that can ward off tension.
- Dark Chocolate: Researchers found that eating the equivalent of one average-sized dark chocolate candy bar (1.4 ounces or 40 grams ) each day for two weeks reduced levels of the stress hormone cortisol as well as the “fight-or-flight” hormones in extremely stressed people.
- Matcha Powder: This vibrant green tea powder is made from green tea leaves grown in shade, which makes it rich in L-theanine, a non-protein amino acid with powerful stress-relieving properties.
What Are Other Stress Management Tips?
You can lower the risk of negative health effects if you take practical steps to control your stress. Here are some tips that may help you to cope with feeling overloaded and anxious:
- Be vigilant. Recognize the symptoms and reactions of your body to stress, such as trouble sleeping, increased use of alcohol and other drugs, quick rage, depression, and low energy.
- Speak to a health practitioner or a health care provider. Don’t wait to be asked about your depression by your health care provider. For current or new health concerns, launch the discussion and get proper health care. If your stress is impacting your relationships or ability to function, successful therapies can help.
- Exercise daily. Just 30 minutes of walking a day will help increase your mood and boost your health.
- Take control of your finances. It will relieve a lot of burden from your life to focus on getting expenses under control, getting out of debt, or increasing your income.
- Try an activity that is calming. Explore programs of relaxation or wellbeing that may involve meditation, relaxation of muscles, or breathing exercises. Commit to making time regularly for these healthy and enjoyable activities.
- Set realistic expectations and targets. Learn to prioritize and decide what needs to be done and what can wait. If you start to feel like you’re taking on too much, learn to say ‘no’ to new projects. At the end of the day, focus on what you have done, not what you have been unable to do.
- Maintain meaningful connections. Stay in contact with individuals who can provide practical assistance and emotional support. Ask for support from friends, family, and community or religious groups.
- Don’t hesitate to ask for professional support from a health provider if you feel overwhelmed by stress.
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