Different ways that stress can affect your health

Most of us know that too much stress is not healthy for our bodies. However sometimes we feel pain and forget that it might be from stress or worrying too much.

Whether its stomach pains, headaches, sore bodies, pimples, low blood sugar, high blood pressure, low blood pressure, allergies, any kind of pain really.

Of course it is not always stress related, but if you find your self in some kind of pain or experience an ailment, try and identify if your body is feeling some kind of stress at some level.

How else can you cope with the stress? Can you remove some of the stressors, can you find some support, how are you able to better cope with the stress, so that it does not affect you on a physical level?

Once you identify what is causing you the stress, you can then identify the best solution, whether its prayer and meditation, exercising, a fun outing with friends, more nutritious food, some time alone, whatever you feel will dissolve your stress.

Feeling drowsy or after meals?

Have you ever felt drowsy, tired or like you have low blood pressure after eating meals?

I usually feel this way when I have a lot of carbohydrates in my meals,  and it seems that my body needs a solid amount of time to metabolise, so I get really tired and sometimes cold, since my body is using up the energy to metabolise the food. 

Things that I do to prevent this or help, are; I either try to eat less carbs in the evening, or I have a cup of peppermint tea or fennel seeds. If you find that your blood pressure drops, you could add some honey or agave to the tea. Salt also assists with low blood pressure, so another idea is to add a little more salt to your food – of course you need to check with your doctor or nutritionist if it is ok for you to use more salt in cooking. 

In general, you would also ideally drink more water and exercise more. 

Do you have low-blood pressure? How do you deal with it?

How to get a good nights sleep, especially if you normally experience insomnia

Something that I find difficult, is to sleep easily if my routine and sleep times keep changing.  There are various other things in my routine that I have also incorporated;

• Try to sleep at the same time each night
• Don’t eat after 7pm (if you do keep it light – so no heavy carbs etc)
• Have a warm cup of milk about 30 minutes before sleeping, milk aids sleep but it also fills your stomach, so that you aren’t waking from an empty and hungry stomach
• Limit your television watching, especially later at night, or any other kind of electronic equipment such as laptops/computers/ipad or music devices
• Do anything that calms you down, so you may listen to music that relaxes you mentally and physically, this may contradict with not using any electronic device, however if it calms you then it may be OK
• Do some light yoga moves, say about 5 minutes or so, or some light stretching
• Meditation also helps, anything to calm the mind and make the body feel tired enough to get a good nights sleep
• If you find that you wake around 4am, you may be waking because of hunger, I usually drink milk 30 minutes before sleeping to prevent this, you may have something else you can eat or drink that will fill you enough to sleep – yup your body needs a tiny bit of energy to cary out the function of sleeping

If you have any of your own tips to share about sleeping well throughout the night feel free to share your comments below!

Sometimes when you feel hungry and can’t stop eating food, you may actually be thirsty!

Have you ever had a time when you keep eating but you don’t seem to feel full? Your body may actually be thirsty, not hungry.

This is because hunger and thirst are controlled by the same part of your brain; the hypothalamus.  Sometimes you may think that you are hungry, but in fact your brain is trying to tell you that you are thirsty.  The average human body needs at least 1.5 litres of water per day, so next time you think you may be hungry, take the following into consideration;

• When was your last meal?
• Have you had your minimum daily water intake?

Generally the thirst mechanism kicks in when you are already slightly dehydrated, so its best to drink water throughout the day.

Whenever you think you are hungry and it is not your usual meal time, drink a glass of water, wait about 15 minutes and then if you are still hungry then you may need food, otherwise, your body may have just been thirsty.

🙂