Is the stress of 2020 still lingering in your system? Or maybe 2021 hasn’t quite started out the way you’d intended? Or maybe, you’re living in survival mode on the daily?!

Stress is one of the leading causes of illnesses as cited by many articles and in my opinion the underlying factor that goes under the radar… I think it should replace hypertension in its name of being a ‘silent killer’. 

Whilst that might sound extreme, and we can often think our stress isn’t that bad, it can in fact be triggering biochemical changes and reactions in your body that you aren’t even aware of, because you are so used to the stress! 

Take a typical day for about 90% of the population:

You wake up to an alarm (maybe hit the snooze a few times before you finally get out of bed. You’re tired because you didn’t get to bed late until the night before, so you have a cup of coffee to start your day. 

You make a fruit smoothie for breakfast because you are being healthy, but it spills on the way out the door as you are running late. You think ‘great, an awesome way to start the day [sarcastically]’, and clean it up quickly before racing out the door. 

On your way to work you get stuck in traffic (because you are running late), and then someone cuts you off. You arrive at the office trying to brush it off and be in a good mood, only to find your inbox full of messages marked urgent. 

You feel the stress creep up, but you brush it off, it’s okay the promotion is going to be worth it. Lunch rolls around really quick and you realise you totally forgot to pack your lunch in your rush this morning so you’ll have to duck to the shops down the road for something quick before you rush back for your afternoon of meetings. 

Feeling tired still from a poor night’s sleep you grab yourself another coffee to get through the afternoon of meetings and your gym session later! Work day complete you drive to the gym, tired and mind elsewhere in peak hour traffic, trying to be productive listening to a podcast. 

You smash out a high intensity workout because that’s all you have time for, and you get a good sweat on, before heading home to whip up a quick dinner before relaxing in front of the TV for the next couple of hours. 

Feeling the eyelids get heavy you drag yourself to bed, only to find yourself unable to switch off, still annoyed at the smoothie spilling this morning! You finally fall asleep around midnight, then wake up and repeat the same the next day (hopefully this time without the smoothie fiasco). 

Sound familiar? I bet! 

And maybe this is a bad day in your books, but let’s just stop and look at how many times your cortisol levels will have been triggered throughout that day (and no this doesn’t include the negative thoughts that are running through your head subconsciously throughout the day)

CORTISOL TRIGGERS: 

• Snoozing alarm
• Cup of coffee
• Fruit smoothie 
• Spilling the smoothie
• Running late/feeling of urgency
• Traffic + road rage 
• Full inbox
• Forgetting lunch
• Poor choice of food at lunch ‘quick option’
• Rushing back to get to meetings in time
• The other coffee
• Traffic again 
• HIIT workout 
• Quick dinner 
• Screen time 
• Overthinking

YOUR POOR BODY! That is at least 15 times in one day that your body has been told to increase it’s cortisol levels, it has been communicated to that your body is in a life or death situation and therefore we need to conserve energy stores (fat), run on glucose (sugar) and raise our insulin levels to manage this. 

The reason the food is included too is because poor choices in meals, particularly those high in carbohydrates without and protein and leafy greens, or are highly processed will stress the body out by secreating more insulin as a response to cortisol! 

Talk about a rollercoaster ride for you! And you’re doing it day in day out! No wonder we have weight we can’t shift, painful periods, gut issues and bloating!!