How to Deal with Chronic Stress & Anxiety
It is normal to feel stressed occasionally, but stress becomes a problem and a danger to one’s health when it is chronic and long term. The body is not designed to have a stress response system that is constantly activated and on alert, which happens when one is repeatedly exposed to a variety of stressors for an extended period.
If you live a busy life and need tips on how to deal with chronic stress then you have come to the right place. Keep reading to learn more about chronic stress, anxiety and how to deal with them.
What is Chronic Stress?
The nature of stress is not as important as the amount of it. When the amount of stress exceeds an individual’s tolerance level, that boost in performance can start to decline. When stress gets too much and becomes out of control it affects our whole being. As we are not meant to be under stress for a prolonged period, this is when damage occurs.
Cortisol is an essential hormone needed to sustain homeostasis of the body, it is often referred to as the stress hormone because it influences, regulates and modulates many of the changes that occur in the body in response to stress. These include anti-inflammatory pathways, blood glucose levels, blood pressure, central nervous system activation, macronutrient metabolism to maintain energy and blood glucose, heart and blood vessel tone and contraction as well as
immune responses.
Cortisol levels increase in response to stress but should naturally return to normal along with other bodily functions after a stressful event. Chronic stress occurs when your cortisol levels never return to normal, but instead remain at high levels for weeks, months and sometimes even years.
Some of the most frequently reported causes of stress include:
- A high-pressure job and work related or financial stress
- Stress associated with living in poor socioeconomic conditions
- Stressful events suffered in childhood
- Stress associated with caring for another
- Traumatic events
- Relationship stress
Stress often occurs during important life transitions which places people in certain life stages at greater risk of stress. These stages may include children, teens, newlyweds, new parents, working parents, single parents, and seniors.
The American Institute of Stress Statistics reports that: “About 33 percent of people report feeling extreme stress. 77 percent of people experience stress that affects their physical health. 73 percent of people have stress that impacts their mental health.” Chronic stress has become a nationwide epidemic which is very dangerous since its often the catalyst to a lot of chronic health conditions. If you suffer from chronic stress and interested in learning holistic methods to deal with chronic stress and mood swings then read on for more details.
How Does Chronic Stress and Anxiety Affect the Body?
Excess chronic stress can manifest in emotional, behavioral and even physical ways, it is important to remember that the symptoms of stress are very individual and differ greatly between people. Common physical symptoms of stress include:
- Sleep disturbances or changes in sleeping habits, sleeping too much or too little or struggling with insomnia
- Muscle tension and aches
- Chronic headaches
- Gastrointestinal problems such as irritable bowel syndrome, constipation, diarrhea, bloating etc.
- Extreme fatigue and exhaustion
Emotional and behavioral symptoms that may result from stress include:
- Nervousness
- Changes in eating habits leading to weight gain or weight loss
- Loss of enthusiasm and energy
- Mood changes such as irritability, anxiety and depression
How Does Chronic Stress Affect the Hormones?
Your adrenal glands are endocrine glands located on top of your kidneys. They produce many important hormones, including cortisol, aldosterone and adrenaline. The adrenal glands are responsible for regulating the body’s adaptations to stress of any kind.
Adrenal fatigue is a consequence of stress and has been identified as a collection of physiological signs and symptoms all resulting from the decreased ability of the adrenal glands to respond adequately to stress. It occurs when the amount and intensity of stress overwhelm the body’s capacity to compensate for and deal with chronic stress. Adrenal fatigue occurs after prolonged exposure to physical, emotional, or psychological stressors. It is also sometimes referred to as subclinical adrenal insufficiency, adrenal stress, adrenal exhaustion, adrenal burnout and adrenal imbalance.
The most common symptoms of adrenal fatigue include:
- Excessive fatigue and exhaustion
- Hair loss
- Hormonal imbalances
- Poor digestion
- Nausea
- Poor immune function
- Frequent infections
- Delayed recovery
- Dizziness
- Abnormal blood pressure
- Inability to concentrate
- And an inability to cope with stressors.
Adrenal fatigue that is unmanaged may lead to:
- Hypothyroidism or an underactive thyroid,
- A weakened gastrointestinal tract increasing the chance of poor gut health, inflammation and dysbiosis
- A decreased immune system and
- An increased risk of infections.
If you want more details about how stress affects the body, click here. Stress is a common trigger for anxiety as it promotes persistent feelings of uncertainty or dread in situations that are not actually threatening. Failure to manage chronic stress can easily lead to anxiety or anxiety-related disorder if not managed. I go into more details on the subject in this blog post.
How Does Chronic Stress Affects Your Mood and Emotional Regulation?
Emotionally speaking, fluctuating moods are normal for individuals dealing with chronic stress. Feeling lethargic after a long day, the ever-growing pressures of keeping up with work, family, relationships, health, irritability close to menstruation, and prolonged sadness after a personal loss or trauma are all natural (although perhaps less desirable) shifts in mood. There are thousands of reasons our moods can fluctuate, but people dealing with chronic stress may have times where:
- They can’t figure out why they’re feeling down.
- Their lethargy feels chronic
- Their irritability continuous and
- Their moods shift from one to the next as though they have a life of their own!
Some may write it off as a sign that they need a vacation or a spa day, but in reality it’s time to look a little deeper into the possible root causes and address possible signs of chronic stress.
Factors that Contribute to Chronic Stress and Anxiety
Stress comes in many different forms and affects people of all ages and walks of life. There are no specific risk factors that can help us guess how much stress someone has or whether they are at risk of having chronic stress. Stress and the level of stress experienced by individuals is related to both internal and external factors:
External factors include an individual’s physical environment, job, relationships with others, home and daily challenges, difficulties and expectations that are faced on a daily basis.
Internal factors refer to an individual’s ability to respond to and deal with the external stressors, these internal factors include nutritional status, general health and fitness levels, emotional well-being and sleep quality.
Given all these different variables or factors, it’s important to understand that although people may find different methods to recover from chronic stress or anxiety they will ultimately experience a full recovery from chronic stress or anxiety if they incorporate the following lifestyle changes…
Lifestyle habits That Help Reduce Chronic Stress & Anxiety
Managing your stress levels is one of the most important things you can do to deal with chronic stress and anxiety, as well as balance your hormones. The following key factors have been shown to make a difference in our ability to be more emotionally balanced and to adapt better to the stressors in our lives:
Use Exercise to Help Reduce Chronic Stress
Some studies have shown that exercise acts as a potent antidepressant, anti-anxiety and a sleeping aid. It stimulates your feel-good endorphins and helps you sleep better at night. Exercise can also help to prevent the damage to our health that prolonged chronic stress has caused.
It is generally recommended to do 30 minutes of daily, moderate exercise to keep your stress levels in check. This can include anything from a walk in your neighborhood, to yoga, to playing soccer. What’s most important is that you keep moving and, ideally, you do something that brings joy.
Improve Your Sleep Hygiene
Just like the health of your teeth is dependent on good oral hygiene, the quality of your sleep is dependent on good sleep hygiene. Sleep hygiene, at its core, is the sum of behavioral and environmental factors that promote regular, good sleep where you wake up feeling refreshed every morning. Here are our suggestions for sleep hygiene:
- Create a nightly routine and stick to it
- Go to bed at the same time every night
- Keep your bedroom quiet, dark and cool
- No screen time for at least one hour before bed
- Go to sleep on an empty stomach
- Don’t consume caffeine after 12:00 pm
Adopt an Anti-Inflammatory Diet
An anti-inflammatory diet that is nutrient dense, low in sugar, and high in probiotic foods can be your secret weapon to help you get rid of chronic stress and anxiety. The links between stress, anxiety, inflammation and the microbiome of your gut are well known. The following suggestions can help keep inflammation and your gut microbiome balanced:
- Eat a diet rich in vegetables, especially dark, leafy greens and low starch carbohydrates like sweet potatoes.
- Enjoy fermented foods such as Kombucha, kimchi, sauerkraut, kefir, and yogurt.
- Reduce consumption of food containing refined sugars and enjoy foods sweetened with maple syrup, honey, blackstrap molasses, monk fruit, or stevia.
- Avoid processed foods.
- Increase your fiber intake, with a focus on whole grains and legumes
- Regularly eat fish or supplement your diet with an omega 3 essential fatty acid supplement.
Set Healthy Boundaries
Determining and enforcing clear and consistent boundaries in both our personal and professional lives is particularly important when you are trying to get rid of chronic stress and anxiey. Setting boundaries around your physical space, your feelings, needs, and responsibilities helps to maintain emotionally safe personal and professional lives, and plan how to respond when your boundaries are encroached upon or broken. Boundaries act as a stress buffer, keeping us from falling into negative-rumination, mood swings, and patterns of abuse. Need help setting boundaries to manage your stress? Learn 10 tips to manage stress by clicking here.
Incorporate Mindfulness & Self-Compassion
A regular practice of mindfulness helps build an inner strength that makes us more resilient to stress. A regular practice of self-compassion helps us to not suffer with shame, guilt or disappointment when we don’t meet our own expectations of managing stress.
Meditation and other relaxation techniques have been used for centuries in Eastern culture and now they are being adopted and accepted into western medicine for the scientifically verified effectiveness. One or two 20–30-minute meditation sessions can have lasting health benefits, including controlling heart rate and blood pressure.
Journaling can be another good method to cope with chronic stressor anxiety. Try journaling about what went well and what was positive at the end of each day.
Together, mindfulness and self-compassion are powerful tools that can drastically increase our resilience, reduce our stress levels, and balance our moods. For more tips on using mindfulness to manage stress, click here.
Get a Hormone Check-Up
If are having a hard time making lifestyle changes and need help getting rid of your chronic stress and anxiety, then working with a Integrative Practitioner is a good next step towards finding relief.
As a Holistic Nutritionist, I can perform a number of tests to check your levels of estrogen, progesterone, testosterone, cortisol and your thyroid to determine if there is any kind of imbalance. I can then guide you through a tailored lifestyle, nutrition and supplement support plan to help you get rid of chronic stress and anxiety once and for all.
Cut out Harmful Substances
Elimination of drug and substance abuse is essential for the successful management of stress. These substances are frequently used by people experiencing high stress but can make the stress response even more responsive. So small stressors end up producing a large amount of stress chemicals due to drugs and alcohol.
Moderate alcohol consumption however, which has been defined as no more than 1 unit of alcohol per day for females and no more than 2 units of alcohol per day for males, may help to manage stress and lower heightened stress hormones.
Use medication If needed...
Prescription medication for stress, anxiety, depression or insomnia should be used with extreme caution, strictly under the guidance of a physician and should not be used as a long term solution to manage chronic stress or anxiety.
Anti-anxiety medications, like drugs and alcohol may also cause the stress response to be hyper-responsive. Examples of anti-anxiety medications include diazepam (Valium), lorazepam (Ativan), clonazepam (Klonopin) and alprazolam (Xanax).
If stress results in the development of a psychiatric disorder such as post-traumatic stress disorder or PTSD, clinical depression and anxiety disorders then psychotropic medications, particularly SSRIS or selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors may be useful. SSRIs function by increasing levels of serotonin in the brain. Examples of SSRIs are sertraline (Zoloft), paroxetine (Paxil), fluoxetine (Prozac), citalopram (Celexa) and escitalopram (Lexapro).
Make diet and lifestyle changes to combat chronic stress & Anxiety
The link between nutrition and stress is significant, unhealthy eating patterns and lifestyle behaviors result in increased levels of stress in the body and contribute to the development of several chronic diseases of the lifestyle which are stressors themselves.
On the other hand, stress directly impacts the way our bodies handle energy and nutrition from food by creating greater physiologic demands. It increases the need for energy, oxygen, circulation and metabolic co-factors in the form of vitamins and minerals. This highlights the fact that people suffering from chronic stress require diets of greater nutrient density compared to those that aren’t suffering with stress (which is why people suffering from chronic stress or anxiety should not use restrictive diets to lose weight).
Evidently, a healthy diet can counter the effects of stress by:
- Supporting the immune system
- Modulating inflammation and oxidative stress
- Boosting calming brain chemicals like serotonin
- Managing conditions caused by stress such as hypertension (high blood pressure)
- And by directly lowering the major stress hormones, cortisol and adrenaline
Lifestyle Tips to Manage Chronic Stress & Anxiety
Management of chronic stress and anxiety includes conventional approaches such as:
- Ensuring adequate B vitamin intake
- Exercising in moderation with careful consideration of overexercising
- DHEA supplementation if needed (which is medically prescribed and is a hormone usually secreted by the adrenal glands)
- Implementation of the anti-inflammatory diet
- Relaxation techniques
- Ensuring adequate sleep as well as
- Focusing on stress relief and management
Contrary to popular belief, it doesn’t take that long to recover from chronic stress or burnout. It is possible to recover from chronic stress or burnout and prevent it from recovering in just 21 days! I teach clients how to do it in a way that fits their lifestyle and personal preferences. This way, they will never experience burnout again. Did I mention everything is done for you and it even includes high quality supplements? If you’re interested to learn more then click here.
Now if you suffer from chronic stress, anxiety as well as other chronic health conditions or physical limitations, then you may benefit from using my Stress Alchemy program. It offers you an all-inclusive personalized wellness plan to help you overcome your chronic mental and physical health symptoms once and for all. I hope this help. If you find this blog post helpful or insightful, then please comment or share on social media!
In Good Health,
Amber Stewart BS,
Holistic Nutritionist
Certified Master Life Coach
ACSM Exercise Physiologist,
CTNC Mental Health Specialist
TBMM Corrective Exercise Specialist
Hi! My name is Amber and I’m a Body Goals Builder, Master Life Coach, Certified Health Coach, CTNC Mental Health Specialist, Stress Alchemist & Fear Conqueror
I used to be a people pleasing, work-a-holic who stressed herself out to climb the wellness industry’s corporate ladder, while obsessing over her self image. I soon realized that none of it mattered if I wasn’t happy with myself, inside and out, and surrounded around people who loved and respected me.
I now help individuals who are stressed out, out of shape and struggling to find balance in their lives learn how to ease their worries, improve their health, create 10x more joy in their lives and manifest the life of their dreams. At the STEW Project, we are maximizing our living potential by Simply Taking an Emphasis on Wellness.
References
Mahan, L. and Raymond, J., 2017. Krause’s Food & Nutrition Care Process. 14th ed. Philadelphia, PA: Saunders, pp.586-618.
- https://www.webmd.com/balance/stress-management/stress-management
- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6678997/
- https://www.webmd.com/balance/stress-management/stress-symptoms-effects_of-stress-on-the-body#1
- https://www.researchgate.net/publication/265645052_Diet_and_Stress
- https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0889159115004316
