‘S-T-R-E-S-S-E-D’ ?

With the Holiday Season just around the corner, it may be the perfect opportunity for you to begin looking at your scheduled events over the next little while.  How are you going to make sure you stay on top of healthy eating, activity, Holiday Party #1, shopping, family time, gift exchanges, Holiday Party #2, baking, gift-wraping, Holiday Party #3 (not to mention, 4, 5 and 6), and most importantly, “ME TIME”?  We all deal with stress in a different way.  We also all encounter stress in a number of ways, whether the stress is related to paying bills, managing a relationship, or the daily tasks at work or school we need to complete within a due date.

Studies indicate three different responses our bodies undergo when stress is initiated:

Mobilizing energy can occur from both good and bad forms of stress, causing your heart rate to increase, as your body increases its release of adrenaline.  Adrenaline, also known as epinephrine, is a hormone made by our adrenal glands in the body.  Adrenaline can give us that “rush”, causing our heart rates to rise, or “calmness”, relaxing some types of smooth muscles in our bodies.

Consuming energy stores brings on the nervous or anxious feeling we encounter if our energy “mobilizes” for too long, resulting in our bodies to release stored sugars and fats.  This draining, unfavourable state can potentially lead to a decrease in immunity, causing one to become ill (flu, cold, fever).

Draining energy stores plays the most hazardous impact on our health, and results over time if a stressful problem is not resolved.  As our energy stores continue to drain, and we do not bring “positivity” into our lives (in the form of good food, relaxation, meditation, “ME” time), our bodies will become more susceptible to infection, leading to greater health issues.

Understanding where your stress comes from is important to acknowledge.  This will allow you to better plan and prioritize in different ways, in hopes of avoiding stress.  Over the next month and a half, things will “pop up” into your calendar.  Some of them may be in your control, but others may not.  One thing we know we can control is our nutrition.  We all know that the most important thing for us to do each day is start our day with a healthy breakfast, and carry on from here, choosing the right snacks to fuel us through our day.  There may be a day or 2 when we are unable to make our trip to the gym.  There may be a day or two (ok, realistically 4 or 5), when we are going to try our colleagues shortbread or gingerbread cookies!  BUT if you can plan your nutrition each day, starting with a healthy breakfast, preparing a healthy lunch-on-the-go, and choosing great nutrient-dense snacks to keep you going through the day, you will feel better about yourself overall.  If we pay attention to our nutrition 80% of the time, we should not feel guilty about the occasional indulgence.  Most importantly, healthy eating helps to strengthen your bodies’ immune system, helping to ward off infection.

As a side note, as often as you can (once a day if possible), give yourself “ME” Time.  It is so important to give our brains the ability to relax and settle down before we head into a night’s sleep.  Reading a book or magazine, meditating, having a conversation with a good friend, spouse or sibling, or simply sitting down with a warm cup of tea are great strategies to incorporate into our daily hectic lives to help us remember and realize the important things in life, and that life is too short to forget to breathe in calmness!

http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/index-eng.php