Last week I wrote a small article on how stress can affect your body and even your digestive system. This week I want to elaborate a little on that side of it. I said that we really need to spend the majority of our time in our parasympathetic nervous system (rest & digest) not our sympathetic nervous system (fight or flight) otherwise this can lead to all sorts of digestive issues.
But, did you know that what we eat can also affect whether we are in our PNS or SNS?
Wow, that is worth pausing and thinking about – the fact that if we eat foods such as refined sugar/bad fats i.e inflammatory foods, (we already know these spike our insulin, make us hungrier and crave even more of them)…….but did you realise that consuming these foods actually contribute to us being in our SNS (fight or flight mode), raised cortisol, adrenaline, poor balance, poor spatial awareness etc that we talked about last week.
Let’s not forget how addictive refined sugar is, add it to bad fats and you have one of the most addictive combinations to man! Have you noticed that once you start eating these types of food, you just keep wanting more and more, have you also noticed that when you are feeling stressed you reach for these addictive foods, and after a very brief high they just make us feel worse, but we crave more and more keeping us in that cycle of a high level of stress.
The food industry has known for years how addictive refined sugar and bad fats are that’s why they are in almost all processed foods! Makes sense for them to keep us all addicted and buying more and more of these products!
How do we think our bodies can cope with being in a constant state of stress, permanently operating from SNS???
It doesn’t!
Most of us are aware of how stress has such a detrimental affect on our bodies, but have you ever thought of how it affects the mind?
When we are stressed we operate from a negative mindset – anger, cynical, intensely emotional and reactionary, comparative, envy, overly analytical, judgemental, worry, poor decision making etc etc.
High refined sugar and bad fats have a terrible consequence for our bodies and minds.
If you wrote down how much refined sugar you consumed in a week, you would be shocked, its in everything, tinned veg, baked beans, tinned pulses, sauces, ready meals, healthy snack (!),bread,anything low fat, not to mention the obvious biscuits, cakes, chocolate and alcohol.
So, if you seriously want to reduce your stress and start being in your PNS, then you have to reduce your refined sugar intake. Remember it is highly addictive, so start with one small achievable step and build from there.
Why not decide to stop eating chocolate for a week, use raw honey and fruit to give you some natural sweetness. Then cut out biscuits as well the following week, cakes the week after etc etc
If you manage a month without refined sugar you will be amazed at how great your body feels, how clear your mind is and you might have even lost a few pounds along the way 🙂
Go on give it a go – you’ll love being in your parasympathetic nervous system – it feels fabulous 🙂