Stress Affect Your Overall Health | & Some Take it As Far As Eating To Cope With Stress
Why does a high level of stress cause some people succumb to obesity, and yet the same stress has no such effect on others? This relates back to an individual’s biochemical individuality. Some people simply handle the stresses that cause obesity better than others do; or they develop other habits or even addictions to help them cope.
When we talk about help for food addiction and obesity, it helps to refer back to primitive man. The roots to our response to food lie in our ancient instincts for survival and continuation of the species. When our very survival was based on being able to find enough food to sustain ourselves, our bodies had to develop built-in, automatic responses.
All creatures were created with an amazing integral mechanism to ensure survival. This is that all metabolic activities essential to survival are linked to pleasure centers in our brain, to ensure that what is necessary for survival is done on an ongoing basis. Pain and pleasure are rewards and consequences that force an organism to do the things that promote survival, and to avoid those that threaten it. So, eating, breathing, seeking shelter and reproducing are pleasurable. Not being able to do these things brings unpleasantness, if not downright pain.
These sensations provide us with the proper motivation to encourage choices that ensure survival. They work exceptionally well within a natural environment – but not so well in our modern environment with its glut of sensory possibilities that are not linked to survival, but nevertheless arouse the pleasure centers. It is easy to see how overuse (or abuse) of these pleasure centers, meant for survival, can lead to obesity, addiction and stress affect your overall health.
There are in essence two major systems that govern our non-volitional actions and an understanding of these is essential to understanding food addiction cure and treatment and obesity.
The parasympathetic system controls functions having to do with maintenance and restoration: eating, sleeping, elimination etc. It can be seen as the ‘recuperative’ system. It is stimulated to pleasure by chemicals called endorphins. 'Ultimate Health'
The sympathetic system promotes curiosity, creativity and challenge. It is the ‘fight or flight’ controller and prepares us for adjusting to and mastering our environment. It can be seen as the ‘arousing’ system. It is stimulated to pleasure by a chemical called dopamine.
Both systems bring us pleasure – the parasympathetic system through ‘lower’ biological functions such as eating; the sympathetic through ‘higher’ functions such as problem solving.
Both systems can also be abused. We can artificially derive pleasure from the ‘recuperative’ system by vegetating for hours in front of the TV; sleeping in; and endless supplies of delicious foods readily on hand; or of course, with the use of drugs that stimulate the production of endorphins or dopamine in the brain.
One of the first tricks in overcoming a food addiction and finding your self eating to cope with stress is to get the balance between these two systems right. A balanced, happy, adjusted and productive life is one that derives pleasure from both systems. In fact, the two systems bring about balance together. The sympathetic system produces pleasure through exercise, recreation and the challenge of work. The parasympathetic system produces pleasure through eating and resting.
Changing the balance of these activities in our lives is the first step to overcoming food addiction and stress affecting your overall health. For example, if your current occupation is one of sitting in front of your computer stuck in a job you hate, that’s not stimulating, or in which you have to work inordinately long hours; and where the easiest way to cope is on a diet of fast food, caffeine and cigarettes, your life is imbalanced. Or if you’re retired, you have nothing to keep your mind and body active, and you sit all day in a darkened room in front of the television, with no interests or activity, your life is imbalanced and you may be headed for a food addiction, or worse, premature death.
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