Food Not the Answer to Coping with Stress

Which of the Following Statements about Stress are True?

• Stress is the number one cause of obesity in this country
• Job stress is the number one contributor to high stress living
• People consume excess calories of "comfort foods" because they lead stressful lives

Unfortunately they are all true. Living a high stress lifestyle and taking few corrective measures sets off a destructive chain of events for your mind and body. You get stressed out on the job...you feel the increased strain and pressure both mentally and physically... lacking a healthy set of coping mechanisms you eat, drink or take drugs to ease the pain and help yourself feel better.

In a The Mayo Clinic article entitled Stress: Why You Have it and How it Hurts Your Health, the authors make several important points about your body's response to high stress living. Here are a few. "Modern life is full of pressures, fears and frustration. In other words, it's stressful. Racing against deadlines, sitting in traffic, arguing with your spouse - all these make your body react as if you were facing a physical threat." They go on to say "But if stressful situations pile up one after another, your body has no chance to recover. This long-term activation of the stress-response system can disrupt almost all your body's processes, increasing your risk of obesity, insomnia, digestive complaints, heart disease and depression."

Throw Out Unhealthy Skills
The skills necessary to cope with and your response to a stressful situation are learned at a very young age. If you find yourself regularly feeling stress out, the best solution is to replace the old, unhealthy habits with newer, healthier ones. Even though it is used frequently, food is not a healthy or effective coping skill to reduce stressful situations. Continued regular use of food as a stress reducer just creates its own bigger and more unhealthy problem in the form of excess weight gain and poor body image. Deciding to eliminate food as a coping mechanism is a great strategy, but what do you substitute in its place?

Learning New Stress Reduction Tools
The easiest and most effective way to eliminate high stress living and regain control of your life is to adopt a two part approach to living. Combining just the right amount of active and passive stress reduction activities is an effective way to reduce stress. Here are some suggestions:

• Fun physical activity is the "active" tool. It gives you the most bang for the buck by reducing stress with an immediate dose of "feel good" plus enhanced physical health.   With fun physical activity you literally "burn off" stress and create an increased sense of wellbeing. When you are playing and having fun, this uplifted feeling comes from the release of natural chemicals in the brain called endorphins. The endorphins improve your attitude and help you regain control. Fun physical activity also decreases your appetite and increases your metabolism helping you avoid using food as your "feel good" solution. 10 to 15 minutes a day of walking, running, tennis, or other fun activity works as a great active stress reliever.
  
  
• Relaxation is the very important "passive" tool in reducing high stress living. Relaxing is also the most challenging for most people. You may find it very uncomfortable to just sit and do nothing because doing nothing is considered "a waste of time" by many people. Especially after a stressful day, it can be very therapeutic to sit quietly for 5 minutes and just do nothing. Meditation, which is a valuable stress reduction tool requires learning the art of sitting quietly. Other ways to relax include massage therapy, a quiet walk through the woods, yoga and deep breathing exercises. Mixing just the right amount of active and passive stress reduction activities leaves you feeling good and enjoying life more.