Stress Stoppers: Try These!

Stress Stoppers 👉👉

You know that moment when your heart races, your muscles tense, your mind checks out, and everything in your body just wants to escape wherever you are?

It’s our acute stress response, and we call it “fight or flight.”

When I notice this happening (the first step is awareness!), here are some things I do:

💡 Notice my thoughts or emotions.

☀️ Reframe negative thoughts to the positive.

👣 Put my feet to the earth to feel grounded.

🌬️ Take some deep breaths.

⛰️Change my location.

💃 Move my body (dance, shake, jump, walk).

None of this is easy.

It takes practice.

But learning to stop stress in its tracks is one of the best things you can do for your current health and your future self.

Which of these ideas do you like best?

Let's Talk About Stress & Food!

Want a stress hack most people never think about?

Food.

Here’s why:

➡️If we skip meals, the body perceives this as a stress and releases cortisol.

➡️Other stressors (like the pressures of work and life) also increase cortisol.

➡️Regardless of the trigger, cortisol prompts the liver to release sugar into the bloodstream for a quick source of energy. It doesn’t matter if we need that energy or not. It’s just one of the effects of cortisol.

➡️Elevated cortisol over time can lead to persistently elevated blood sugar and all the problems that follow (like insulin resistance and weight gain)

What all this means is that eating in a way that supports balanced blood sugar levels sends the body a signal of safety (not stress) and helps to support healthy cortisol levels.

It reduces the stress load on your body and makes you more resilient.

You with me?

Here’s how I eat to combat stress:

🥣 Eat balanced meals on a regular schedule (skipping meals = stress)

🚫 Limit refined sugars (they cause the blood sugar to spike and crash, triggering cortisol)

🥦 Load up on fiber-rich foods (they slow the release of sugar into the bloodstream)

🥤 Stay hydrated (dehydration can spike blood sugar)

Have you noticed that food affects your stress level?

Like if you found this helpful ❤️

What’s the Happiest Age?

What’s the happiest age?

Sounds like an impossible question to answer…

…which is why researchers pooled data from long-term studies of close to half a million people (460,000+) to find out.

This type of research is called a meta-analysis, and it’s the most reliable way to answer tough questions that get different answers from different individual studies.

They found that happiness & life satisfaction:

↘️ Declined from ages 9-16 (it’s tough being a teen!)

↗️ Then increased until age 70 (that’s encouraging!)

↘️ Declined again after that (possibly related to overall health)

Happiness is a vague concept that can seem elusive, but the good news is that you don’t have to follow trends!

Happiness is related to so many other aspects of health that everything you do to feel better could also have a side effect of happiness.

Like…

🥦 Eating vegetables.

🚶 Going for walks.

💧 Drinking water.

✍️ Journaling.

🧘 Meditating.

❤️ And doing things you love.

What are you doing today for your happiness?

Reference

Buecker, S., Luhmann, M., Haehner, P., Bühler, J. L., Dapp, L. C., Luciano, E. C., & Orth, U. The development of subjective well-being across the lifespan: A meta-analytic review of longitudinal studies. Psychological Bulletin. 2023; 149(7-8):418–446. [link]