Why Stress Is Making You Bloated, Sick & Acne-Prone

“My skin is breaking out..again.And it’s not even that time of the month.”

“I’m eating healthy, but I’m not losing weight.”

“I’m not eating anything, and I’m gaining weight”

“Home sick from work. How do I catch every flu bug?”

“I eat one bite of dinner and puff up like a pastry–no tight jeans for me, thanks.”

“I slept ten hours last night, and I’m exhausted. Time for another coffee.”

Have you ever felt like this? Have you ever felt that your weight, your skin, your body, your energy level–heck, you’re everything–is out of your control? Maybe you think this is just the way your body is designed: to have an oversensitive stomach, to feel sleepy all the time, to feel easily irritated or overwhelmed, or to feel ashamed or betrayed by your body.

But what if it’s not? Your body’s natural design, I mean. What if you knew that these might actually be symptoms of your body telling you enough is enough. What if your body is actually–lovingly–trying to cope with something that it is not designed to handle (but in this modern world, has no choice but)?

I’m talking about stress.

More and more research is linking stress to a whole onslaught of health problems. In fact, almost every health issue can be brought back to the plague of our modern society: chronic stress.

You may already know that a little bit of stress is healthy for the body: it’s a good self-motivator. But high levels of stress–from your job, your financial situation, your social media, your family situation, toxins in the environment and in your home–can actually do some serious harm to the body.

How?

• It suppresses your immune system. Stress reduces T lymphocytes (white blood cells) which means your body has a harder time fending off illness.
• It weakens your adrenal glands. Your adrenals make the hormone adrenaline, and when you’re under stress (and your body doesn’t care if you’re running for you life or trying to make a deadline) it’s still sending out this hormone, again and again and again. This causes exhaustion, which can lead to fatigue, insomnia and even PMS.
• It weakens your digestive system. When you eat while stressed, all the blood in your body goes to increase blood flow in the brain, get the heart pumping and warm up your muscles. This means there’s no more blood flow to the digestive tract, so even if you’re eating the healthiest dinner, your body isn’t digesting it, so you aren’t reaping any of the benefits.
• It impairs your hormone function. Remember, adrenaline and noradrenaline are hormones. If your adrenal glands are overworked, it’s affecting the rest of your endocrine system–the system responsible for hormonal secretion. This can mean sexual dysfunction, thyroid trouble, fertility trouble, trouble sleeping, acne. All caused from stress.
• It raises your blood sugar. Adrenaline stimulates the liver to release glucose to increase your energy. This can cause a rise and fall in your blood sugar, which causes cravings for stimulants like coffee or sugary foods. The result? More weight gain, acne and fatigue.

If all of this is scaring you–and stressing you out more–don’t fret! This is actually very empowering news.

Knowing that stress is making you feel like this, means that you know you can make it stop. You can manage your stress, you can practice mindfulness.

In the coming weeks we’re going to be looking at different tools to help manage stress: from teas, to foods, to habits, we’ll be talking about the best way to live a stress-free (and pain free!) life. We’ll talk about how to lose weight, how to improve digestion, how to prevent breakouts. All that jazz.

So make sure you stay tuned!

Have a fabulous monday, and take this week to really think about what causes stress in your life.

-Tisha