You’re stressed. And it sucks.
Besides being in the middle of a pandemic, there’s the whole work-life balance thing you’re trying to figure out.
It’s exhausting, and some days too much. I get it.
To make matters worse, you’ve started experiencing some changes in your mood and sleep. You might even be noticing new symptoms showing up that you haven’t had before. All around, you’re feeling pretty miserable.
Could it be your body reacting to stress? Absolutely.
Here’s how your stress might be impacting your health and making your symptoms worse:
1. Increased Cravings
Have you ever met someone stressed out and craving a salad? Of course not. Because during stress your body craves high-fat and high-sugar foods for a quick endorphin-boost. This is totally normal.
But eating a high-carbohydrate diet can cause a bacterial imbalance. These bacteria feed off carbohydrates. So your cravings increase as the bacteria multiply.
Nutrition and lifestyle changes are both important for balancing the bacteria and managing your cravings. If you don’t deal with it, it could eventually lead to an overgrowth of bacteria or fungus (like SIBO and candida).
2. Regular Mood Swings
When your mood swings aren’t connected to “that time of month”, then you know something’s up. And your mood is directly related to your gut health.
Your gut and brain connect through the vagus nerve and communicate through bacteria. When there’s an imbalance, messages can get mixed up. One reason is because gut bacteria produce hundreds of neurotransmitters communicating to many areas of your body, including your brain.
For example, gut bacteria produce 95% of your body’s serotonin, which impacts your mood.
Stress might be the root cause of your mood swings. But, discovering what imbalance stress caused (you know, the one causing those mood swings!) is equally as important. Especially if you want to stabilize your mood. Nutrition and lifestyle are key factors here, but supplements can play an important rule too.
3. Digestive issues
Bloating, gas, constipation, diarrhea, heartburn, acid reflux, food sensitivities, acne, inflammation … These are all digestive issues that can be traced back to gut health.
Your stomach acid is responsible for the proper break down of your food. This helps with digestion and absorption of nutrients. During stress, your stomach acid lowers and digestion slows down. This conserves energy to save it for the perceived emergency. It’s a part of your fight-or-flight response – the responsibility of your sympathetic nervous system.
Because of this, your body is not able to properly break down your food. This means poor digestion and absorption. It shows up through many different kinds of symptoms. The danger is that it quickly leads to malnourishment and a damaged gut lining.
This is one of the first areas I investigate with my clients because it’s that important for your overall health.
4. Poor Sleep Patterns
Do you know what stress does to your hormones? It’s not pretty. You’ve probably heard about cortisol. But your hormones are so closely connected that stress can impact your cortisol plus progesterone, estrogen, insulin, etc.
This imbalance can cause changes to your sleep. You may find yourself “wired but tired”. That feeling of pure exhaustion but as soon as your head hits the pillow your brain won’t stop. Frustrating, right?
Or you may find yourself waking up feeling like you pulled an all-nighter. You struggle to function all day and crash even more in the afternoon. Making several cups of coffee daily the norm, right? This is stress impacting your sleep.
I know sleep can feel impossible to control, but believe me it’s not. A good sleep is important for managing your stress and managing your stress improves your sleep. It’s a hamster wheel. Address your stress and your hormones, and your sleep will follow.
Managing your stress sounds like a tall order, and it’s a highly annoying recommendation, I know. But it’s important nonetheless.
Addressing your symptoms really comes down to understanding the affect of stress on your health, and being ready to make the changes that will get you feeling better.
Stress impacts your long-term health so much that it’s worth buckling down because the benefits far outweigh the work you’ll have to do now.
If you’d like more tips on how to start reducing your symptoms, you need to download my free Starter Guide to Healing Your Gut. It’s full of my best tips for improving your gut health!