Going to be right up-front with y’all about this:
This article is probably going to be bad for you.
Yeah, I know, I know… Mike was able to find a Dilapidated Cloth silver lining to the economy being in the can, but the overriding financial angst, in addition to making us reach for comfort food, might be doing us more harm than good anyways.
However, it has help, and Satan’s Little Helper is named “stress.”
“Stress is when you wake up screaming, and realize you haven’t fallen asleep yet.”
– Anonymous
How, I’m sure you’re wondering, does stress make you fat? Shouldn’t being keyed up and anxious burn calories? Back before the invention of the cubicle, that was indeed the case. Stress was (and remains) a condition where your endocrine system is ready to go into full-bore adrenaline rush, preparing for a fight-or-flight situation. Taking down a mammoth, running down a forest fire, or even preparing for battle.
You’ll notice that those are all situations where you’re going to be doing a whole lot of running, screaming, and flinging of rocks, spears, and suchlike. Nowhere is “preparing a report,” “having an annual review,” or “listening to the Bee Gees” anywhere on that list, and that’s where the trouble starts.
Stress (both the physical kind and the mental sort) triggers the production of a hormone called cortisol. And cortisol, when it doesn’t get to do its thing by helping deal with all that running, screaming, and flinging, goes looking for trouble, and doesn’t have a lot of trouble finding it.
Chronically elevated cortisol levels may have a variety of negative effects. Cortisol is catabolic and elevated cortisol levels can cause the loss of muscle tissue by facilitating the process of converting lean tissue into glucose. An excess of cortisol can also lead to a decrease in insulin sensitivity, increased insulin resistance, reduced kidney function, hypertension, suppressed immune function, reduced growth hormone levels, and reduced connective tissue strength. Chronically elevated levels of cortisol can also decrease strength and performance in athletes. Incidentally, Cushing’s syndrome is a disease of high cortisol levels, while Addison’s is a disease of low cortisol levels.
Now, the part that’s going to cause you some stress is that elevated cortisol levels tend to coincide with increased levels of abdominal (also called visceral) fat. That’s fat which is stored deeper inside the body, around the organs, as opposed to the stuff you’re used to poking at and frowning over on your belly, thighs, arms, or wherever. Visceral fat is the bad stuff, and contributes to a whole raft of health issues. The cortisol itself doesn’t contribute to obesity or fat storage in and of itself, but chronically elevated levels point towards increased levels of visceral fat as a percentage of overall fat stores.
Lowering your total body fat levels is good for you. Obvious conclusion is obvious, but if you’re prone to being a stress monkey, this goes double. Plus, exercise is one of the tried and true methods for reducing overall (mental) stress. Just don’t overdo it and push yourself into suffering from physical stress, since that will push your cortisol levels back up, which kind of defeats the purpose.
And, just in case that wasn’t enough doom, long-term elevation of cortisol can weaken your immune response… which is just awesome, now that flu season is settling in, and Bacon Plague is lurking out there.
So, what can we do about it?
- Take steps to reduce stress, or manage the stressors we can’t avoid
- If you’re going really hard at the gym six days a week, make sure you’re taking a couple days or a whole week off every so often. Prolonged physical stress is just as problematic as psychological stress as far as elevating cortisol levels.
- Eat healthy, and stay hydrated. Try to moderate your caffeine and sugar intake.
Stress sucks. But we can make it suck less.
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