Manage Stress to Manage your weight loss by Sandeep Mall
Stressful living can be a big factor when it comes to your weight loss efforts, so learning how to manage stress will give you an advantage on your journey.
Work on your stress to reduce weight. Chronic stress is the stress you feel from things like your job, family responsibilities, and money worries. This type of stress increases your cortisol levels and hinders weight loss. Many people over eat or drink more alcohol under stress.
Meditate – 5-10 minutes every day. A daily meditation practice helps with decreasing stress for weight loss by making you more aware of the chatter that goes on in your mind that can put you in a stressful mood. There are some very good apps to assist you. I use the app Calm. Meditation and mindfulness tools, can help you quiet the chatter and negative thoughts that can lead to increased stress levels.
Journal Every day – Gratitude journaling is a great way to relieve stress, as it will make you naturally more grateful and happy, which will lead to lower stress levels. Before going to bed, I write three things I am most grateful for that day and also next days three most important things. This keeps me focussed next day at my work.
Sleep at least 7 hours a day. Sleeping is the time when your body is regenerating, balancing hormones, and de-stressing from the day. Lack of sleep leads to bad mood, which in turn, makes you more irritated, angry, stressed and anxious.
Be part of a community.Whether you’re looking for motivation,support, or advice,your community will always be able to help you.Twitter is a great platform for this. The #100Days challenge is a live example as how collectively we have logged 15,000 workouts and motivated each other. Knowing that you’re in a community of like-minded people that share the same goal as you, allows you to talk about your journey and know what others are going through, or have been through the same things.
The research studies I’ve linked to below, prove that managing stress is one of the key factors in making a healthy lifestyle change.
