If you want to fight belly fat, you also have to fight stress. When you’re constantly under stress, your body reacts. And, unfortunately, one of the ways in which your body reacts is to store fat right where you want it the least: in your belly!
Think about your day-to-day routine. What part of it brings on the most stress for you? Is it sitting in traffic? Is it running late to a meeting or having to drive the kids to multiple activities? Think about some of the stressful situations you run into on a regular basis. How do you react to these situations?
Understanding the stress in your life and how you handle it is important to staying calm (and losing that gut!).
People handle stress in one of three main ways:
They become agitated. These folks get angry and keyed up when stressed. They may yell, shout, or be unable to sit still.
They become quiet or withdrawn. These people tend to shut down with stress. They may space out or just withdraw from the situation. A stressful situation may make them feel more depressed than agitated.
They freeze. These individuals, on the surface, seem to freeze during a stressful situation. However, on the inside, they feel extremely agitated. They tend to hold everything in instead of expressing emotion.
There isn’t necessarily a right way to react to stress, but you need to know how you respond to stress so you can recognize when you’re under it. Recognizing when you’re under stress is important so you can see how often you’re stressed, what brings about this level of stress, and how you can manage it to decrease your overall stress levels.
Both external and internal causes can bring about stress. The most common external factors of stress include
Family and children
Financial stress
Job-related stressors
Major life changes
Relationship difficulties
Internal causes of stress include
Being too much of a perfectionist
Engaging in negative self-talk
Not being assertive enough
Having a pessimistic attitude
Setting unrealistic expectations for yourself
Make an effort to determine which of these factors brings on the majority of stress in your life and begin to work on reducing that stress load.