Health Center - Diet and Fitness
A healthy diet and a regular fitness routine are keys to living a long, healthy life. Reduce disease risks and symptoms and increase your quality of life by integrating healthy practices now. Your body will thank you. Unsure where to start? You've come to the right place.
Reduce Stress with Diet and Exercise
by Pamela M. Peeke, MD, MPH
Avoid coffee and other caffeinated food and drinks. They not only increase levels of certain stress hormones, but also mimic their effects in the body (increasing heart rate, for example).
Load up on vegetables and fruits and other high-fiber foods. The nutrients they provide lend an extra dollop of protection against the immune-sapping effects of chronic stress.
Choose complex carbohydrates. Their steady release of sugar not only keeps your blood sugar levels steady, but also induces the brain to release more of the mood-enhancing chemical serotonin.
Exercise
If I were to make a list of the studies showing the benefits of exercise on reducing stress hormones, it would be longer than my arm. Simply moving-walking, running, biking, swimming-changes the balance of stress hormones in the brain.
Studies suggest that by making the body stronger and healthier, exercise enhances your ability to respond to stress, thus thwarting many of its negative effects such as anxiety, depression and heart disease. Regular exercise also helps flush out the byproducts of the body's stress response - those hundreds of chemicals released in response to a stressful situation - enabling you to return to a normal state quicker.
Then there are the meditative benefits of exercise. There is a "zone" you get into when you swim, or walk, or jog, an enhanced feeling of self-esteem that results from doing something you know is good for you and from seeing the physical results of that action, the social support if you're working out with a friend, and even the fact that physical activity improves your sleep.
It doesn't really matter what kind of exercise you do; what's most important, studies find, is that you do something you enjoy, not something you feel you simply have to do. Otherwise, you're just stressing yourself out again!
