I find that when stress is talked about it tends to be so general and non-specific that you’re left thinking…’okay, I understand that high stress isn’t great but, what do I actually do about it!?’
So, we’re going to remedy that today!
We’re going to cover the different types of stress as well as specific actions that you can take today in each and every category in order to better manage…your life essentially, so first of all…
What are the different types of stress? Big picture, we have physiological and psychological stressors, however that is still just way too broad and also, physiological and psychological stressors bleed into one another so much that we simply need to get more granular.
So let’s do that…the stress categories are nutrition, movement, sleep, substances and what we’ll call life…so first up let’s delve into nutrition...
Carrying around excess body fat is a massive stressor, so is not having enough body fat, however lack of body fat is so rare nowadays given our modern food environment that it’s essentially irrelevant to 99% of folks.
Eating a low nutrient density diet is also a huge stressor because our bodies have specific nutritional needs and if we don’t meet those needs, that’s stressful…so, we can actually be overweight and yet undernourished, which is kind of wild to think about, but if someone is eating a heavily ultra-processed food diet, they’re likely getting more than enough calories, but very few nutrients.
So, in order to set ourselves up for success nutrition wise, we need to be of healthful body composition and we need to be eating plenty of high quality nutrient dense foods. On a broad scale, examples of said foods are…
Meat, fish, seafood, eggs, dairy, fruit and veggies. You can totally include some grains, nuts, beans, legumes etc. and the one MAJOR caveat here is that no matter what you choose to eat from these categories, digestion and elimination must be on point because poor digestion is another gigantic stressor! Meaning, even if a food is labelled as quote unquote ‘healthy,’ if it throws off your digestion and elimination it is not healthy for you…at least right now.
A few other signs of nutrition related stressors to keep an eye out for are things like skin issues, allergies, joint pain, acid reflux, heartburn, gas, bloating, headaches, mood swings, blood sugar dysregulation (feeling hangry) PMS symptoms, anything autoimmune related, even mental and emotional health ties in here…if you experiencing any of these problems, nutrition is key…I have helped clients of mine clear up every single one of the issues via nutrition and lifestyle…it’s wildly powerful!
Also it’s worth mentioning that we have gotten to a point where we actually accept issues like this as if they’re a normal part of the human experience and I can tell you with absolute certainty that they are not…they are signs that our bodies give us that something is off because the default state of humans beings is of unencumbered health…that might be hard to believe because it’s so rare in the western world nowadays, but it’s true!
Interestingly enough, there are still hundreds of thousands of humans living extremely closely to how our ancestors lived right now and we’ve studied these folks and many of them actually don’t have words in their languages for a bunch of these problems that we see all the time, for example…
Many of them don’t have words for things like insomnia, PMS, joint pain, acid reflux etc. simply because these ailments don’t exist in their cultures, they’ve never seen them…how cool is that!? But how…? These folks aren’t eating any processed food at all, they only eat single ingredient whole foods from nature because they quite literally live off of the land…they are hunter gatherers, herders, pastoralists etc.
Oh and also, if you’re thinking that life stress itself causes weight gain outside of nutritional changes, this has been studied extensively and it turns out that about 50% of people lose weight in the midst of high external life stressors and about 50% gain weight and so the obvious take-home here is that half of the population eats more in response to external stressors and other half eats less…which is great news in the sense that you control what and how much you eat and therefore you control your body composition even during higher stress times…and we’re going to cover exactly how to do that in a minute.
Movement…too little movement is highly stressful to the body and too much movement is also stressful, for example…there are plenty of folks that don’t exercise and get roughly 2-5000 steps per day…that is very stressful to the body because we’re built to move so much more than that! The kicker is that our modern lifestyles don’t require us to move in order to build shelter, yield food, acquire water etc. meaning, movement was built into our day for the vast majority of our evolutionary history whereas now, it is not!
On the other end of the movement spectrum we have something like an ultramarathoner, these folks are moving so much that it’s actually highly stressful on their bodies. Running 100 miles is wildly impressive…but it’s not a healthful endeavour and so what I would recommend first and foremost is hitting 10,000 steps per day or 70,000 over the course of the week as a whole, at a minimum.
If you are currently getting say 4,000 per day on average, you don’t have to necessarily jump straight to 10,000, you can work your way up there. If you’re reliably hitting an average of 10k daily and you’d like to move more, you can add more steps or you can mix in whatever type of movement modality that you’d like i.e. strength training, a sport that you enjoy, swimming, Zumba, literally anything and…if you’re coop to cap your movement at the 10k steps per day mark, that’s okay too!
In terms of sleep, not getting enough is obviously super stressful, everyone has experienced sleep debt at some point in their lives and so in order to keep sleep related stressors at bay, we want to wake up every day feeling rested and alert…somewhere between 7 – 9 hours nightly is almost certainly going to be the sweet spot for you.
Also, this tidbit is cool…let’s say that right now you feel like you need 10 hours in order to feel rested and alert but…your nutrition and movement have a fair bit of room for improvement. Fortunately, if you dial in your diet and step counts, you will find that you’re going to need less sleep in order to feel equally rested, for example…
If you need 10 hours right now with a poor diet in combination with a sedentary lifestyle, you may only need 7 or 8 hours if you dial in those other 2 pillars. A lot of my clients have experienced this and I personally have too…
I actually used to feel like I couldn’t sleep enough…I was always tired and it made perfect sense because my nutrition, movement and substances (which we’ll talk about in a second) were stressing me out like crazy and so my body simply couldn’t keep up with the repair process that fun fact, to a large degree happens while we sleep!
My poor lifestyle choices were so stressful that I used to sleep for 10+ hours and still feel terrible! Fortunately, now when I’m on track, I can sleep for 7-8 hours and feel amazing because I’m not inflicting all of that stress on myself anymore, point being…if you want to get the most out of your time and your sleep specifically while feeling as good as you possibly can…eat super well, hit your step counts and minimize substances…which leads us perfectly into the next section…
This is going to be shocking but, it turns out that alcohol and other drugs really stress the body out and so the less that you can consume, the better, however…having a bevie some evenings and/or a few on the weekends probably isn’t going to impact you too too much if the other pillars are dialed in, however everything does have a cost associated with it.
Also, the unfortunate connection here is that substances (specifically weed and alcohol) tend to go hand in hand with poor food decisions. They also impact sleep negatively and so this circles back to the point around all of these aspects bleeding into one another and that’s because our bodies and essentially us, function as one cohesive unit and so if you change one thing, its’ like dominos in the sense that it impacts 50 other things downstream…for the better or for the worse!
So, when it comes to stress and substances, the less the better! If I’m hungover, I know logically that I have nothing to feel anxious or depressed about and yet I just can’t seem to turn those two dials down. Reason being, too much alcohol is quite literally a depressant and so if you’re struggling with feelings of angst and/or depression, eliminating or at least reducing substances can be a game changer!
Now you might be thinking, ‘Marcus I drink because I’m stressed’ and this is one of those situations where we really hang ourselves out to dry because sure, alcohol may act as a temporary band aid in terms of relaxing you for an hour or two, but like we just mentioned everything has a cost and so when you sober up, not only are those stressors still there, you’re now less equipped to handle them…
Also, you’ll likely feel the same way the following day, drink again as a result, hence kicking the can further down the road and on goes the cycle…the same thing happens with food. All of sudden you don’t know how to handle stress without alcohol and funky food and little do you know that you’re actually just stressing yourself out even more and so your quote unquote ‘stress management strategy’ of drinking wine or eating a bunch of chocolate is actually just exacerbating the stress even more…I’m speaking from personal experience here, it took me until my early 30’s to finally figure this out!!
Okay, now we’re at the life section and this is the trickiest one just because it’s largely uncontrollable, not entirely, but largely…things in this section relate to other people and the world as a whole, for example…
Your kid gets suspended from high school…I got suspended for smoking weed and going to class, that was highly stressful for my parents! A family member falls ill, that’s stressful stuff and there’s really nothing that you personally can do to change that. Suddenly your car breaks down, an investment goes sideways…there are a bunch of things that can’t be controlled for in the same way as your nutrition, movement and sleep patterns and so the key takeaway in regards to this type of external life stress is actually…
Doubling down on the other areas, reason being is…you can’t control the world and the people around you and also, you are going to be so much more resilient to whatever uncontrollable stressors come up when you are less stressed in the other areas…only makes sense right!?
The kicker is that when an uncontrollable life stressor pops up, folks often tend to neglect their diet, increase alcohol consumption, move less and sleep less…this then stresses them out 100x more because they’re not just psychologically stressed now, they’re incredibly physiologically stressed too!
This is obviously much easier said than done because when uncontrollable life stressors pop up, folks almost always resort to their default habits and routines and so if you haven’t built healthy habits yet…this is going to be significantly harder, however if you have…this is going to be far easier!
So now let’s dig into some ways that you can set yourself up for success when an uncontrollable external stressor comes up and fortunately, these things are going to apply when life is smooth sailing as well…
One, control your food environment…
Let’s say that something stressful happens at work, a project goes very poorly and you’re genuinely concerned…you get home that night and you’re chillin’ on the couch after dinner at 7pm there are 3 bags of your favourite chips in the cupboard 10 steps away. It is going to require a ton of willpower and essentially an internal battle with yourself not to eat those chips...on the other hand…
If you have to put on your shoes, get in your car, go to the store, find the chips, pay, get back in your car, drive home and then you’re able to chow down…99% of the time you’re just not going to be willing to go through that much effort in order to get the chips and so modifying your food environment makes life so much easier…and makes you so much healthier!
Make the behaviours that you want to engage in very convenient and simultaneously make the behaviours that you don’t want to engage in very inconvenient i.e. keep tons of healthy food around and don’t keep tons of unhealthy food around…it’s wildly simple and incredibly effective! We’re essentially using our own ‘laziness’ to our advantage here!
If you’re relying on willpower at home, you’ve essentially already lost in a way…but, it’s worth mentioning that you may live with your partner or family members and they may eat differently from you and so what I would recommend in a situation like this is getting rid of the things that you find the most tempting, for example…
I don’t keep ice cream around because I absolutely love it and it’s not a matter of if I will eat it, it’s when…however, if you stocked my cupboards with 30 boxes of muffins…I wouldn’t even be tempted to take a single bite, muffins just aren’t my jam…and so get clear on the foods that you find the most tempting, ditch those and then your family members can keep what you don’t feel tempted to indulge in around with no issues.
The exact same concept applies to alcohol…if you want to drink less, make it easy to drink less and make it hard to drink more…so, if you love red wine and you want to drink less of it, maybe think twice before keeping 3 cases in your cupboard at all times, instead…
Have some when you go out to a restaurant or bar with friends and make your home a red wine free zone. I remember when I used to drink A LOT, I would keep beers in my fridge all the time, drink them and then actually feel sorry for myself when I felt anxious and depressed after boozing, it made no sense.
I was literally creating feelings of angst and depression with every single sip that I took and then I would say ‘why me’ and act like it was something that was out of my control…I wasn’t the brightest bulb lol!
Another key to setting yourself up for success during stressful times is meal prep and a simple way to think about this is…do you do your laundry one piece at a time? Of course not, you wear a bunch of your clothes and then once you have enough to wash a full load ya do it.
Same dealio with food prep, make a bunch of meals so engaging in the behaviour that you want to engage in (healthful eating) is wayyy easier and simultaneously the temptation to eat out is significantly reduced!
If you’re someone that likes 100% fresh food 3x a day…feel free to cook one meal at a time, however this route requires a lot more time and there is a lot more room for error.
Accountability is another amazing way to set yourself up for success and that could be a fitness buddy, a spouse or partner, a coaching group, 1 on 1 coaching…any sort of system that’s external to you because if you were going to achieve your goal all on your own, you almost certainly would have done it by now…we all require help and support and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that!
Maintaining your movement practice…fortunately, walking is the most accessible form of movement in the world…you can literally do it inside your home, I would recommend getting outside, however indoors is better than not doing it at all by a long shot.
You can also go for walks or pace around while you’re on the phone catching up with people, while you’re on social media, when you’re meeting friends to socialize, as a family activity spending quality time together, listening to a podcast, waiting for your kids while they’re at soccer practice…where there’s a will there’s a way really applies to stuff like this…there are walking opportunities everywhere, it’s just about noticing them and then taking action!
Also not to mention, walking in and of itself is one of the best stress-relieving activities and so if you’re stressed out and you don’t think that you have time to get your steps in, you may not have time NOT to get your steps in.
If you’re someone who finds that working out and lifting weights reduces your stress levels, by all means do it! If you find that a boxing class helps you release pent up energy, do it…if yoga really zens you out, hit it up…whatever works!
In terms of sleep, if you’re finding that you’re having trouble sleeping because of some external life stressor, I think that journaling is such an underrated tool! It’s just you and a piece of paper, you can write whatever you want, whenever you want, however you want and you can even burn the piece of paper afterwards if you’re worried about someone reading it.
You can give yourself full permission to feel how you ought to feel in your journal and that is amazing! Also, just communicating and expressing whatever you need to express with friends, family, partners etc. is so helpful…sometimes we just need to get it out, it’s like going to the bathroom mentally and emotionally.
Meditation and breathwork can be useful tools as well and something else to consider in terms of stress on more of a spiritual level I guess you could say is…that life never gives you more than you can handle, I truly believe that and the saying ‘what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger’ is quite accurate…
If you think back to one of the most stressful times in your life, I’m sure that you’ve grown and become a more resilient version of yourself from that experience. It’s interesting because cancer survivors will often say that cancer was actually one of the best things that ever happened to them…
It’s SUPER difficult to view hardships like this that way in the midst of it, however hindsight is 20/20 and the truth is that life has worked out every single time…if you are alive, it’s worked out. Some of the hardest times in my life have turned out to be absolute blessings big picture…I would not change a thing…
I personally don’t believe in regret or putting much of any energy towards thinking about changing the past…I prefer to reflect and direct those resources towards how I can improve moving forward simply because it works…it’s effective! The woulda, shoulda, coulda game is tempting…but it’s essentially pointless.
Point being, focus on the controllables and do your absolute best to surrender to the uncontrollabes…this is stress management in a nutshell, meaning…
Set yourself up for success via great nutrition, plenty of movement, quality sleep and reducing substances…and if you do that, you’re going to be the most resilient version of yourself as you possibly can be.
