What Happens When Cortisol Levels Increase?
Your shoulders are tight. You take in a long breath, then blow out slowly. Ugh! That did not help.
Your head is so foggy you cannot think straight and you have too much you need to accomplish for this to be happening right now.
The feeling is very familiar. Stress is taking over. The question is, what do you do to feel better?
Nutritional biochemist Shawn Talbott, PhD, author of The Cortisol Connection says, “When cortisol spikes, it tells the body to eat something with a lot of calories.”
Images of potato chips, chocolate, a donut, a cinnamon roll, and the like rush through your thoughts.
That, my friend, is the stress hormone cortisol taking over.
Take Steps to Minimize Stress
Using myself as an example, in the process of managing work and promoting my book, Diet-Free Me: How to Stop Struggling, Lose Weight, and Embrace a Healthy Lifestyle, cortisol started kicking my butt.
I felt myself starting to get sick, my shoulders hurt like crazy, and potato chips were screaming my name.
Like I mention in my book, we succeed when we listen to our bodies. My first course of action was to get some rest.
Usually on Saturdays I pack my day with all the tasks I cannot do because I am working during the week. After posting Listen to Your Body When It’s Talking to You, I took my own advice and took a break rather than fill my weekend with work.
The next course of action was to do what I always do when I need to know how to do something. I took to Google to know what to eat when stressed.
My goal was to fight cortisol so that it would not take over my life. Here I share with you what I found.
What to Eat to Fight Stress
Potato chips, (milk) chocolate, and a danish sound so good in the moment. They taste good too – for a brief moment. What they do to your body is not pleasant. I was able to find reused lists of foods to help fight stress and save your waistline.
Health Ambition has a comprehensive blog post where they share some of the best stress reducing foods. Prevention has a post from 2014 called 13 Foods That Fight Stress. Recipeland borrowed that information in their article “13 Alternatives to Comfort Foods when Feeling Stressed.”
Images are helpful, therefore I created an image of the 13 recommended foods to fight stress.
What to Do with Your Stress Fighters List
Having this list of foods is a start. What you need to do now is use it.
Keep portable items from the list handy.
Have asparagus at dinner or lunch.
Add a quarter, or half, of an avocado to a smoothie or smear it on 100% whole wheat toast.
Replace your daily coffee with green or chamomile tea.
Oysters, apparently are an aphrodisiac. Plan a romantic dinner with your boo with oysters as the star.
These suggestions are how you avoid seeking out those not any good for you comfort foods and fight stress.
Start the Discussion: What healthy methods do you use to fight stress? Share in the post comments, on Facebook or Twitter.