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I do love a good puzzle and find it rewarding when all the pieces come together to form the bigger picture. In my coaching studies with the Institute for the Psychology of Eating, we learned that chronic low levels of stress can alter our hormonal balance and shift the body into fat storage mode; this can also make any attempts at healthy weight loss, almost impossible. While this is counter intuitive to the common no pain, no gain conditioning, it is a cornerstone practice that IPE founder, Marc David, writes about in “The Slow Down Diet“. When the body’s fight or flight hormones are chronically activated they interfere with optimal digestion and promote fat storage as a means to enable survival. Trouble is that the nervous system can’t tell the difference between meeting a deadline and running away from a hungry tiger.

Stress has been normalized and almost glamorized in our society. We live in a world where productivity and multi-tasking are applauded. We give lip service to relaxation and down time as self care, while concurrently our inner soundtracks are playing “you should be doing more of something else”. In those moments, honest attempts at relaxation and have been hijacked by a stress response.

We can polarize it and give stress a positive or negative connotation; positive stress motivates and fuels excitement whereas negative stress is draining and contributes to mental unrest. By reframing stress as a motivator, we can avoid the pitfall of hopelessness, but it does not change the physiological response of heightened and prolonged cortisol levels. Heightened cortisol, over time, can negatively impact our immune system, mental health, memory, waistline, digestion, heart health and sleep patterns. There also comes a point where the constant fight or flight can contribute to adrenal burn out.

In 2005, I began a series of life transitions that included divorce, empty nest, menopause, moving to a new community, going back to school after a 30 year hiatus and taking on a new career. During this time, stress was seen in the positive light as it motivated me toward a new life but the physiological impact has added up. Thirteen years and 30 pounds later, it is only now that I can see that when my role as a wife and mother became redundant, my ability to survive and provide for myself went into a survival mode.

Over the past decade, I have earned a degree in Social Work, bought a new home, established a new career and honed a more compassionate lens for which I see myself in the world. It is time now for the real work; time to stop, smell the roses and practice deep relaxation. For myself, doing nothing is one of the hardest things I can do. I know I am not alone so for those of us who are “doers”, I will leave you with the following to ponder:

1. We cannot change that which we have no control over or “what does not kill you will make you stronger”. Focus on the details you can change. If you just lost your job – do you need an updated resume or a whole new career? Would it help to talk to a career counsellor? Is there a difficult person in your life? While we cannot change the behaviour of other people, we can change how we engage with them.
2. Listen to your body. When my anxiety hit an all time high, I recognized that tuning out all media helped. Throwing worry about world economics on top of my personal “financial reorganization” only added more stress to an already maxed out situation. Sometimes you have to be an ostrich for a while and bury your head in the sand until the tide turns in your favour.
3. Self care. I have to admit that after a lifetime of taking care of other people, focussing on my own needs seems kind of selfish. This has been one of the hardest pieces to adopt. My optimal self care includes healthy nutrition, daily exercise, meditation, going for massage and being mindful of not self medicating with junk food, drugs or alcohol when stressors ramp up. Self care is still a work in progress.
4. Find good counsel. When locked down, paralyzed and unable to move forward it is helpful to talk to a trusted friend or enlist the help of a professional counsellor, therapist or coach. Be open to seeing from a new perspective and know that over time, with practice, new strategies will become the norm.

I am 4 pounds down since January 2nd, and my digestion continues to improve as I focus on rebalancing my gut microbiome. If slow and steady wins the race, then I have to gear up for a marathon. This is not a short term commitment, it is a life life long riddle. Why do some of us get stuck in weight gain patterns while others can eat their way through a buffet without anything sticking? Could relaxation be a missing nutrient? Time will tell…