How Stress Is Impacting Your Goals (and why we care).

Stress is unavoidable. At times, stress in small doses can help keep you motivated, alert, and gain a competitive edge.

When you face continuous stressors, your body thinks it is fighting for survival all the time, and so your cortisol level is at a constant high. High levels of cortisol affect your weight loss through increased appetite, food choices and even changes the way your body stores fat.

Since the brain can’t self-regulate when you’re stressed, and cortisol levels are running high, establishing goal-supporting habits, adding stress-relieving activities, and creating cortisol-reducing strategies ahead of time is critical to your success

Ultimately, your brain does not have the energy to create and practice habits when you are already in a stressed state. This means that establishing goal-supporting habits when your brain has the capacity and willpower to make decisions is key.

Types of Stress

Major life changes, natural disasters, intense exercise, food intolerances, frequent travel, high alcohol use, and sleep disruptions are a few examples of stressors that can be impacting your goals and how your body functions.

Why Does it Matter?

Both acute and chronic stress impact cognitive function by the way of the prefrontal cortex and bodily function through altered levels of cortisol. Disruption in each system can stall or slow your progress in weight loss or muscle gain.

How Does Stress Impact the Body?

BRAIN FOG: Poor sleep leaves you feeling forgetful, impulsive, irritable, and poor concentration.

GI ISSUES: Sensitive nerves and changes in digestion can intensify heartburn, stomach aches, and diarrhea.

LESSENED IMMUNITY: You keep getting sick because white blood cell levels drop and inflammation increases, so it’s harder to fight infections and heal wounds.

POOR PERFORMANCE: Lack of sleep and stress hinder your ability to recover from one workout to the next and performance is negatively impacted.

LOW LIBIDO: Drop in sex hormone production can impact sex drive.

WEIGHT GAIN: Levels of the hunger hormone ghrelin rise while levels of the satiety hormone leptin drop, boosting cravings and slowing metabolism.