Reduce Stress with Proper Nutrition

“Eat to fuel your body, not fill it.”
– Nicole Porter –

Not everyone eats until they’re full. Some people don’t enough throughout the day. For clients who are wanting to lose weight, some meals are too small (in an attempt to cut calories), while other meals are too big (when they binge or let loose because of feeling deprived the rest of the day). Regardless of whether you eat too little or too much, your body is not being fuelled in a balanced way, which ultimately puts nutritional stress on the body. 

Ask yourself the following: 

• Do I see the food I eat as fuel for my body deep down at the cellular level? 
• When I eat, am I thinking about giving my brain what it needs to to perform at its fullest capacity? 
• When I eat during the day, am I scrambling to just get something into your stomach to take off the edge and not turn into a hangry monster? 

It’s okay. Most people don’t see food as fuel for their bodies. Moving forward, we need to shift our perspective on the role of food. Secondly, we need to grasp that when we eat, we are actually doing our part to nurture our cells, the same way a parent nurtures their children. Consider the net result of giving kids a routine dose of candy, caffeine or deep fried foods. They can become erratic, over stimulated, emotionally unstable, low energy and more often than not, stressed out. 

Nutritional stress is a real problem and here is why …  

POOR DIET PUTS STRESS ON YOUR BODY AND MIND.

Unhealthy foods, erratic meal scheduling and eating practices lead to poor digestion, which ultimately can result in putting stress on your entire body. Here are just a few examples of food-related stresses on the body:

1. not chewing sufficiently/eating too quickly  
2. eating while multitasking 
3. skipping meals 
4. eating too much food in one sitting 
5. eating the same foods daily 
6. eating too much sugar 
7. not getting enough protein, fat and carbohydrates 
8. eating overcooked foods 
9. eating too many preservatives canned, boxed or packaged foods 
10. consuming foods that have extra hormones, pesticides and antibiotics

Does any of this sound familiar? Busy professionals in demanding careers often make sacrifices to keep up. However, these practices are examples of nutritional stress that can impact the effectiveness of our digestive systems, and ultimately our health and wellness at a cellular level. Here’s why we need to pay more attention to digestion.

YOUR DIGESTIVE SYSTEM IS A TEAM OF ORGANS THAT NEED TO WORK TOGETHER.

The purpose of digestion is to break down foods so that nutrients can be absorbed by your cells and used for energy, growth and repair. The digestive process can be complex. Think of your digestive system as a team of organs that must work together in order for the process to get done properly. Each organ (mouth, stomach, liver, pancreas, etc.) has an important role to play, and if one isn’t doing its job well, the others have to work harder and longer . 

As your organs pick up the slack of that underperforming organ, their primary jobs start to suffer, they feel overwhelmed and ultimately become ineffective at both jobs. The team analogy goes a step further. In your body, you not only have multiple organs, but you have multiple systems:

• digestive (mouth, tongue, teeth, salivary glands, esophagus, stomach, small intestine, large intestine, liver, pancreas, gall bladder, anus)
• nervous (brain, spinal cord, sensory organs, and all of the nerves that connect these organs with the rest of the body) 
• endocrine (glands that produce and secrete hormones that regulate the body’s growth, metabolism, sexual development and function) 
• muscular (skeletal, smooth and cardiac muscles to permit movement, circulate blood through the body, stabilize joints, maintain posture and generate heat during activity) 
• skeletal (bones and joints that provide support and protection for the soft tissues that make up the rest of the body) 
• respiratory (lungs, nose, mouth, pharynx, larynx, trachea, bronchi, and bronchioles, and muscles which carry oxygen and carbon dioxide between the lungs and the body’s exterior)  
• urinary (kidneys, ureters, bladder, and the urethra, which help to eliminate waste from the body, regulate blood volume and blood pressure, control levels of electrolytes and metabolites, and regulate blood pH) 
• lymphatic (a network of tissues and organs that help rid the body of toxins, waste and other unwanted materials) 
• circulatory (blood, blood vessels, and heart supplying all cells/tissues with oxygen and other nutrients, transporting hormones, and removing waste) 
• integumentary (skin, hair, nails, and glands to protect you from outside world), 
• reproductive (sex organs working together to reproduce. Includes ovaries, fallopian tubes, uterus, vagina, vulva, mammary glands and breasts for females and the penis, urethra, scrotum, testes/testicles, vas deferens, seminal vesicles, and prostate for males) 

Learn More: How stress can impair digestion

Learn More: What is the Stress Response

That’s a lot of systems and all of them are important. If your digestive system isn’t doing it’s job, the other systems can suffer. Remember, your body is constantly seeking balance and will make alterations to its processes as needed just to keep you alive.

Getting healthier and reducing stress on your body doesn’t have to be an insurmountable feat. You can start with small, manageable habit changes like chewing your food sufficiently. If you’re finding diet change to be tough to manage or you struggle with migraines like me, consider booking a Private Coaching Program.

Additional Resources:

Learn More: The importance of bowel movements

👩‍🏫 Think you know stress? Test your stress smarts by taking the What’s Your Hidden Stress Score Quiz.

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