The Women's Guide to Stress Relief in 7 Easy Steps by Deborah Mitchell

Author:Deborah Mitchell
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: St. Martin's Publishing Group

FOODS AND STRESS

In chapter 2, I discussed how women who experience stress frequently seek comfort in sugary, salty, high-carb, high-fat foods. That’s because chronic, prolonged exposure to the stress hormone cortisol throws the body’s metabolism into a tizzy, triggering cravings for foods that are not healthful. The chocolate and other high-carbohydrate foods that you crave boost your levels of the hormone serotonin, which provides a calming effect. Research also suggests that a combination of sugar and fat (sounds like chocolate!) can make you feel more peaceful.

This phenomenon has been shown in rats. When investigators from the University of California at San Francisco exposed rats to a high-stress environment, they discovered that the animals who were highly stressed wanted to eat fat and sugar, and when they did, their brains made fewer stress hormones. While one part of this phenomenon may sound like a good thing, the negative side is that eating fat and sugar is not healthful for a variety of reasons, including a greater risk of diabetes, obesity, heart disease, and a wide range of cancers.

To add insult to injury, you would think being stressed would cause you to burn calories, but instead stress makes your body metabolize fewer calories, and then cortisol can lower the body’s ability to release fat from storage so you can burn it. And because stress hormones cause fat to accumulate in the abdominal area, many women end up with belly fat that is difficult to lose.

Here are a few tips to help fight stress. Be prepared to institute the “Reduce” part of DROP!

• Limit or eliminate caffeine from your diet. I know this can be a difficult step for some women, but here’s why it’s important. Caffeine causes a rise in cortisol, as much as 30 percent in just one hour, and this effect can last most of the day. If eliminating caffeine seems like too drastic a move, do it slowly. Gradually switch to decaffeinated coffee, incorporate tea into your routine, and try herbal (no caffeine) teas.

• Avoid sugars. Again, this can be a challenge, depending on how much sugar you are used to eating regularly in your current diet. Refined carbohydrates like simple sugars provoke drastic increases in insulin production and cause blood sugar levels to rise, which stresses the adrenal glands and their ability to regulate the level of stress hormones in the body. Refined sugar also stimulates the release of the brain chemical called dopamine, which makes you feel pleasure and also makes you want more of the same. A study from 2010 reported that sugar causes the release of endorphins in the brains of some people in a way that is very much like how cocaine and similar drugs release endorphins. If you are thinking, “All this talk about refined sugar makes it sound like a drug addiction,” you’re right. Morphine, heroin, and sugar all work on the same trigger points, or receptors, in the brain. To help wean yourself off sugar, gradually reduce the sugary foods in your diet and replace them with naturally sweet foods, such as whole fruits.

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