You can do everything correctly. All of your meals consist of whole minimally processed foods. You hit the gym 5 days a week with a nice mixture of cardio and strength training. You really push yourself on all of your work outs and even utilize progressive overload to ensure you are getting stronger. But, your progress has stalled, your weight is no longer going down, you can’t really push the same weight as could just a week ago, you are feeling more lethargic and moody than before. These are the most frustrating experiences that someone can go through that is serious about their health. There is nothing worse than all your efforts producing zero results. So what is the problem?

We often focus a lot on the list of things we are supposed to do to be healthy. We think that just because we are doing everything on this list that we should be the epitome of healthy. However, we often forget what we feel on the inside. Stress plays such a huge role in our health and it can take many different forms. For example, we can put so much emphasis on our health that it stresses us out. Stress can cause unnecessary inflammation, make our hormones go crazy, and cause a myriad of other issues that typically afflict older adults. We need to lower our stress levels by focusing on our happiness and loving ourselves and our body. Shifting our focus allows us to be more at peace with ourselves which makes us healthier without even realizing it.

You might be stressed and not realize it

Stress has become a normal part of our life in some way, shape, or form. The drive we often have to get ahead causes us to stretch ourselves incredibly thin. I always find myself in this type of situation. Even as I write this article it is almost eleven o’clock at night, I work part-time as a valet, part-time as a personal trainer at a YMCA, part-time as a Realtor, and I have 2 kids at home under 5 years old. I’m doing everything I can to get ahead and create a future or legacy to leave behind for my kids. We find this drive in ourselves and keep moving forward without realizing the stress that we put on ourselves.

Our minds are crazy and it always finds a way to drive us crazy. We have thousands of thoughts a day that is normally a mixture of both positive and negative thoughts. However, we have a tendency to focus on the negative. The negative is what gets all the attention these days, and when it bombards us from every angle we can’t help but think about it. There are events from our past that sometimes pop back into our thoughts for no reason as well. We can suddenly miss loved ones that we lost earlier in life. We start to focus on all the negative thoughts and how we wish we could change things, regrets that we may have, or events that we could have done differently. There are so many ways that we stress ourselves out and we don’t even realize that we’re doing it. So what does this stress do to our body?

The Effects of Stress

When we are constantly under a state of stress our bodies will respond accordingly. The most common response to stress is the fight or flight system. Our hormones are one of the biggest variables that messes with our body. Hormones are the signaling cells of our body. They tell us whether we are hungry, full, absorb or release water, and whether or not we need to uptake glucose into our system for energy. You can see that if our hormones aren’t working properly then our bodies won’t work efficiently.

The effects of stress is something that is sometimes so common that we can’t recognize it as symptoms of being under stress. You see how stress effects the hormones of our body so it’s only natural that we will have symptoms. Decreased sleep quality is probably one of the most important symptoms of stress. Bad sleep really sets us up for failure for the rest of the day. The obvious effect of a bad night of sleep is feeling tired. Our inhibitions go out the window when we feel tired. Every drive that we have to make conscious decisions is put on the back burner and we lose sight of our priorities. We start turning to food for comfort (normally not healthy options) and doing less activity to preserve our strength. Instead of exercising or doing chores around the house we decide to binge watch something off Netflix instead. You can see how this can suddenly spiral out of control. It’s unfortunate that the symptoms of stress can cause more stress.

Stress also decreases your immune system, headaches, gastrointestinal distress, lethargy, depression, aches and pains. These are just some of the symptoms that one can experience when you are constantly under stress. Now I’m not saying that there aren’t other factors that can contribute too many of these symptoms. If you have any concerns then absolutely go see a doctor, but don’t forget to look at yourself and determine if maybe your stress levels have been too high for too long.

How to lower Stress

We need to first find the main source of your stress. Without finding the problem it will be difficult to come up with a solution. This is where we need to dig deeper and heighten our self-awareness to really find the issue. For example, you start really noticing the normal symptoms of stress and try to take a look at your day to day life. Nothing appears to be out of the ordinary. You have a similar routine every single day. All your close relationships give you joy, no one in your immediate family is sick, and you are retired so there is no work to stress you out. What can be the problem? You have had a stubborn 10 pounds that you desperately want to see gone. The result has been an extremely strict diet, and you go to the gym a full 7 days a week. Your obsession with losing this 10 pounds has created dysfunctional “healthy” habits. This obsession has now created an immense amount of stress on your mind and body.

Meditation

Meditation and breathing are going to be your best friends in terms of immediately removing some stress. The breathe work that you practice helps to slow down the heart rate, relax your body, and clear your mind. Meditation can sound a little ridiculous at times. Honestly, I never imagined myself such a big fan of this exercise. I was not a believer until I opened myself up to try new things.

I am not proficient enough at meditation to do it on my own. I need guidance and instructions from an app to follow and help put me into the zone. But when I do meditation I always feel a sense of relief when the session is over. My body always feels lighter, my brain is clearer, and the relaxation helps me sleep better at night.

You can find guided meditations just about anywhere even on Youtube. There are some apps that charge a monthly fee like Calm. Personally I like Deep Meditate, because the free version has good sleep meditations, and the paid version isn’t nearly as expensive as the other apps.

Love yourself to change your perspective

I can’t say it enough, your mind is powerful. When we change our mindset or our perspective we change the way that we view everything. It’s a difficult concept to explain so let us just go over a couple examples. “I have to lose weight to look better” compared to “I only have one body so I want to take care of it”. “I ate like shit so now I have to punish myself by going to the gym” compared to “I had an amazing time with my family”. This second example shows how your focus and your priorities can create stress. If you attend a family event and you feel that you are getting fat by just looking at the food or menu then you need to change your mindset. Unless you are training and getting ready to compete in a bodybuilding or physique competition then you have no reason to think like this.  Food and exercise should not cause you stress. The fact that you want to work out and eat healthy is to take care of your body. You understand that if you take care of your body then you will live a longer life free of medications and walkers. You can live your life fully independent so that you can do what you want to do without limitations.

The way you can do this is by loving yourself. The simple fact is that we will never be perfect in our own eyes. We will always find something that we feel that we need to work on. The more that you hate your belly fat, the wings off your arms, or your double chin the more you feel the need to punish yourself to look better. So we need to switch our mindset so that we are happy with our body and accept exercise as a tool that has many health benefits. The less that we focus on punishing ourselves to look better, and switch to taking care of ourselves for longevity we reduce the stress of “I HAVE TO GET TO THE GYM TODAY”. Life always throws us curveballs and we can’t always plan each day perfectly. With the wrong mindset you will give up your workout and your diet if the day doesn’t go as planned. With a healthy mindset you will still get a quick walk and maybe some light dumbbell work at home for 30 minutes, and still make healthier decisions for dinner.

Actively Reduce Stress

Stress is a silent killer. By taking the steps to reduce your stress levels you become much healthier without working out. Depending on how much and the type of stress that afflicts you will determine how actively you need to combat that stress. Some of us might need to utilize these techniques multiple times a day, and some might need to use them only when we feel we need to. Either way we need to become more self-aware of how we feel and our perspectives regularly. The more self-aware we are of our thoughts the more we can control what stresses us out and take actions to prevent or lower the stress.