4 factors which evidence that stress can affect weight

Stress is synonymous with weight change. It can either contribute to your weight loss or it can lead you to gain weight depending upon what you are doing because of stress. This might very well be the reasoning one can give for why doctors and therapy experts prescribe not to take stress in any way. This should be paramount, especially if you are suffering from an underlying condition. You should not take stress as one of its biggest after-effects are weight gain and weight loss. It is of utmost importance that you know how it can either cause weight gain or weight loss, so let’s get on it down below to find 4 factors which evidence that stress can affect weight :

 

By looking at the heading you can tell cortisol is a stress hormone. We would be lying if we told you that it is usually good for your health (sometimes it is). Our body has a natural response to stressful stimuli. This response is the flight or fight response. Cortisol along with epinephrine and nor-epinephrine are let go under this response in the presence of a stressful experience or situation. When the body stops the response, cortisol can remain in elevation to handle the whole body and the brain properly. At times when we are under chronic stress, cortisol will be persistently elevated. There is a reason it is called a stress hormone.

 

Now that you know cortisol can stay in your body under times of duress, so when it does it has the ability to mishandle your appetite levels. Cortisol has a tendency to cannibalize into your metabolism levels which in turn, affects your appetite negatively. It can precisely hack into your carbohydrate metabolism for faster energy and can also stimulate fat levels. For this reason, you want to eat due to the quicker metabolism brought on by cortisol. This leads you to eat more so than ever. Thus, you also gain in weight even more.

 

There is another way cortisol affects your weight. Usually, fat deposition only takes place in the hip and pelvic area of your body. The body can handle fat deposition very well as in it, it does not look bad when fat accumulates in your hip (unless it is too excessive).

With elevated cortisol levels, the body can divert the fat deposition to the abdominal part of your body. This deposition of fat by cortisol often makes you look fatter than you already are and weight gain in this area is quicker while also more prominent. Therefore, it can lead to excessive weight gain.

 

 

 

 

Acute stress is different from chronic stress. While Chronic stress stays for an extended period of time, acute stress can cause you enough trouble but just for a shorter period of time. Chronic stress can lead to weight gain while on the acute side of the stress spectrum weight loss can be the result. The culprit is the same hormone which can be behind the effects of chronic stress (which is cortisol), so in that sense it is the same with acute stress but when the acute one strikes, it gives way to weight loss. During acute stress, cortisol directs brain resources away from everyday tasks like eating food and focuses on stress. This way we can lose appetite for longer periods of time which in turn leads to weight loss.

 

Weight gain can be the result of chronic stress, we know that. Chronic stress can also lead you to eat comfort food. We are slaves to the reward system of our brains. Chronic stress can influence it to do its own bidding. The amygdala and hippocampus parts of our brains are the places where our reward system resides. In these areas, we are under the influence of a neurotransmitter (the communicators of our brain). It goes by the name of Dopamine (influences rewarding behaviour). Chronic stress can decrease the levels of dopamine in production. Therefore, this results in you wanting to satisfy those dopamine urges with comfort food. This leads you to eat excessive food.

 

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