How Chronic Stress Impacts Our Health and What We Can Do About It

If you are making positive changes for your health, it is important not to overlook your stress levels. Ignoring your stress levels can sabotage whatever good work you are doing in other areas. An abundance of research tells us that stress can have a greater negative impact on our health than diet or lack of physical activity. Stress can dysregulate adrenal hormones that can increase anxiety and decrease our sleep. Two of those hormones are DHEA and cortisol.

DHEA enhances our immune system and is a precursor to our sex hormones. It typically depletes with age, starting around age 35.  Stress, insulin resistance, excessive alcohol consumption, sedatives, too much added sugars or protein in the diet can all contribute to dysregulation of this hormone. Dysregulation of DHEA can contribute to headaches, sleep problems, fatigue and decreased libido.

Cortisol is a stress hormone that modulates blood pressure and blood sugar. If we had the threat of an attacker, as our ancestors often did, our cortisol levels would increase so that our blood pressure and blood sugars would increase. This would help us to run faster and escape our attacker. In modern times, we don’t often have predators or frequent, acute threats. Instead we have chronic everyday stress. We have not yet evolved enough for our bodies to understand the difference. This chronic everyday stress is triggering higher levels of cortisol. It is elevating blood sugars, blood pressures and anxiety. Chronic high cortisol levels promote fat storage and inflammation. This eventually takes a toll on our overall health and leads us down the pathway to disease. 

Getting adequate sleep is an important element of long-term health. Cortisol reduces our sleep because it has an inverse relationship with melatonin, the hormone we need to fall asleep. When cortisol is high, melatonin is low and we have a hard time getting to sleep and staying asleep. Poor sleep compounds our stress and anxiety. This becomes an exhausting cycle of poor sleep leading to stress which leads to anxiety and back to poor sleep.

There are a number of healthy habits and basic strategies that can reduce stress and support hormone regulation:

Balance blood sugars

Balance carbohydrates and protein throughout the day by eating balanced meals. Use the plate division method splitting your plate into a half and 2 quarters. Fill half your plate with vegetables, ¼ with protein foods and ¼ with starchy vegetables or grains. 

Consume Healthy Fats

Include healthy fats by cooking with healthy oils, eating nuts, seeds, avocados and fatty fish. Hormones are fat derived so it is essential to include healthy fats in your diet. 

Stay Hydrated

Dehydration increases the amount of circulating stress hormones in your blood. Maintain optimal hydration to reduce circulating stress hormones. A good way to estimate hydration needs is to divide your weight in pounds by 2 to get the number of fluid ounces you need in 24 hours.

Include stress reduction techniques

Journaling is an important way to reduce stress. At the end of the day, put your thoughts on paper to release them from your mind.  Meditation and Yoga are proven to reduce cortisol levels and improve DHEA.

Engage in enjoyable movement

Cross body action where you are moving both arms and legs, (walking is an example) is most effective at reducing cortisol levels. Choose low or moderate intensity activities to reduce cortisol levels. High intensity exercise can temporarily increase cortisol levels. Practicing daily enjoyable movements can improve quality of sleep as well.

Get more rejuvenating sleep.

The number one strategy that sleep experts recommend for improving sleep is to go to bed at the same time everyday. Most of us tend to stay up later on the weekend. Create a relaxing bedtime routine and stick with it. Avoid screens an hour before bedtime. If you wake in the middle of the night, avoid looking at your phone or another screen. Practice a meditation or a mantra daily that you can use to fall back asleep at night.

For an in depth coaching session regarding stress reduction, schedule a consult with me or download my NourishWell Workshop for a deeper dive into stress reduction as well as all of the important elements of wellness.