Reduce Your Stress and Your Weight

     Many Americas suffer from too much stress in their lives. There are many products that claim to help in lowering stress levels; however, many of them just mask the symptoms of stress without getting rid of the cause. A large portion of Americans suffer from anxiety and stress due to being overweight. In addition to the increased health problems that people suffer who are overweight, the addition of stress can cause even more illnesses. Heart disease, ulcers, indigestion, and diabetes are all inflamed by both obesity and stress. Luckily there is a cure all for both weight loss and stress.

Exercise is the solution for lowering your weight and for lowering the amounts of stress that you have in your everyday life. Studies have shown that those who workout at least three times a week have much lower stress levels, while their happiness goes up. Scientist believe that the reduction of stress through exercise comes from our built in flight-or-fight response.

When we encounter stressful situations in our daily life, our natural instincts kick in our fight-or-flight response. We either want to fight our way out of a stressful situation or we want to just get away from it. The problem is that often times neither of those solutions work in modern situations. Fighting a stressful situation mostly just makes the situation even worse; while if you flee from a situation, the situation is often unresolved and is just waiting for you when you return to your normal life. As modern people we often just have to deal with the situation with letting our fight-or-flight responses taking over. Yet, even if we successfully deal with a stressful situation our body still puts chemicals into itself that stimulates it. Those chemicals increase the stress we feel if we don抰 find a way to release those chemicals from our bodies.

The best way to release those chemicals from our bodies is to exercise and sweat them out of your system. Exercise fulfills the fight-or-flight mechanism in your body, and it will eliminate the stimulant chemicals that your body uses to raise its awareness. In addition to getting rid of these essential, but often unused stimulus chemicals in your body, exercise will help your body to burn fat. The burning the fat cells in your body releases a chemical that calms the body, helping to lower daily stress levels.

Losing weight is also a good way to raise ones self-esteem. The raising of your self-esteem will reduce stress one experiences in daily life, and it will also help to raise ones happiness levels. A good way to help your body to burn fat is to add protein to your diet. Your body uses additional protein in your diet to help repair muscles fibers and construct lean muscle. The more lean muscles that you have in your body the more energy your body needs to burn to maintain the muscle, and you lose more weight. A simple way to add protein is through a whey protein supplement. Whey protein gives high amounts of protein per serving, without the addition of carbohydrates and fats that other supplements contain. Whey protein is dairy based so it is easy for your body to digest. Plus, studies have shown that protein acts as a natural stress-relief supplement, so that you can lower your stress levels while you are lowering your weight.

Stress can抰 be avoided in your daily life, but how you handle stress will determine if how you are able to live with it.

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