Stress Management
We all deal with stress in different ways. Some eat more and put weight on, while others skip meals and lose their appetite. Feeling tired, moody, emotional and anxious are all symptoms of stress.
Which of these sounds familiar to you?
- coffee throughout the day to keep you perky
- reaching for high fat/sugar/salt foods to calm you down
- mindless snacking on junk food
- skipping meals altogether
- eating fast food because you don't have time to cook
- going on crash diets to lose weight
- not drinking enough water during the day
Reacting to stress in this way will create more stress for your body. The levels of the stress hormones adrenaline and cortisol will rise in the body. This will affect the body in many ways, including a reduced production of thyroid and sex hormones. A sluggish thyroid will affect every system in the body, leading to probable weight gain and heightened symptoms around menstruation for women and low testosterone production for men.
The constant release of stress hormones by your body primes you to store fat on the inside of your abdominal wall. This leaves you at high risk for developing conditions such as obesity, heart disease, diabetes and metabolic syndrome.
A Definition of Stress
STRESS - a condition where a person responds to changes in the normal balanced state
STRESSOR - an event or stimulus that causes an individual to experience stress
COPING - a problem solving process that a person uses to manage the stresses or events with which he/she is presented
ADAPTATION - the process by which the human system modifies itself to conform to the environment. It is a change that results from a response to stress.
Stress Management Treatment
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I will help you construct a healthy eating plan to bring your body back to optimal nutrition
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I will show you how to reduce the effect of adrenal stress
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I will explain how good blood sugar management will help to alleviate your symptoms of stress
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We will explore which events and situations in your life cause you to feel stressed, and I will help you shift your thinking and strategy to deal with them
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I will help you find ways to rebalance your life and reduce the number of stressors in your life
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I will teach you new coping strategies to deal with unavoidable stress
