What Science Says About: Stress And Overweight -

Did you know your brain sees stress the same way it sees a dangerous situation? Yes, the same instant reaction that makes you move out of an oncoming vehicle, can also hinder your weight loss.

Unfortunately, a series of physiological events that occur during a stress response can contribute to becoming overweight.

It doesn’t stop there. Chronic stress can often make your weight loss efforts unfruitful.

Here’s what you’ll learn in this article:

Exactly what happens in your brain when you’re stressed.
Science-backed ways stress can make you overweight.
A powerful proven to work method you can use to reduce stress and lose weight.

Without further ado, let’s get started with what happens in your brain when you’re stressed.

What happens in your brain when you’re stressed?

It’s important to understand what happens in your brain when you’re stressed before we talk about how it can make you overweight [1].

Stress is not something you can take a pill to get rid of for once and all. It’s bound to happen at some point in your life. A bad day at work can make you feel stressed. A relationship breakup can do the same. Anything that upsets your mood can elevate your stress level.

But have you ever wondered what happens in your brain when you’re going through stress?

Imagine you touched a hot iron by mistake. Would you take a moment to think if you should move your hands away or do it in a blinking second without thinking?

You would do the latter without a doubt. You do that because your brain can sense you’re in danger, so it allows you to make a move without thinking.

Stress affects your brain in the same way when it comes to weight loss.

E.g., Let’s say you’ve started making changes to your lifestyle to lose weight. You’re making some progress, and then you experience a sudden emotional trauma.

Some parts of your brain will make it think you’re in danger. This causes your brain to behave the way it would if you were in the hot iron situation we discussed earlier.

Specific hormonal reactions will make your body use the stored nutrients for energy, so you can be ready for whatever you’re going to face. The problem, however, is that you don’t need that extra energy when you’re lying down on your sofa or bed.

You might need it if you decide to go for a quick walk or be more physically active to take your mind off things. We recommend doing that. However, that’s not the case with most people.

What happens next is that your brain thinks you need to get back what you lost.

Quick question:

Do you eat less than you used to when you’re trying to lose weight?

If yes, you already know that reducing your daily calories can help with weight loss. However, when you’re stressed, your brain will make it harder to do that.

If you end up having chronic stress, your brain will focus its full attention on that and not your weight loss efforts. It will release more of the hunger hormone that can increase your appetite [2].

This is what makes you prefer pizza and diet coke instead of your bowl of salad when you’re stressed. You’ll end up gaining weight or not lose weight at all as a result. We’ll discuss more on this in the next part.

7 Ways Stress Can Cause You To Become Overweight

Here are some of the direct and indirect ways stress can hinder your weight loss efforts.

1. Increase your appetite

Stress can make it difficult to lose weight by increasing your hunger. Your brain sees stress as a life-threatening situation. Thus releases cortisol as a last resort to help you stay alert.

If you continue to be stressed, the stress hormone will also continue to remain elevated because, according to it, you’re in danger.

A high level of cortisol in your blood makes your body regain the lost energy during the stress response we discussed earlier. To do that, it increases your appetite so you can get energy by eating more food.

This will cause your weight loss to slow down or stop because you’re putting in excess calories into your body. For most people, it can cause them to become overweight by increasing their cravings.

One study assessed the link between stress and appetite hormones in overweight female participants. The laboratory stressor test revealed that both night eaters and non-night eaters had elevated cortisol and ghrelin (the hunger hormone). They also found that night eaters had higher cortisol and ghrelin than non-NE [3].

2. Depression & anxiety

Another way stress can make it harder for you to lose weight is by increasing your risk of depression. It can cause depression and anxiety, which in turn can contribute to becoming overweight and obese. E.g., a 2016 systematic review studied the connection between adolescent obesity and depression.

Their results showed that 70% of depressed adolescents had an increased risk of obesity. They also found that obese adolescents had a 40% risk of being depressed [4].

One of the ways depression can harm your weight loss is by ruining your sleep pattern.

3. Addiction

Research has shown that stress can make you more vulnerable to addictive behaviors.

It can make you overweight by making you addicted to unhealthy lifestyle choices such as excessive drinking and overeating. Food addiction is the last thing you need when you’re trying to lose weight.

Some people, e.g., can become addicted to drinking sweetened beverages. This not only has a negative impact on weight loss, but it can also increase belly fat [5].

4. Reduce sleep

Chronic stress can mess up with your sleeping pattern and make it difficult to get a good night’s rest. This can have a cyclical negative impact on your body and weight loss.

Lack of sleep drains your energy to do anything. E.g., Instead of making a healthy meal at home, you might find it easier to grab a quick Chinese takeaway.

The chances of you being more physically active are also slimmer when you don’t have an adequate sleep.

So no sleep translates to more stress, and more stress means less sleep.

Staying awake late at night can also contribute to becoming overweight by increasing your appetite.

Research indicates that poor sleep can affect your weight loss by increasing your appetite, especially in those who wake up during the night.

One study examined the effect of fragmented (waking up) vs. non-fragmented sleep on appetite control in twelve healthy male participants. They found that a single night of fragmented sleep reduced sleep quality, disturbed insulin balance, and increased their appetite [6].

This is why you often feel the need to snack something when you stay awake at night. Naturally, you’re more likely to eat a bag of chips or cookies by your bed than eat something healthy at late at night.

Another study investigated the effect of 24-hour sleep deprivation on six healthy volunteers. They were all good sleepers and did not have any serious medical history. Results showed a significant increase in stress hormones and decreased mental clarity [7].

Can you see the cyclical pattern of negative impacts that stress has on sleep?

Not only does it increase your chances of becoming overweight, but it can also make it difficult to lose weight.

5. Reduce physical activity

Another prominent way that stress can make you overweight is by reducing physical activity.

Think about it. When was the last time you decided to go to the gym or do some physical activity because you were stressed?

The fact that stress can also add to other problems such as depression and decrease sleep quality also adds more burden to your weight loss journey.

In 2016, researchers from the Yale University of Medicine, USA, carried out systematic research on the effect of stress on physical activity.

They examined a total of 168 studies and came to the following conclusion: 87.7% of the data confirms that stress negatively impacts physical activity [8].

6. Increase preferences for highly palatable foods

Have you ever eaten a bowl of salad when you were stressed?

Most likely not, even if you were on a weight loss plan.

You may have noticed a high preference for sugary and fatty foods when you’re stressed.

This is not something you’re making up in your head. As discussed in the beginning, chronic stress can cause your stress hormone to stay elevated, which in turn makes you prefer highly palatable foods.

One of the reasons for that is because your body wants to replenish the lost energy for stress response. Remember how we said stress is perceived as a danger by your brain?

That’s the primary reason for all of this.

Cortisol makes you more hungry, and as a result, you overeat. All of those excess calories will eventually be stored as fat, making you become overweight.

In 2011, researchers from Stanford University, USA, investigated the effect of stress on the eating pattern. Five hundred forty-three healthy, overweight, and obese women participated in this study. This what they found [9]:

Perceived stress increased appetite, especially towards highly palatable foods.
Stress increased lack of control over eating patterns, more hunger, and binge eating.

7. Insulin resistance

Insulin resistance and weight loss are like trying to join the like poles of two magnets. It just won’t work. It’s when your body cells are not responding correctly to insulin hormone signals. It’s one of the common risk factors of obesity and can make it difficult to lose weight.

Chronic stress can make you overweight by increasing insulin resistance. A study carried out on 766 Chinese workers found a positive correlation between stress and insulin resistance.

They found that higher levels of stress hormones associated with insulin resistance and increased waist circumference [10].

A Powerful Way to Reduce Stress and Lose Weight

By now, you should have a better understanding of how stress can affect your weight loss and cause you to become overweight. But we want to give you this bonus tip on how you can handle stress and lose weight.

Stress is unpredictable, and you never know when you might experience it. There are many things you can do to keep it under control. Even simple things like spending more time with your loved ones can help.

However, there’s a proven to work ancient method that can lower stress, help you lose weight, and improve your overall health and wellbeing.

If you haven’t guessed yet, it’s yoga.

Yoga is one of the most powerful and proven techniques to improve stress. You don’t need any special equipment or years of training to get started with it.

There are many easy and beginner-friendly yoga exercises you can do to relax your mind and improve mindfulness.

It can also lower your risk of anxiety, depression, and help you sleep better. All of these things can not only reduce your risk of becoming overweight, but they can also help you lose weight.

Meditation is one of the best and easy yoga that you can do anywhere at any time to improve your stress level. One study investigated the effect of deep breathing exercise on stress in 38 healthy adult volunteers.

The participants were divided into either an experimental group or a control group. Those in the experimental group participated in a weekly once an anti-stress protocol consisting of deep breathing. Each session was 90 minutes long, and they completed a total of 10 sessions.

Results revealed that deep breathing exercise significantly improved mood and stress in both self-reported tests as well as heart rate and salivary cortisol [11].

In another study, 60 women who had abdominal obesity were randomly assigned to a 12-week yoga or a waiting list (control).

Their results showed that the patients in the yoga group had a significant reduction in their abdominal obesity. Yoga helped them to lose weight and improve their overall physical and mental health [12].

Another plus point is that they didn’t experience any serious adverse effects, and none of them were on a low-calorie diet. Reducing calorie intake is another proven way to lose weight, and it will speed up weight loss, especially when you combine it with any exercise.

Takeaways

Your brain sees and reacts to stress the same way it does to a dangerous situation.
The series of reactions that take place in your brain when you’re stressed is called stress response.
Stress can negatively affect your weight loss in several ways, such as increasing your appetite and reducing your sleep quality.
You need to learn how to manage stress if you want to lose weight and maintain it.
Deep breathing and simple yoga exercises are one of the easiest ways to get rid of stress.

1: Brianna Chu et al. Physiology, Stress Reaction. 2019 Jan-

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK541120/

2: Stephens MA, Wand G. Stress and the HPA axis: role of glucocorticoids in alcohol dependence. 2012-

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3860380/

3: Geliebter A et al. Cortisol and ghrelin concentrations following a cold pressor stress test. 2013 Aug-

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23247680

4: Mannan M et al. Prospective Associations between Depression and Obesity. 2016 Jun-

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4902254/

5: Ma J et al. Sugar-sweetened beverage consumption is associated with abdominal fat. 2014 Jun-

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4093984/

6: Gonnissen HK et al. Effects of sleep fragmentation on appetite. 2013 Feb-

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22682471