Gaining an appreciation of the connection between practicing effective stress management skills, and maintaining one’s weight at a desirable level, can be critically important to your female clients in recovery for a variety of reasons.

First, women are highly sensitive to their body weights, as a result of cultural conditioning that mistakenly places a premium on ultra-thin body types as the epitome of feminine beauty. This, in turn, burdens many women with unrealistic — and unhealthy — expectations concerning body weight.

This overlay of cultural conditioning is also a contributing factor to the prevalence of eating disorders among women in recovery — particularly anorexia, and bulimia, characterized by binge and purge eating. In addition, as many women have been taught from birth to repress their emotions, they often find themselves engaging in displacement behaviors — including overeating — when confronted with highly stressful situations. This article is designed to help you assist clients of both sexes who are struggling with weight management issues, through promoting a working understanding of what I like to call the “stress management — weight management connection.”

Underlying dynamics
When we’re feeling totally stressed out, many of us instinctively reach for a candy bar, “monster cookie” or another form of high carbohydrate, high fat snack. If your clients can identify with this pattern, they are not alone. Many people find that their eating habits go completely to pieces when they are up against the wall dealing with an intolerably stressful situation. In fact, scientists have recently discovered that overeating in response to stress appears to be a natural, biologically programmed response for many people.

Let’s focus for a moment on what is happening at the physiological level when we encounter a highly stressful situation that sends our body’s “fight or flight” response mechanism into overdrive. When the stress response is activated, our brain releases a chemical called corticotropin-releasing hormone (CRH), that momentarily suppresses our appetite. At the same time, our adrenals secrete adrenalin and cortisol, which propel sugar into the bloodstream, producing a short-term energy rush. After the rush, the excessive cortisol in our bloodstream sparks a ravenous hunger for carbohydrates and fat. This is where we grab that handful of cookies, M & Ms or whatever our own particular “junk food fix” happens to be!

To make matter worse, far too many people’s lives are characterized by a constant undercurrent of unresolved stress. When this occurs, we experience a chronic level of elevated cortisol in our bloodstream that, in addition to triggering our appetite for carbohydrates and fats, spurs the release of insulin, a hormone that directs the body to increase its stores of fat. Behaviorally, this can trigger a vicious circle. You are overstressed to begin with, end up binging on the wrong kind of foods — then you notice your weight gain, become depressed (and stressed out over your weight gain), and end up eating even more.

Breaking the cycle
As in all aspects of recovery, the first step is to focus our awareness on what is going on. Then we can begin to identify more effective coping mechanisms for responding to stressful situations, rather than automatically bingeing on inappropriate foods when we are overstressed. The following list highlights a number of positive coping responses that I have added to my own repertoire over the years. You may want to share this with your clients who are struggling with weight management issues.

1. Take a deep breath — Next time life hits you with mega-stress, stop whatever you are doing and take a deep relaxing breath — filling your lungs with air and slowly releasing it. Momentarily focusing our attention on our breathing, and letting our breathing relax us, can have a profoundly calming effect on our entire system.

2. Practice the Serenity Prayer, and gain a sense of perspective on the situation — Try taking a few moments to sort things out, and then begin to focus your awareness on accepting those aspects of the situation that you must accept (at least for the moment), while also beginning to identify those elements that perhaps you can influence, together with whatever thoughts come to mind concerning effective actions that you might consider taking.

3. Practice a daily relaxation ritual — This can take the form of meditation, prayer, yoga, working in your garden, or whatever seems to work in terms of giving yourself a daily break from the hectic pace of life and bringing yourself back to center. I have practiced one of the more popular forms of meditation for close to 30 years, and find that this daily practice usually helps me defuse my body’s over-reactive “flight or fight” response when life has dealt me a particularly stressful situation.

4. Get moving — Walking, running and other forms of vigorous physical exercise are extremely helpful in combating overstress, as well as in developing increased tolerance to dealing with stressful situations. In addition to promoting a natural high through releasing endorphins into the bloodstream, regular exercise plays an important role in any sound weight management program through promoting a favorable balance between calories consumed and energy expenditure.

5. Eat mindfully — Learning to eat mindfully works wonders in breaking the vicious cycle of overeating in response to stress. By eating mindfully, I’m talking about paying conscious attention to your food choices, and pausing to ask yourself — “Am I eating this because I really need this food, or am I eating to compensate for feelings of anxiety, depression or loneliness?” Mindfulness also entails focusing your full awareness on the act of eating, consciously chewing your food, noticing its taste and texture, and savoring each bite of food — rather than gulping it down. Mindful eating is a powerful ally in any weight management program, as it orients us toward consuming smaller portions, while more fully enjoying what we choose to eat.

In summary, while our natural tendency to overeat in response to stress is in part biologically programmed, we do need not remain passive victims of this particular aspect of our biological conditioning. You can, indeed, help your clients learn how to deal effectively with the “stress management — weight management connection” through incorporating a variety of
creative and empowering coping mechanisms into their stress management repertoire. Until next time, to your health!

John Newport, PhD,is a freelance writer, wellness counselor, speaker and consultant based in Port Townsend, Wash. He is the author of The Wellness — Recovery Connection: Charting our Pathway to Optimal Health While Recovering from Alcoholism and Drug Addiction. To contact him or obtain more information on wellness and recovery, visit his website at wellnessandrecovery.com

This article is published in Counselor,The Magazine for Addiction Professionals, June 2006, v.7, n.3, pp.20-21.

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