Getting Good At Losing Fat (Part 4)

4) Stress :

So you’re wondering what this is about. Taking care of stress to lose fat? Really? Yes, really. Emotions produce discharges of neurotransmitters and hormones across your body. Adrenaline, cortisol and serotonin are just some of them.
Body and mind are eternally linked, so omitting one will just mean disappointing results.
Here are the ways you can buffer the effects of life on your emotional health. Because yes, you should be taking care of your emotions.
Part 4 - Stress

What you should be doing :

Sleep :

For this one, I’ll let you go and see part 1 of this series of articles. But if you don’t sleep enough, you’ll be fatter AND more stressed out, which will make you fatter. Sleep enough.

Meditate :

If you can just do this one thing your whole internal and external life will change. This is not some woo-woo crystal bearing nonsense. Studies are piling up on the multiple advantages of having a regular meditative practise. And reducing chronic stress is one of them. Meditation will lower your cortisol levels, help you regulate insulin, blood sugar, and therefore fat storage. If you don’t know where to start, you can go with Headspace which has an excellent 10 day free trial.

Go Walk In Nature Once A Week :

You can just go walk 30 minutes in a parc, in a forest, by the sea, in the desert (yeah don’t wander too far…). The further away from cities the better, but if you have no choice, go for a parc with lots of trees. That simple walk will reduce stress for the whole week. Several theories can be used to explain this, adaptogens released by trees, getting away from EMFs, reptilian brain recognition patterns from seeing nature that releases hormones… Whatever they are it works.

Control Noise :

When you see something you don’t like you can just look away, or close your eyes. It’s harder to get rid of noise. Earplugs, good headphones or noise cancelling headphones are a MUST-HAVE in any big city. I live in Paris and police cars, ambulances, angry people, hurling buses and metro musicians make it a nightmare. When I don’t have them on, I lie in bed at night with tinnitus ( ear ringing from too much noise, like after a loud concert or a loud nightclub).

What You Must Not Do :

Ponder On Things You Can’t Control :

This is why stress is irrelevant. Either you can control things, and therefore you should do your best to change them. Or you can’t control things, an in that case just let them flow and not worry about them. Just do what you can to reduce downsides as much as you can. Have the difficult conversations, cut lose with toxic relationships, act in acoordance to who you are. Be congruent in life and let the rest take care of itself. If you have to choose, go for acute stress, one lound bang rather that a buzzing low level stress that eats you up.

Have Any Notification Turned On :

If you have anything demanding your attention, you have lost control. If you have any pinging from your phone apart from messages and calls, you are in deep trouble. Mails, Facebook, twitter, instagram, snapchat, messenger, whatsapp… turn them off. Try it for a day and you will see how little catastrophes actually happen. If you don’t own your focus, someone is. And constant distraction will result in long term chronic stress.

Listen To The News:

Let me let you in on a little dirty secret. The News is not there to inform you. Their main focus is to get your attention. Then they can sell time for adverts. They use the fact that they deliver chosen worldwide news to get that attention. The bad news is Bad News gets your attention. Unless your job depends on it, stop listening to the news. As Tim Ferriss says, if anything really important happens, you’ll know. Go on his Media Fast and free yourself.

Having Your Phone On When You Work :

Work should be a place of focus. Stress at work comes when you are on a task, you have a given time to execute on it, and you have constant interruptions slowing you down, interrupting your flow of ideas, and the smooth process of delivering on your promises. When you are working turn your phone off. Close your office door. Teach people around you to only ask you questions at certain times during the day, on your scheduled break, or when YOU want to stop working. It will increase your productivity and reduce your stress dramatically.

Have Unresolved Issues :

If you know you have something in your past or present that is eating you up, face it and get over it. Most of the time you know what you have to do. And if you don’t go and ask for advice, but don’t stay on the fence, it hurts in the wrong places. Go and see a shrink, tell friend about it, have the difficult conversation, and move on. Whether it makes things better or worse, at least things aren’t festering in your mind. Stress is a result of powerlessness. Take the power back on yourself.
Hope you liked it, stay tuned for part 5) Detoxing !!
And take it easy,
Morgan
Ressources :

0 Thoughts to “Getting Good At Losing Fat (Part 4)”

  1. […] you have followed the four different steps ( 1, 2, 3, 4 ) I have detailed up to now you should be well on your way to having shed a nice amount of […]

  2. […] some of you might be tempted to only do what is listed here, and not implement parts 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5, which are the most important for long lasting fat […]

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