Here's How Your Stress Levels And Anxiety Can Prevent Weight Loss: Tips To Overcome Stress

Chronic stress and anxiety can do much more harm to the body than you can think of. A little stress once in a while, or feeling worried about a few episodes is not going to be that harmful. But taking constant stress can be detrimental to your health, believes health coach Luke Coutinho. He went live on Facebook to share how chronic stress and anxiety can make you gain weight, immensely sick and drains all of your energy. This often comes in your way of weight loss as well. Chronic stress and anxiety is characterized experiencing these feelings right from the time you wake up, till the time you go to bed at night. This stress and anxiety can not only interfere with your weight loss, but also delay the process of healing from diseases. Chronic stress and anxiety can make you more prone to falling sick. 
 

Accept that stress and anxiety is affecting your life

Luke says that it is important to accept that constant stress and anxiety is hampering your quality of life tremendously. It is important to give utmost importance to the amount of stress and anxiety that you experience on a daily basis. It is only after we accept that we experience stress and anxiety that we begin to work towards it.

Stress and anxiety hampers production of pregnenolone

Pregnenolone is the master hormone which makes estrogen, testosterone, cortisol, DHEA and progesterone. Any disturbance or imbalance in production of pregnenolone would thus lead to an imbalance of estrogen, testosterone, cortisol, DHEA and progesterone as well.

Most health conditions have a direct link with the production of hormones in the body. Pregnenolone is made from cholesterol. Good cholesterol in the body is important for it being converted in to pregnenolone.

Chronic stress increases production of cortisol. Pregnenolone makes cortisol. Pregnenolone stealing is referred to a process wherein excess cortisol production uses up pregnenolone levels in the body. This results in low estrogen - which can lead to low sex drive, vaginal dryness, joint pain, skin problems and mild depression. It also leads to low production of testosterone - which is required to maintain lean muscle mass, and thus hampers your weight loss regime.

Pregnenolone stealing will also lead to low production of DHEA - which can thyroid problems and affects your metabolism. Furthermore, progesterone levels drop on pregnenolone stealing. Low levels of progesterone can worse symptoms of Premenstrual syndrome (PMS), irregular menstrual cycles, heavy flow during periods and bloating.

Low levels of progesterone increases levels of estrogen, which is known to cause diseases like endometrial lining, cervical issues, ovarian issues, cysts and fibroids, polyps in ovaries, tumors in breast, breast cancer, etc. A vicious cycle of all these conditions gets created because of constant stress and anxiety.

Also read: Job Stress May Increase The Risk Of Premature Death In Men

The solution

1. Accepting that stress and anxiety is destroying our health.

2. Looking at these problems the symptomatic level is not going to be helpful. It is important to think beyond symptoms and get to the root cause of problems. Bring a few changes in your lifestyle and evaluate the amount of stress and anxiety you take on a daily basis.

3. Coping mechanisms will help in dealing with stress, only temporarily. People indulge into shopping, binge drinking, socializing, binge eating, over exercising or over sleeping. These coping mechanisms will only temporarily reduce stress, but will not help you get rid of it.

4. Meditate, do breathing exercises and start spending time with yourself. You have full control over how much stress and anxiety you experience. You can take control of your emotions and this will help towards progression and self-healing. Learn to let go of your problems.