What Do You Turn To When You’re Stressed?
What to avoid and what to consume
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Let’s think about this for a second. What do you do when you’re stressed? Do you turn to food? What food do you turn to?
Isn’t chocolate just more delicious when you are sad or stressed? Maybe it’s cookies, especially with milk? Or perhaps just some pasta? And isn’t ice cream just our go-to while crying over exes?
Let’s also not forget our lingering friend — alcohol. Or do we pop some antidepressants?
What all these have in common are carbohydrates and not the right kind. Antidepressants, on the other hand, tend to make you crave carbohydrates.
What these carbs do is affect your blood sugar. After feeling “good” for a while, your blood sugar levels drop drastically about 30 to 40 minutes after consuming that carb. Which then secretes more cortisol, causing more stress.
What happens to our hormones?
Cortisol = Stress hormone
Dopamine = Pleasure hormone
So what happens is, when you consume anything that’s instantly going to make you feel good, your dopamine increases. This dopamine is a neurotransmitter that increases with the anticipation of a reward, such as chocolate or ice cream. Not when you are consuming it.
When you are under stress, you tend to go for a carbohydrate which might give you a temporary spoke in dopamine right before but not when you’re consuming it. The truth is, as soon as you start consuming it, you are going to be more stressed.
On the other hand, if you consume alcohol or take a pill, you’re going to block your stress for a long time, but once it wears off, it’s going to come back more strongly, making you more stressed.
Consuming carbohydrates does not lower cortisol, but it does increase dopamine. So like I mentioned before, so dopamine, a neurotransmitter, gives you some pleasure to counter the sensation of high cortisol, but it’s not lowering the cortisol. It’s just making you feel like it’s lowered. The thing about dopamine is that it increases with the anticipation of a reward, not actually when you start consuming these rewards just right before that.
Here’s the problem when we consume the carbs, we create a blood sugar problem which eventually increases cortisol, so it’s a trap.
It keeps people in stress, pretending you don’t have stress. This goes on back and forth several times, burning you out.
Substituting carbohydrates with something more powerful helps reduce cortisol naturally when you are stressed. Here are a few things that will help you do so:
Vitamin B1
I highly recommend Vitamin B1 (thiamine). It’s also known as an “anti-stress” vitamin, because it strengthens the immune system, allowing your body to withstand stressful conditions.
Better yet, get some nutritional yeast, it’s surprising how quickly it works, because of the beautiful vitamin B complex composition. You’ll feel calm and relaxed. However, make sure its unfortified and doesn’t have any synthetic vitamins.
Just a tablespoon of nutritional yeast can go a long way.
Clinical studies have also shown how vitamin B complex can help keep energy levels high and stress low. They can also help reduce personal strain and anxiety in extremely stressful situations. Here’s a whole list of foods that are high in Vitamin B1.
Magnesium
Magnesium is commonly used to enhance sleep, but it can help calm stress and improve mood if taken in sufficient quantities.
Studies have found that magnesium may help with brain functions and reduce stress and anxiety.
People usually do calcium magnesium and magnesium citrate. By increasing and consuming magnesium-rich foods, can help you calm down naturally.
Lemon Balm Tea
This lemon-scented herb has been traditionally used to improve mood and cognitive function and reduce stress.
A study found that taking lemon balm calmed participants down from laboratory-induced psychological stress’s adverse mood effects. Those who consumed the lemon balm reported a relaxed feeling.
Take this team before you sleep for optimum results.
Ashwagandha
Ashwagandha is an ancient medicinal herb, and one of the essential herbs in Ayurveda. It’s an adaptogen, which means it will increase your tolerance to stress, help your body manage stress.
It’s best known for its ability to reduce stress, naturally. Several studies have been conducted have shown that it can reduce stress and anxiety.
Ashwagandha is readily available and can be taken in powder form or capsules. You can search for “ashwagandha” on Amazon or check out your nearest health store.
Lastly
From understanding what we can avoid reducing stress and what we can consume instead. It’s important to manage your stress because it takes no time for everyday stress to turn into chronic stress, leading to blood sugar problems and other cardiovascular diseases.
Besides only consuming items to reduce stress. Moving your body, getting some action in and exercising at least 20–30 mins every day can reduce stress hormone levels. It would also stimulate the production of endorphins, which are our body’s natural painkillers and stress-busters.
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