What causes stress?

Stress, while widely prevalent, is still poorly understood and often underestimated. While many people think stress is mostly psychologically mediated many of my clients are surprised to learn that biology plays an equal part to creating stress. Let's find out what can stress your body and brain:

1. Dehydration. When you are drinking less water than your body needs or when you are not able to absorb it through the colon due to poor gut health you become dehydrated and your brain and body become stressed. We are more than 70% water and every metabolic reaction takes place in water. When bodily fluids thicken many functions become altered (reduced or stop working) making you feel tired, unfocused, moody, have more pain, excess weight gain and reduced ability to exercise.
   
   
2. Irregular meals, skipping meals and eating too much. This pattern of eating leads to unstable blood sugar levels. Your brain uses about 30% of available blood sugar. When you run out of sugar your body will produce more cortisol and adrenaline (stress hormones) which forces your liver to make more sugar needed for your brain. Running on stress hormones is damaging for the body for many reasons. This makes you put on more fat, leads to loss of muscle and bone density, acidifies the body, suppresses your immune system and can create inflammation which is the underlying driver for cancer, diabetes and many other lifestyle diseases. Further as your brain needs a stable sugar supply, if you have unstable blood sugar levels - high or low - this leads to neuronal death. That's right you to lose important neurons (brain cells) when you keep skipping meals or eat to much sugar and carbs.
   
   
3. Being sedentary. Sitting is the new smoking. If you sit for more than 30 minutes at a time this can lead to increased risk of insulin resistance and inflammation. Your body needs to move at regular intervals as such when sitting down for 8 hours at work your circulation gets compromised which further reduces your ability to heal.
   
   
4. Poor sleep. Irregular, interrupted and insufficient sleep adds stress to the body and brain. I don't need to tell you that, as you know how you feel after a poor night's sleep. During sleep important repair, detox, brain repair, hormonal balancing and much more take places. Without proper sleep your body will lag and run suboptimally making you more likely to feel irritable, snappy and overeat and binge on sugar and carbs, which further stresses an already stressed system.
   
   
5. Toxins and chemical exposures. Chemicals and toxins are everywhere. Air, water, food, personal and cleaning products, furniture, clothes and so much more. Your body is not designed to deal with this constant bombardment and is trying hard to clean up your system everyday. However when sedentary, sleep deprived, not breathing properly, are nutrient deficient and run on stress hormones these nasties can't be detoxed properly and end up being stored in your body, fat cells, bones, organs and brain leading to very poor health.
   
   
6. Shallow, chest and through the mouth breathing. When you don't know how to breathe properly (which is most people) this forces you body to produce more adrenaline. For example as you breathe through your mouth and inhale cold and particle filled air this irritates the airways which constrict. To help you out your body will produce adrenaline which has a widening effect on your airways but which will also stress your body. Sign up to a breathwork workshop to understand more about how your breathing can improve.

As you can see it is not enough to be in therapy talking about your problems when the basics needed to run a healthy body and brain which make you more resilient to stress are not working. Book in for a stress consultation so we can discuss your lifestyle and get you on the right track to a better and more fulfilled life.

Anca Vereen is an Accredited Practicisng Melbourne integrative dietitian, nutritionist, psychotherapist, breathing coach and nutrigenomics lecturer at Latrobe University who specialises in holistic healthcare and lifestyle improvements.

For more information about stress please visit the Health Direct website.