Got stress! You are NOT alone.
- We women over 40 strive to be perfect in all areas of our lives.
- We continue meeting household and family responsibilities, while at the same time working and trying to maintain personal interests.
- We are also so called the "Sandwich Generation" hitting midlife feeling pressured by the needs of both adult children and increasingly frail parents.
- We are ageless superwomen, Baby Boomers despite of everyday stress trying reinventing ourselves — searching for new meaning, new mates, new life balance and new adventures.
No wander
you get stressed…chronically stressed.
Stress is not your enemy, though -- it is a highly adaptive and necessary mechanism designed to be activated for short-term challenges.
Stress is not your enemy, though -- it is a highly adaptive and necessary mechanism designed to be activated for short-term challenges.
Whats the problem?
The key words are - short term activation. With a long term exposure to demands and challenges--your ever-stressed, fast-paced superwomen lifestyle, your body is pumping out cortisol almost constantly, which can wreak havoc on your health (studies estimate that 75-90 percent of visits to the family doctors are for the stress related health problems).
The key words are - short term activation. With a long term exposure to demands and challenges--your ever-stressed, fast-paced superwomen lifestyle, your body is pumping out cortisol almost constantly, which can wreak havoc on your health (studies estimate that 75-90 percent of visits to the family doctors are for the stress related health problems).
Today, mounting evidence has shown
that one of the most insidious side-effects of chronic stress is weight gain.
Excess stress hormones in the body encourage fat storage, especially that hardest-to-shift
type – weight around the middle. Quite simply, in a stressed body most diets
are doomed to fail.
“One of the biggest, most reliable paths to obesity, says Elissa Epel, the founder and director of the Center for Obesity Assessment, Study, and Treatment at the University of California, San Francisco, has been researching the role of stress in overeating, is high stress, because it changes our appetite, stimulates overeating, and makes us more insulin-resistant, a factor that elevates blood sugar and can put as at risk for Type 2 diabetes.
“Stress affects the same signals as famine does. It turns on the brain pathways that make us crave dense calories—we’ll choose high fat, high sweet foods, or high salt,” says Epel. “When we have a ‘stress brain,’ food is even more rewarding.”
In talking with women every day, I am continuously reminded of how many responsibilities we have. It can seem next to impossible to take a minute for ourselves! But I also know that stress-induced weight gain, stress eating and lack of energy are serious concerns for women. For many of us, the stress in our lives is intimately connected to our weight. Our bodies are wise — when stress is the predominant state, your body will protect you by holding on to extra kilos.
“One of the biggest, most reliable paths to obesity, says Elissa Epel, the founder and director of the Center for Obesity Assessment, Study, and Treatment at the University of California, San Francisco, has been researching the role of stress in overeating, is high stress, because it changes our appetite, stimulates overeating, and makes us more insulin-resistant, a factor that elevates blood sugar and can put as at risk for Type 2 diabetes.
“Stress affects the same signals as famine does. It turns on the brain pathways that make us crave dense calories—we’ll choose high fat, high sweet foods, or high salt,” says Epel. “When we have a ‘stress brain,’ food is even more rewarding.”
In talking with women every day, I am continuously reminded of how many responsibilities we have. It can seem next to impossible to take a minute for ourselves! But I also know that stress-induced weight gain, stress eating and lack of energy are serious concerns for women. For many of us, the stress in our lives is intimately connected to our weight. Our bodies are wise — when stress is the predominant state, your body will protect you by holding on to extra kilos.
You can coax your body away from
this “crisis mode” by creating an effective holistic stress management
routine. Doing this often means taking more time for yourself —
including paying more attention to what you eat, how you sleep, and how you
live each day.
You deserve every bit of it!
And once you replenish your energy and calm your stress response, you’ll be
amazed and delighted by how the weight comes off!
Fortunately you have a choice. Even two :)
The
easiest choice is to do nothing (like most of people) and let chronic stress
and elevated cortisol levels slowly break down our bodily defenses and increase
your risk for diseases.
The
more effective choices are to do something – about either your
stress level, the way you handle stress or how your body responds to stressful
situations.
Lets
face it - stress is here to stay, and its already well known that stress
is going to be the number one health/wellness/well-being problem for
majority of mankind in many years to come.
You
simply can’t afford to leave it unresolved.
I
would like to encourage you to start investing time, efforts and money and
learn really effective and long lasting stress management solutions.
What are you waiting for?
If you've been reading this blog for awhile but just haven't
taken action, it is time. It doesn't matter what you do, but do something to
overcome the doubt, fear, or inertia that's keeping you stuck in stress eating:
- Get guidance and support I provide to help you.
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