5 Simple Stress Busters

5 Simple Stress Busters:

Tackle stress head on! Learning to manage stress better will help you live a healthier and happier life; feel younger and have more energy; enjoy your job, family and friends more; and focus your attention on the things in your life that are truly important.

1. Get moving. This is a no brainer but you have to do it! Regular exercise is one of the best ways to manage stress, lose weight, elevate your mood and feel good. Walking is a great way to get started. If you’re exercising now boost up your routine and challenge yourself for even more stress busting benefits!

2. Clean up your plate. Eat healthier, fresher, cleaner food. Just making a few simple adjustments can make all the difference in how you feel throughout the
day. Eat less packaged foods and more fresh foods and cut down the sugar. This will give you more energy, help regulate your mood and you’ll feel lighter!

3. Get more restful sleep. Good sleep is key to helping reduce stress. Proper sleep can boost your cognition and memory. A nice slumber also helps reduce hormones that cause us to retain belly fat and bad or insufficient sleep can make you cranky and want to overeat!

4. Create balance. Is your day is jammed packed with errands, chores, work, and no downtime? Take a few minutes to examine your daily routine and modify it for better stress control. Making time to do something you enjoy can help you relax!

5. Chill out. Meditation, deep breathing, guided imagery and yoga are all relaxation techniques that encourage you to relax and decrease stress levels. Once you've learned these techniques you can do them on your own at any time throughout your day.

Have a Healthy day,

Laura 

The Connection: Stress and Weight Gain

The Connection:  Stress and Weight Gain

by: Laura McDonald

 How does stress make me gain weight?

Being “stressed out” is more than an emotional state, the body understands stress physically, and one of the ways your body deals with stress is by hoarding and storing calories, primarily in the form of fat around your belly.

This has much to do with the way we’ve evolved over centuries.  In the wild our adrenals* immediately kicked into fight or flight mode when faced with danger...being chased by an animal, for example.  Adrenaline and cortisol are released into the blood stream, giving us that superhuman strength and burst of energy produced from carbohydrates and fats. Our bodies would then stop this extra production once the threat was gone. This adrenal response can be life-saving and necessary to survive a true crisis, but in today’s modern society the problem is that this sequence of events takes place whether the threat is real or perceived.  Women are inundated with stress that doesn’t let up, a low grade constant level without any recovery time.