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April 8, 2022 By Kajree Korade 2 Comments

Get To Know Your Emotional Hunger

Emotional hungerHave you ever made room for dessert even though you’re already full? Out of nowhere in the middle of doing something important, you start feeling hungry? Do you feel hungry before any important meeting? If yes, then you should check your emotional status as this might be due to emotional hunger!

What Is Emotional Hunger or Emotional Eating? 

Emotional hunger or emotional eating is the practice of consuming large quantities of food, usually ‘comfort’ or junk foods in response to feelings instead of hunger. Emotional eating is a maladaptive coping strategy used by many of us to deal with negative emotions. Emotional eating can be caused by many reasons which include stress, tension, depression, boredom, and sometimes due to excitement.

Under high stress, your biological age can be 30 times higher than your calendar age. Modern life is full of frustrations, deadlines, and demands. For many people, stress has become a way of life. When stress becomes overwhelming, it can damage your health, mood, relationships and quality of life.

Stress also affects our food preferences. Emotional distress increases the intake of food high in fat and sugar, and you sleep excessively under stress. Also, some people consume alcohol and all this leads to gaining weight around your abdomen and unfortunately, abdominal obesity puts you at risk for several lifestyle diseases such as diabetes, hypertension and heart related issues.

In stress, adrenal glands release a hormone called cortisol, which makes you crave for carbohydrates, sugar and fatty foods. Food is soothing due to the chemical changes it creates in your body. Chocolate is an excellent example. When junk food is calling your name, it’s possible to put boundaries on your emotional eating habits. Ready to break free from stress eating?

The Solution To Beat Emotional Eating 

  • When you’re tempted to snack for emotional reasons, try moving instead. Just walk for 10 minutes.
  • Try a quick breathing exercise: Slowing down your breathing can trick your body into thinking you are going to sleep, which in turn relaxes your body. Close your eyes and slowly breathe in and out.
  • Sip black tea: A study in the journal of Psychopharmacology found that subjects who consumed black tea, experienced a 47% drop in their cortisol levels.
  • Try self-massage: It can be as simple as sitting down, rubbing your feet, one at a time, over the top of the heel, until you feel relaxed.

You’ll eat better and healthier foods if you don’t let your emotions guide your food choices! So be mindful about your choices. For more on stress, you can check Healthy Reads. To help you cope with emotional hunger or help you manage stress better, reach out to a GOQii Coach by subscribing for personalized health coaching here: https://goqiiapp.page.link/bsr

Do leave your thoughts in the comments below!

#BeTheForce

April 6, 2022 By GOQii Leave a Comment

How to Break the Cycle of Adrenal Stress?

adrenal stressWhen it comes to stress, we often talk about work pressure, personal issues or chronic disease. But there are other elements that influence stress as well. For instance, in your experience, have there been times when you constantly feel tired but can’t explain why? You feel overwhelmed by situations you could handle easily? Do you find yourself drained of energy you may have enjoyed once upon a time? Have you struggled to get out of bed in the mornings even after sleeping for long hours? If this sounds familiar, there is a chance that you are suffering from something called ‘Adrenal stress” or “Adrenal Fatigue”. Simply put, your adrenal glands may be under-performing. All that chronic stress you have been masterfully coping with has finally caught up! Your adrenal glands are responsible for supporting you and sustaining a level of vigilance. Adrenal Stress happens when they show signs of strain.

Is this a death sentence? No! But it is a sign of imbalance. Chronic stress is a part of life. But if left unchecked and unassuaged for too long, it can lead to hormonal depletion, exhaustion, and adrenal fatigue.

Adrenal Glands and Stress

To understand the above, we need to understand how health and metabolism are affected by hormones. One of the glands that play an important role in metabolism is the adrenal cortex. The adrenal cortex gland releases hormones which are vital for biological function. To be more specific, there are two parts which release hormones – Adrenal cortex and adrenal medulla. Adrenal cortex hormones regulate sodium levels, salt, and balances blood volume which directly affects blood pressure.

Another hormone (Cortisol) regulates metabolic rate of carbohydrate, proteins, and fat. It also regulates immune responses. It is responsible for suppressing inflammatory reactions. So it is a potent anti-inflammatory hormone. Finally, the adrenal glands are best known for secreting the hormone adrenaline, which rapidly prepares your body for action in a stressful situation.

When you are stressed, the hormones of the adrenal medulla are released after the sympathetic nervous system is stimulated. The adrenal medulla helps you deal with physical and emotional stress. You want these responses to happen. From an evolutionary perspective, it’s part of why we have survived for so long as a species.

If you encounter a stressful situation, you want your body to fire up stress hormones to feed you energy and adrenaline. You WANT to be able to run from a potential threat or beat it back. The problems come in when you have that relatively high level of stress but then don’t actually end up using that extra energy in the form of movement.

Adrenal Stress, Belly Fat and Weight Gain

During times of stress, there are actual physiological changes that happen in our body. Most of them are helpful for our survival (such as in the situation described above). But, if we continue to experience stress and we don’t actually end up running from our perceived threat or beating it back, those stress hormones increase our blood sugar (in an effort to give us energy) which then requires insulin to bring it back down.

In the short term, it feels like an energy crash. In the long term, it can lead to weight gain. When the adrenal glands are overworked, the body prepares itself by storing fat. We crave food, indulge in binge eating and we gain weight.

Adrenal imbalance causes a number of issues, including the abdominal fat deposition. When we have long term stress, both insulin and cortisol remain elevated in the blood, and the extra glucose is stored as fat–mostly in the abdomen. Studies suggest that fat cells have receptors for the stress hormone cortisol, and there are more of these receptors in our abdominal fat cells than anywhere else in our bodies. Moreover, belly fat is an active tissue, which responds to stress by depositing more fat. This cycle can not end until a step is taken to tackle the root cause of stress.

How to Break The Cycle

  • Go Easy On Food: Eating small and frequent meals helps cortisol balance the blood sugar and take off some stress. Cortisol counterbalances the action of insulin. Under stress when cortisol levels are elevated, it results in a perpetual need for insulin. Eventually, our bodies can develop resistance to it. Hence the name “insulin resistance”. In other words, our body can become less sensitive to insulin, forcing it to produce more for the same effect. If it stops to work altogether, that keeps glucose levels high in the blood.
  • Time to Eat: Our body has circadian rhythms which work closely with cortisol, which is highest in the morning and gradually declines throughout the day. When we eat we elevate our cortisol, so it is best to start heavy with breakfast and go light post evening. Heavy evening meals are the prime reason for an expanding waistline. A Higher waistline is associated with metabolic and lifestyle disease.
  • Unplug: Give time to yourself. Unplug means a disconnect from cell phones, laptops, work, any digital devices. Take out sometime which you spend only with your thoughts. It makes you realize your priorities and your goals better.
  • Sleep: As this gland also controls our circadian rhythms, it is responsible for our sleep cycle. Good 8 hours of sleep will make you take fewer calories through the day. Lack of sleep also makes one drowsy and ends in low energy levels creating stress. Maintain an 8 hour sleeping time for the body to regenerate.
  • Workout: Exercise is the best remedy to reduce stress by releasing pent up energy. As stated earlier, the whole reason our bodies respond to stress by producing more cortisol is so that we have energy available to spend. Having more energy isn’t a bad thing if you actually use it.

The best way to reduce stress levels is to have fun! Having fun and laughing should become one of your top priorities in life! It has multiple benefits, one of them being stress relief. Looking at the day ahead, ask yourself what is that one thing you can do for your body to support your adrenal glands? Then ask yourself how you can set aside some time for fun!

Want to know more about managing stress? Check out Healthy Reads or get expert advice directly from a GOQii Coach by subscribing for personalized health coaching here: https://goqiiapp.page.link/bsr

#BeTheForce

February 9, 2022 By Shagufta Raza 4 Comments

This Is How Stress Affects Your Waistline

stress affects your waistline

Have you been regular with your daily exercises and have maintained a healthy diet but you’re still not able to get rid of those extra inches on your waistline? Much to your surprise, the major reason for this may be stress! Yes! Stress! This can be the criminal putting those extra notches on your belt. Well you would say who doesn’t have stress these days? And you are right! Feeling stressed is an increasingly common problem. As long as the graph is small in height, it is fine. But how is it that stress affects your waistline? Let’s find out! 

What happens when we feel Stressed?

When we are stressed, our body goes into “fight or flight mode”. Stress hormones, including adrenaline and cortisol, are released to help us respond to the ‘danger’, our heart pumps faster, muscles contract and our senses become sharper. Too much stress can constantly have our body in flight or flight mode and that can be a problem.

In limited doses, stress helps us stay focused, energetic and alert. But high levels of stress can lead to feeling anxious, depressed and result in many medical concerns like cardiovascular issues, damage to the immune system, Type 2 Diabetes and cause weight issues as well, to name a few.

How Stress Affects Your Waistline 

Glycogen is the energy stored in our liver, primarily sourced from carbohydrates. When cortisol is released, glycogen is released to give us extra energy to ‘get away from stressful situations’.

We have glycogen receptors in our body and they are increased when we face high levels of stress, especially the ones located around our abdomen to protect our vital organs. Glycogen is being released to provide energy, but if not utilized, it is stored around our waistline, causing the inches to rise.

When stress levels increase, so does the production of the stress hormone, cortisol.

And you unknowingly start facing the following:

  • Making bad food choices and increasing the fat cells in the body.
  • The stress hormone cortisol can lead to sugar levels dropping down and nakes you less sensitive to insulin.
  • Increases the appetite which gives you those hunger pangs. Which means you are more likely to reach out to burgers or pizzas which are calorie dense junk foods that quickly satisfy your hunger and you feel good. Hence, stress can cause you to eat more than required.
  • Constant high levels of stress can cause increased levels of fat cells and the rate at which the body stores fat also goes up which leads to weight gain.

How Can You Control It? 

  • Indulge in Exercise: It’s the best way to relax your body and mind
  • Take a few deep breaths: It can take the pressure off you right away
  • Balanced meal: Consult your GOQii Coach to help you make right food choices. Never skip a meal as it can actually worsen the situation 
  • Say no to caffeine: since it increases the production of the stress hormone.
  • Drink plenty of water: Dehydration can cause increased production of cortisol 
  • Avoid processed foods: They can affect your gut microbiome, stress response and energy levels
  • Sleep well: Sleep deprivation and chronic stress can play havoc with the production of the stress hormone.

We hope this article on how stress affects your waistline helps you! Do leave your thoughts in the comments below. For more on stress management, check out Healthy Reads or ask a GOQii Coach by subscribing for personalized health coaching here: https://goqiiapp.page.link/bsr

#BeTheForce 

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