<img src="highstresslevels.png" alt="How to cope with high stress levels">

How Stress Is Stopping You From Building Muslce

One of the hidden killers to building muscle, or losing weight is STRESS.

How we cope with stress, and move past will help dictate our quality of life, and also how your body reacts to your workout, nutrition and supplement programs.

When your body is under high amounts of stress, your Cortisol Hormones shoot through the roof and slow down your progress, and in a lot of cases reverse your physical progress you've worked hard for!

What Causes Stress?

Stress can virtually come from everything in life! 😲 Some of the most common sources of stress come from:

  • Relationships & Marriages
  • Financial Pressure & Bills
  • Work & Business
  • School Work & Performance
  • Social Pressures & Status
  • Too Much Caffeine & Other Stimulants
  • Over Training Your Body (Working out to hard)
  • Poor Nutrition Programs & Bad Eating Habits
  • Crash Weight Loss Diets
  • Poor Sleep Quality
  • Social Media
  • Etc.

You may be going through the bullet points and realizing for the first time that these external stressors are having a impact on the quality of your life & physique progression.

If you're like every human on this planet, you went through those bullet points and noticed that you have quite a few of these stressors in your life.

Don't worry, you and everyone else in this world! 🌎

In this article, I am going to share some tips on how to overcome these stressors, and how to make sure they don't ruin your quality of life, and your progression in your fitness journey.

First, I want to go over the terrible side effects high stress levels may be having on you:

1) High Stress Levels Cause Uncontrollable Weight & Fat Gain

This one is pretty self explanatory, the higher your cortisol levels rise the more your body accumulates fat storage's in the abdominal region [1]. Also this is partially due to the rise in the hunger hormone called Ghrelin!

2) High Stress Levels Cause Fatigue & Energy Loss

Higher levels of stress and cortisol can cause energy loss, physical and mental fatigue. This is partially due to your body being in a constant State of Survival, and the lack of sleep quality that is associated with high amounts of stress.

3) High Stress Levels Cause Uncontrollable Appetite & Food Cravings

When your body is under high stress levels, cortisol is released and another hormone called "Ghrelin" the "Hunger Hormone" is released as well. [2]

This hormone is in control of stimulating your appetite! Which is why you may have experienced "Stress Eating" or find yourself uncontrollably eating whenever you are under heavy amounts of stress.

4) High Stress Levels Effect Sleep Quality

Higher levels of stress can have a huge impact on the quality of your sleep. The quality of your sleep can also have a huge impact on how your body regulates and recovers from stress. [3] This can be one of the most harmful cycles known to impact the over all quality of your life.

Poor sleep quality can also lead to other factors like: Loss of energy, Low Libido, Inability to recovery from workouts, Low Cognitive function, Mental Fog, Fatigue, weakened immune system, ability to cope to stressful environments, and many more harmful effects.

5) High Stress Levels Can Cause Anxiety, Depression, Irritability, Mood Swings and More

Some of the damaging psychological and emotional effects of stress can cause you to feel; High levels of Anxiety, Depression, Mood Swings, Irritability, Poor Decision Making, Memory Loss, Racing Thoughts, etc.

COPING WITH STRESS & HOW TO MOVE FORWARD

There are many ways to help reduce stress, and help cope with all the external stressors in your life.

The first step is grabbing a pen and paper, and writing down all the outside stressors that are having an impact on your life, and your body.

Once identified, you can start to make a plan on how to handle each form of stress that is thrown your way. 

Some of the most common ways to help handle stress are: 👇

  • Mediation for a few minutes a day.
  • Learning breathing exercises.
  • Having a Healthy & Balance nutrition program.
  • Walking in the park or outdoors.
  • Having Meaningful conversations with loved ones about some of the stressors that effecting you.
  • Improving the quality of sleep
  • Keep a Journal and Write in it everyday
  • Proper Workout & Physical Training Programming

There are many other forms to help you cope with stress, while promoting better health! We hope you enjoyed this article and found some nuggets that you can implement into your life to help gain control over your body, mind, and life!

 

[1] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16353426/

[2] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30714236/?from_term=stress+ghrelin&from_pos=1

[3] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28756825/?from_term=stress+sleep+quality&from_pos=1

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