Stress and Your Body: What You Need To Know

If you’re someone who is concerned with your health, fitness, and body composition, you absolutely must be making sure that you’re keeping your stress levels under control.
Stress is something that can easily creep up on many of us, sometimes without even realizing it. By taking steps to reduce your stress levels throughout the day, you will ensure you stay healthier and looking great.
Let’s go over a few of the main consequences of stress that you need to know about so you can fully see just how important this issue is.
Stress and Your Immune System
The very first issue with high levels of stress is that it will really take its toll on your immune system. If you’re constantly stressed out throughout the course of the day, this is going to wear down on your reserves and you may find that you get ill a lot more often than you used to.
The further you can reduce your overall stress level, the stronger your immune system will be and the better you’ll be able to ward off common illnesses.
Stress and Belly Fat
Second, you also must know about the connection between stress and your belly fat. When we’re highly stressed, our body will release a high amount of the hormone cortisol. What this hormone is going to do is actually encourage muscle tissue to be broken down, as well as promote the accumulation of belly fat.
Since both of these are in direct opposition of your goals, you can obviously see why this would become such a problem. By lowering your stress levels you will have a much easier time keeping your belly fat under control.
Stress and Muscular Recovery
Another big problem with high levels of stress is that it will also compromise your muscle recovery from workout to workout. If you’re not recovering properly after you finish a hard workout session, you’re actually going to enter the next workout feeling weaker than you did before.
Over time this will definitely lead to a decrease in results and you may start looking worse rather than better.
If you want to recover properly after each workout you do, make sure you’re taking the steps right now to decrease your stress as much as you possibly can.
Stress and Appetite
Finally, the last connection between stress and your body that you need to know about is the influence it will have on your appetite. When you’re highly stressed your body is going to perceive a struggle and as a result will try and increase its energy reserves in case a battle has to be fought.
In doing so you’ll notice a large jump in your appetite level, since this is the natural prompt mechanism your body uses to get you to eat.
If you’re following a fat loss diet, raging hunger levels is the last thing you want, but with a high level of stress, that’s precisely what you’re going to get.
So as you can see, stress really is something that must be minimized on your fat loss diet if you’re going to succeed. Start doing whatever you have to do to decrease your stress level today so you will look and feel better tomorrow.