In this article:
- What is the connection between stress and metabolism?
- Hormones and stress
- Can stress make you lose or gain weight?
- Tips to reduce the impact of stress on your metabolism
- How to monitor your stress and metabolism
Our bodies are good at putting on weight under certain circumstances (maybe too good sometimes!), but could stress be altering your metabolism to the point where you just don’t understand how your body works anymore? In many cases, the answer is yes - here’s why.
Takeaways:
- At the hormonal level, “being stressed” affects all kinds of factors that influence your appetite, fat-burning capacity, energy levels, and more.
- Stress and weight gain are two things that often go together, but stress doesn’t always slow your metabolism; sometimes it speeds it up, resulting in unintended weight loss.
- Since eliminating stress for a healthier metabolism isn’t possible for most people, it could help to practice a few tips and tricks that can still make a difference.
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What is the connection between stress and metabolism?
Our modern-day lives are quite a bit different from what the cavemen experienced, but our bodies still interpret stressful stimuli in much the same way. Our ancestors had to deal with animal attacks or raids by greedy neighbors, while you might be affected by a tense work environment or a traffic jam that makes you late for an appointment.
Even though these scenarios are worlds apart from each other, the hormonal stress responses in you vs. a caveman follow pretty much the same patterns. Your body perceives a threat, and springs into action by producing the hormones that it thinks will help you get through the situation unscathed.
Of course, the main hormone we’re talking about here is cortisol, aptly named “the stress hormone”. In the right amounts, cortisol doesn’t cause problems for your metabolism, or for anything else; it’s supposed to help your body maintain appropriate energy levels throughout the day. Unfortunately, life sometimes has other plans. Whether you’re getting chewed out by an unreasonable boss, or you’ve spilled your coffee just a couple of minutes before you have to walk out the door, sometimes it feels like circumstances are conspiring against you. Unrelenting stress means constantly high cortisol, and that can have far-reaching impacts on the rest of your body.
So cortisol messes with metabolism - that much is clear. But what does it actually do to make that happen? Let’s back up a little. Your body basically cycles between two different modes throughout the day: “fight or flight”, and “rest and digest”. As you can probably guess, “fight or flight” mode is when cortisol is being produced, signaling your body that it’s time to defend yourself against something scary. In these situations, your body’s going to temporarily take the focus away from things like digesting, producing various hormones (like thyroid or sex hormones), and more, in order to make sure you have the energy resources to get out of that situation safely. Once you’re away from the source of stress, “rest and digest” kicks in, making sure your body produces enough energy and hormones to keep you healthy and happy.
The problem is, if you’re constantly in “fight or flight” mode, that doesn’t leave much time for “rest and digest”. In fact, high cortisol can actually signal your body to store fat rather than converting it to usable energy - no wonder stress can result in weight gain! Even so, a slower metabolism isn’t a given when cortisol gets too high. There are about a million other factors - both internal and external - that can determine the way your metabolism ultimately responds to stress.
Hormones and stress
Any discussion of hormones can get complicated pretty quickly, but it doesn’t have to. Here’s a basic road-map of how stress affects your hormones:
Cortisol
First of all, you’ve got cortisol - and if you’re chronically stressed, it’s likely too much cortisol. In distressing situations, your body is constantly getting signals to produce more, so that’s what it does. This is supposed to give a quick burst of energy so you can either fight or run away from danger, but if it’s happening around the clock it can affect sleep as well, resulting in the feeling that you’re both “wired and tired”.
Insulin
Now let’s move on to insulin, a hormone that dictates the way your body stores fats and sugars (among many other things). It plays a huge role in your metabolism, but if your body is constantly flooded with cortisol, that can trigger higher insulin production. This results in your body deciding to store more of what you eat as fat, rather than using it directly for energy.
Thyroid and sex hormones
Thyroid hormones and sex hormones are absolutely necessary for survival, but if your lizard brain thinks that you’re in a dangerous situation, it’s going to scale back on producing the hormones that aren’t directly involved in getting you away from the threat. Chronically high cortisol means your body won’t be producing a lot of other hormones in the amounts you need for optimum health and a vigorous metabolism. Thyroid hormones T3 and T4 are involved in regulating both appetite and metabolism, and testosterone helps determine how fat is metabolized (for both men and women). If these hormones are repressed, your body just isn’t going to work the way it should.
Can stress make you lose or gain weight?
Stress may be associated with weight gain, but that doesn’t happen with everybody - some people actually lose weight due to stress. Even with everything we know about how cortisol affects digestion, metabolism, and more, there are just too many factors to be able to predict how an individual will respond to prolonged stress.
We’ve already covered the connection between cortisol and insulin, which leads to increased fat storage. Then there’s the fact that various hormones that are directly involved in regulating appetite and fat metabolism get suppressed by chronically high cortisol. That isn’t the whole story, though; through various processes (most of which are way beyond the scope of this article), stress can also result in a loss of appetite, leading to an unintentional reduction in weight.
But what about the mental or emotional aspect of stress? Regardless of what their hormones are up to, some people use food as a coping mechanism for stress - especially if it’s really tasty food! Other people could lose interest in eating even if they haven’t technically lost their appetite, turning to work or other activities to deal with whatever they’re going through. It really all depends on the individual - not only how their body responds to stress, but how their mind responds as well.
Tips to reduce the impact of stress on your metabolism
Even if you can’t remove the source of your stress, there are almost infinite ways to reduce or manage it. But what can you do to help out your metabolism specifically?
- Use basic slow-breathing exercises before each meal. This signals your body that it’s time to slow down and focus on “resting and digesting” for a while, so hopefully, your cortisol production will ease up temporarily.
- Find a balance between feeding your body and feeding your mind. Everybody loves comfort food, but if that’s your go-to option for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, your metabolism will not be pleased. You should also stay away from the other extreme, going full health-nut at the expense of treating yourself with the foods you enjoy most. Instead, focus on having some protein, healthy fats, and complex carbohydrates with each meal; sometimes that’s all it takes to avoid gaining or losing too much weight due to stress.
- Go for a walk after eating. Even just 10 or 15 minutes can help stabilize blood sugar levels for several hours after a meal. Plus, walking gives you a chance to relax and clear your head, instead of jumping right back into the mayhem of the day after eating.
How to monitor your stress and metabolism
Determining the exact rate of digestion isn’t really possible for the average person, but there are other ways to tell how your metabolism is being affected by stress. Remember all those hormones that are affected by high cortisol? As it happens, testing those particular biomarkers can tell you a lot about your metabolic state.
These types of tests are usually ordered by doctors, but it’s hard to make that happen if you simply walk into an appointment saying “I’m stressed and I think it’s affecting my metabolism”. Fortunately, that isn’t your only option; you could also use at-home lab tests from Base to measure your cortisol, thyroid hormones, testosterone, and more - enough to give you a window into the inner workings of your own metabolism.
You may benefit from trying breathing exercises or eating more balanced meals, but how can you tell whether it’s working at the hormonal level? Through periodic testing. If you can check up on yourself every few months or so, you won’t just get a snapshot of your hormonal and metabolic health; you’ll also be able to see trends, identify ongoing problems, and fine-tune your strategies to get the results you want.
Related posts:
Wondering if stress is what’s impacting your waistline?
Take our quiz to build a bespoke testing plan that will help you lose weight sustainably.
