When Stress Causes You To Gain Weight

Though severe stress and anxiety can certainly be responsible for significant weight loss, people facing life-altering situations are actually more likely to gain weight than to lose it. Why is that? The stress hormone cortisol is primarily to blame. High levels of cortisol signal your body that you need to be ready for activities that require more energy than usual. Evolved to survive, your body tries to start storing fat, especially around the waist area. Unfortunately for our bodies, most modern forms of stress aren't caused by the type of physical danger that requires us to prepare for a fight, but by intellectual traumas. 

Comfort Eating

While some people react to traumatic events by losing their appetite, others will turn to food for comfort. If you are generally a comfort eater, you are also more likely to react to unusually high stress levels by binging on the foods that you associate with safety and comfort. What's more, people who are under extreme stress tend to lack time to source, prepare, and eat healthy foods. Some people react to this challenge by skipping meals, while others turn to highly processed junk foods instead. If you simply don't have time to prepare cooked meals, you may find yourself eating in fast food restaurants or ordering take-out all the time, leading you to gain weight. 

Inactivity

Just as some people who are going through stressful periods of their lives react by boosting the amount of exercise they do and generally moving around more, others react by becoming less active. If your chosen stress-relief is browsing the internet, reading books, talking to your friends, and being a couch potato, you are decreasing the amount of calories you burn. This means you may gain weight, particularly if you are also engaging in comfort eating.

READ Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder

Alcohol

Though it isn't the best coping mechanism by any means, lots of stressed people form a habit of drinking more alcohol. You'd be surprised how many calories there are in your chosen alcoholic beverage, The term "beer belly" didn't emerge for no reason. If you are finding yourself drinking just so that you can relieve some stress and sleep at night, however, you are dealing with bigger issues that potential weight gain alone. Rather than risking turning into a full-blown alcoholic, try to find healthier ways to cope with the trauma you are going through.