Your mental state could be costing you those health goals that you’ve been working so hard towards. Negative emotions like stress and depression can alter the inflammation levels in your body. And what does inflammation do? Well inflammation is connected to serious health issues such as obesity, insulin resistance, type 2 diabetes, stroke, and heart disease. Your healthy diet that combats all of these issues could be offset by your mental health. So let’s find out how effected you could be from your stress levels.
What are the facts?
In a study published in Molecular Psychiatry, women who ate an unhealthy meal showed signs of inflammation. However, women who had low stress levels and ate a healthy meal did not show these signs, while the women who reported high levels of stress showed signs of inflammation in both meals. These results are loose as there is some ambiguity within the study, but are still in line with other studies that site metabolic changes due to daily stressors.
It’s a snowball effect.
What’s another side effect of stress? Eating junk food. Stressed people like to turn to “comfort food” in times of trouble. In fact, nearly 40 percent of Americans report overeating or eating unhealthy foods as a result of stress. This means that not only is the stress contributing to inflation, but you will also be compounding the effects by eating unhealthy foods.
Stress has been a known trigger.
We’ve always known that stress is a big contributor to serious health consequences, but research is starting to investigate how powerful it is in the face of a healthy diet. You may have thought that you could offset your stress with a more healthy diet, however that is probably not the case anymore.
If you don’t decrease your stress levels, then you could be signing your name to a future that includes: cardiovascular disease, hypertension, depression, anxiety, infertility, memory loss, frequent colds, or digestive problems and more!
Lower your stress levels everyday.
There are multiple methods that you can try to reduce your levels of stress. It’s ultimately up to each individual to find out what works best. Some ideas for you include: exercise, meditation, reading, any type of hobby, or even spending time with friends or your pets. You can also try eating anti-stress foods such as leafy vegetables, fermented foods, or wild-caught Alaskan salmon. When you find the best methods that work for you, stick to it and make a plan to ensure your stress levels decrease.
Your health is one of the most important things that you can invest in. You can ignore your stress levels in sacrifice of work, but you may not have a future that can even support everything you’ve worked up to. So take care of yourself now, if not there may not be a good tomorrow despite all of your efforts.
For more information on the effects of stress and how you can combat it, look here.