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"How Stress, Sleep, and Hormones Affect Our Weight Loss and Muscle Gain"

By Gary Giamboi

In order to Gain Muscle and Lose Bodyfat, we also need to reduce our levels of Stress and Sleep deeper and longer. Let's look more closely at these two Concepts:

Stress:

Even Today, Our Pre-Historic body knows only two kinds of Stress: Getting enough to Eat and Avoiding Being Eaten. 100,000 years ago, this was just about All the Stress there was in our great great....grandfather's/grandmother's lives. And the only response they had to it was Fight or Flight.

In order to better prepare us to be successful at Fighting or Escaping, our body learned to do the following:

Become Mentally more Alert

Dilate our Pupils and Make Vision and Hearing more Acute

Increase our Circulation and Respiration

Inhibit our Digestion & Shunt the extra Blood Supply to our Muscles

Constrict Blood Vessels in many parts of the body

Raise Blood Sugar Levels and Release Insulin

Dilate the Blood Vessels in our Muscles

Inhibit our Tear Glands and Salivation

Relax our Bladder and Colon

Inhibit Erections

Release Adrenaline, Noradrenaline and Cortisol

The benefits for our survival for most of these responses are obvious. However, the adverse affects of the Long Term Elevation of the Hormones associated with these responses is just now being understood.

Adrenaline increases the heart rate and force of heart contractions, facilitates blood flow to the muscles and brain, causes relaxation of smooth muscles, helps with conversion of glycogen to glucose in the liver, and other activities.

Noradrenaline has strong vasoconstrictive effects, thus increasing blood pressure.

So long term elevated levels of these two Hormones would seem to be associated with our Heart working much harder than it should be and certain organs receiving less than the optimal Blood Supply. It would also seem to make burning Fat more difficult since it keeps our Glucose levels higher than normal.

Cortisol is also involved in determining how the body Metabolizes Proteins, Carbohydrates and Fats. Long Tern Elevated levels of Cortisol would seem to imply our body will not be processing our Nutrients as it should. It has also been linked to Impaired Cognitive Performance, Suppressed thyroid function, Blood sugar imbalances such as hyperglycemia, Decreased bone density, a Decrease in muscle tissue, Higher blood pressure, Lowered Immunity and Inflammatory responses in the body, as well as other health consequences, Increased abdominal fat, which is associated with a greater amount of health problems than fat deposited in other areas of the body.

Being in a Fight or Flight response mode, or in a sort of Pre-Fight or Flight mode, means we are looking for, and indeed, maybe even expecting Trouble. Trouble is what is suppose to happen. That is why we are primed to look for it nd that is why we are in the state we are in.

We do not need our Rational Mind, Our Heart and our Conscience to beat a Snake or run away from a Sabre Tooth Tiger. Indeed, they will probably even get in our way!

In my humble opinion, being in such a state makes it harder for us to listen to our Hearts and our Conscience or to take the time to figure things out.

So, if this affects our ability to look at the Bright Side, be Understanding or Forgiving, Generous, etc. would you be surprised?

To quote a couple of popular songs: "What's Love Got to Do with It" and "I know What I was Feeling; but, What was I Thinking."

I will even go so far as to say we are addicted to Stress. Is it Now a coincidence that Violent Movies/VIdeo Games and Scary Movies?Video Games are the most popular? When a person watches one of these movies/video games, the better the movie/game, the more he/she becomes involved in a Fight or Flight Reality more Real than their present lives.. Their responses will be proportional to their involvement.

This Cannot be Good for the Person involved. And it Cannot be Good for a Society where a Majority of it's people are living this way.

Sleep:

Sleep is when (or perhaps Where) your body repairs itself and builds new Muscle. With the Right Stimuli when we are awake, more sleep can result more Muscle (and less Fat in the long run).

Sleep is also where we work out things which happened during the day and remain unresolved (perhaps that why a lack of sleep makes us more irritable. It leaves more things unresolved and un-accepted). Thus, during Sleep, we can lower our Stress levels by waking up with less unresolved and un-accepted issues in our minds.

There have also been new studies which show that people who get less than 5 hours of sleep each night are more overweight than those who get 8 hours.

The less sleep group higher levels of Ghrelin in their blood. Ghrelin is a hormone produced in the stomach that sends out hunger signals to the brain, which then makes you feel hungry.

They also had lower levels of Leptin. Leptin is another appetite-regulating hormone. It's produced by fat cells and delivers satiation signals to the brain. The particular hormonal ratio of high Ghrelin/low Leptin was probably making the less sleep group eat more often and in greater amounts.

A University of Chicago study found that people who slept less than 4 hours actually had increased levels of the hormones Cortisol and Insulin?which are linked to a difficulty in processing Carbohydrates.

Of course, we don't know if the increased levels of Cortisol and Insulin are involved in causing the poor sleeping patterns or are the result of poor sleeping patterns.

In any case, remember, Exercising can help you sleep longer and deeper.

Practicing an Internal Art such as Yoga, Qi Gong, Meditation (Concentration), Taijiquan (Tai Chi) or I Liq Chuan can also help. They have All been shown to help reduce Stress and its accompanying Hormones, which are linked to increased levels of Bodyfat.

So What should I Do? I'm Glad you asked?

Learn an Internal Art which cultivates in you a Healthy Body, as well as, Mindfulness, Willpower, Love, Peace, Tranquility, Compassion, Kindness, Generosity and Forgiveness.

Yoga, Taijiquan (Tai Chi), Meditation, Qigong and True Martial Arts are all means to This End. They All Promote a Healthy Body and a Healthy Mind with a Positive Outlook.

That's What I Do. I can help you Do It Also.

About the Author:

Gary Giamboi is a NASM certified Personal Trainer, an E-500RYT Yoga Instructor, holds the rank of Kyoshi (Teaching Master) in several Japanese Martial Arts from the Genbukan World Ninpo Federation and the Kokusai Jujutsu Renmei and a Master's License in Taijiquan (Tai Chi) and Qigong.

He is available for Private Training and Consultations on losing fat, toning up, athletic performance, balance as well as, Martial Arts & Yoga seminars and the 200 hour Yoga Teachers Training courses.

Other articles by Gary can be seen here. He can be reached via his website.