Nurses, Don’t Let Stress Make You Gain Weight! from Nurse Together

Work, family, friends, bills, housework–all factors demanding your time and usually “stressing you out!” And as many of you nurses know all too well, when you get stressed, the first thing that suffers is your nutrition.

Nutrition can play a huge role in helping to manage the ill-effects of stress. Whether physical or emotional, stress can actually deplete vitamins and minerals from your body. It’s no wonder that stress is linked to an increased risk of illness and disease.

And of course it doesn’t end there. As many of us have found out the hard way, increased stress is usually accompanied by increased weight gain. Understanding the chemical response of your body can help you see why. Stress stimulates the breakdown of serotonin; it also triggers the release of cortisol from the adrenal glands, stimulating the production of the chemical neuropeptide Y (NPY) in the brain. Unfortunately, as levels of NPY rise and serotonin levels fall, carbohydrate cravings increase—and then, watch out potato chips.

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